Chapter 17

17

After a tense morning of shooting pickup shots, Lauren went to her trailer to wait for the town car to come pick them up and take them to the airport. She saw Ben go through the door to his as well. She sighed. Ships passing in the night. No. That sounded too dreamy, too romantic, too passive. They were more like combatant armored tanks passing in the night, only kept from firing on one another by an uneasy truce.

Lauren was still fuming from seeing the girl going into Ben's room the night before, and now he was compounding her anger by persisting in giving her the silent treatment.

Oh, unless of course the camera was rolling. Then he turned on the charm like nobody's business.

Lauren couldn't get her conversation with Karina out of her head. It was playing on a loop…and, frankly, driving her crazy.

Finally, she realized that she would never get peace by just stewing about the situation with Ben, turning it over and over in her head like a chicken on a spit. There was nothing new to be learned from that, no progress that would be made that way.

Nope. The only sensible thing to do—hell, the only thing to do, period—was go over to his trailer and have this out with him once and for all. It wasn't going to get better until she took some action to make it better, and when it came to taking action, Lauren's motto had always been, "No time like the present."

She walked over to Ben's trailer, her metaphorical armor on and guns drawn, ready for battle. She smiled amiably at the crew members she passed. She might not admire a whole lot of things about Ben Stevens and the way he acted, but she did admire how he separated his emotions from his professional demeanor. She could do the same.

Still. She wondered if, beyond the thin fa?ade of her friendly greeting, they could see the steam coming out of her ears as she approached enemy territory.

She reached Ben's door and raised her hand to knock but was stopped momentarily by a roiling feeling in her gut. Damn. Why was her stomach so unsettled? Was it something she'd eaten? Could it be...butterflies? Nerves? Not possible. She didn't get them.

She shook her head. She wasn't going to stand here on the steps of his trailer door and analyze her feelings. She was doing this. If she puked on his shoes while she was doing it, well...he kind of deserved it. All the better.

Lauren knocked purposefully on the door. Ouch, she thought. Maybe that was a bit loud...

But she didn't even have time to stop and consider that, because mere seconds after she knocked, the door flew open, revealing Ben, standing in front of her, obviously having just gotten out of the shower. His chest gleamed with condensation, his hair mesmerizingly dripped small beads of water onto his shoulders, and he wore nothing at all except for a pair of black boxer briefs that looked like they'd been made just for his gorgeous body.

Lauren stood there, stunned, momentarily speechless by what she saw in front of her and the rush of hormones that it set off.

Ben smirked, a spark of lust glinting in his eye as well. "Enjoying the view?" he asked with an acerbic little smile.

This barb brought Lauren back to reality. Her anger flared again, and she roughly pushed her way past him into the trailer.

"You know what?" she said angrily, further infuriated by the blasé manner he adopted as he casually leaned against the counter with his arms crossed, while she stepped inside the trailer and shut the door behind her. "I don't appreciate being treated like a second-class citizen, like dirt on your shoe, like an irritation you have to deal with. I at least deserve to be treated with respect."

His languidly cavalier smile as he watched her rant caused her stomach to drop. Damn it. She'd shown her hand by revealing her roiling emotions. Now he knew he held the power position. She never would've done this in a professional negotiation. Why was she losing her touch?

"Respect, huh?" he said sardonically. "I think I am treating you with respect."

Lauren shook her head insistently. Just because he was now negotiating from a stronger position, it was no reason to abandon hers altogether.

"You are doing no such thing," she said in a much more even tone. "And I would appreciate it if you would start."

A slow smile crept across his face as he looked into her eyes and held her gaze.

"Well, sweetheart, if you only knew what I wanted to be doing right now and the restraint I'm showing because of the respect I have for you, you'd be impressed with the levels of both my respect and my willpower."

Lauren was beginning to take particular note of the closeness of the trailer and the bareness of his skin. The combination of these two factors, when added to her already-raised ire, was causing the blood to pump through her veins hot and fast.

She stepped up to him, her cheeks flushed with both challenge and arousal. Honestly, she was having a hard time separating the two at this point.

"Is that supposed to be some sort of threat?" she asked in a low, steely voice.

He abandoned his casual pose leaning against the counter to take a step towards her as well, putting them mere millimeters apart. "Not a threat," he murmured, "Just a fact."

Lauren felt the complicated mix of anger and arousal that was flooding her system surge even further, and she narrowed her eyes at him. "Oh, please," she said with iron control. "If you've been treating me with kid gloves, take them off. I can handle whatever you dish out."

Ben responded in a rasping growl, "I don't think so."

Lauren smiled at him, feeling the upper hand returning. "I know so."

The intensity of their connection was so overwhelming at that moment that Lauren found herself having a hard time holding on to consciousness.

"You sure about that?" he asked, and all of his insolence was gone. It was a sincere question.

She half-whispered, half-groaned, "Ye—"

Before the word even fully passed her lips, Ben crushed his mouth against hers, kissing her with desperation, as if he feared that he would never get another chance.

The urgency that was communicated between them ripped a cry from Lauren's throat, and she dug her fingernails into his back. She felt like she could barely breathe while, at the same time, feeling more alive, more suffused with life-giving air, than she could ever remember.

She couldn't believe that this kind of passion, this kind of reckless abandon, existed within her. She was controlled; many people had accused her of being cold. But in truth, she was just a type A, highly rational, highly organized, highly on-top-of-things individual.

Except when she was around Ben.

Then, it seemed, all bets were off.

She'd never experienced passion so powerful, so all-consuming, that she abandoned the idea of being in control, caring about what others would think of her, or considering what the consequences of her actions would be.

Consequences be damned, Lauren thought. She threw her arms around Ben's neck and hopped off of her feet, wrapping her long legs around his waist as far as her tight, thigh-length sheath would let her.

Ben slid his strong hands down from where they'd been holding her waist and cupped her ass, holding her up off the ground as they kissed passionately, their tongues intertwining as if in battle, their lips pushing against each other urgently, their passion building to a fever pitch.

As they kissed, Ben carried her to the counter and set her down on it, never breaking his mouth from hers.

Lauren ran her hands up and down his back, not bothering to be gentle or to let her fingers slide over the surface of his skin with a smoothly light touch. No. She wanted him, and she was going to take what she wanted with tiger-like ferocity.

Ben was progressing with the same turbulent frenzy, his hands running over her body with a savage and unrestrained fervor. Whether he was following her lead or merely having a parallel experience, Lauren didn't much care. All she knew was that the feral intensity with which he was grasping her, the untamed ardor with which his hands and mouth roamed over her, was bringing the passion building inside of her to new heights.

Ben roughly pushed her skirt higher on her thighs, disregarding the fact that it was an unforgiving fabric. In a distant corner of her brain, Lauren heard the skirt rip, but rather than making her worry about how she would explain the situation to Barbara and Marlene later, it only sent an electric jolt of passion through her body so intense that it made her positively lightheaded.

Lauren wrapped her legs even tighter around Ben's waist, bringing her feet up and digging her heels into the small of his back to gain greater leverage. She knew that now both her fingernails and her sharp heels were digging into his skin.

Right now, Lauren was completely engrossed in what she was feeling. She was out to take her own pleasure. It was an erotic thrill she'd never experienced before, and it definitely seemed to be having the ironic but beneficial side effect of turning Ben on even more.

Ben moved his hands to her thighs, sliding them upwards forcefully, pushing her skirt all the way up to her waist. Now the only thing separating Ben's body from her sensitive, hot folds was a tiny slip of a garment, built of the flimsiest lace and silk.

Lauren pushed her feet down from Ben's waist, hooking her heels into the waistband of his boxer briefs as they moved. She slid them down, and as she did, she moved her hands down the length of his back to grasp his newly uncovered and rock-hard ass.

When Lauren realized that Ben's boxer briefs were not going to slide smoothly down his legs because they were getting caught up on his enormous erection, she moved her hands around his waist, slipping them down his torso and causing him to groan. She then continued their trip farther down his body to unhook his boxer briefs and free his manhood from its containment.

Placing one hand on his shoulder and neck for balance, she used the other to grip his erection, stroking it slowly up and down, feeling him shudder and getting a strong erotic charge herself every time she felt a wave of pleasure roll through his body.

As she used her hand on his member, she felt the skin of his shoulder and back grow clammy and his breathing sped up, as did hers. Their mouths were so close together, their connection so visceral and deep, that she was having a hard time telling where her breath left off and Ben's began.

Ben moved his hands up and down the outside of her thighs. He grasped the thin strings that formed the sides of her panties and attempted to pull them down more than once, but because of the angle of her legs, he wasn't able to make much progress.

It was clear to her that, by the way he was caressing her legs with a slight downward pressure and the way he continually tried and failed to make progress pulling her panties farther down her thighs, he was trying to give her subtle hints to unwrap her legs from around his waist so that he could remove her most personal undergarment.

She smiled to herself.

She was ignoring him.

For one thing, she was perfectly happy here, with her legs luxuriously wrapped around him, stroking his powerful erection, watching the pleasure in his face as she moved her hand.

Secondly, she was interested to see where he would go with it. How would he move the encounter forward? What technique would he use? What would he do? What would he say?

She liked watching him work it all out.

After a couple more tries, he leaned his head down to whisper in her ear, "Baby, I want to be inside you..."

She smiled and playfully bit his earlobe, her busy hand never losing its rhythm. "Yes," she confirmed, her voice raspy.

He stroked and subtly cajoled with his hands for a few more moments before finally asking her directly. "Lauren," he panted desperately, "put your legs down for a second so I can slide these down."

She smiled wickedly, their faces less than an inch apart. "Rip them," she whispered intensely.

His eyes widened, "Are you sure?"

Her grin spread further. "Rip. Them. Now," she stated provocatively.

Ben groaned and buried his face in her neck, taking a firm hold on the silky material and ripping it off in one bold move.

Lauren's thrill of excitement at this strong action caused her to cry out in pleasure even though Ben's hands were actually nowhere on her body at that moment. Lauren felt herself trembling on the edge of a precipice, on the brink of falling off into the great unknown. But rather than shivering in fright at this prospect, she was bracing herself to readily leap from the cliff.

As soon as the fabric of her lacy undergarment cleared her body, she grasped Ben from behind, urging him with both her hands and her legs to enter her and complete their union. She needed to feel him inside of her, filling her, bringing her pleasure just as she was bringing the same to him.

After Ben tossed aside her panties, he grabbed a condom from the new roll that was sitting on the counter, ripped the wrapper with his teeth, and rolled the latex on with one practiced hand.

Lauren smiled. "You're prepared this time. Someone was confident."

Ben laughed hoarsely. "Hopeful," he corrected her.

With that, he thrust inside of her, holding himself still as he reached the apex of penetration, stroking her hair, kissing her, and Lauren felt her arousal stoking to ever-new heights.

When she thought that she could take it no longer, he began to move slowly, his pace and intensity escalating along with her, his arms strong behind her back, supporting her. She felt cherished, protected, taken care of—all of the things she had only felt with Ben and all of the things that she was finding out were, despite their innocent-seeming exteriors, some of the hottest aphrodisiacs in the world.

Lauren felt herself building towards a climax as Ben continued to increase the pace of his movements. Her cries and moans became louder and more insistent, and it didn't even enter her mind that they were in a thin-walled trailer in a compound full of their coworkers—she was too transported, too out of her head with ecstasy.

But, here again, Ben had her covered.

As her once gentle moans and whimpers of pleasure turned into cries of ecstasy, he covered her mouth with his, his kisses giving her the freedom to scream her heart out without being overheard.

Lauren's insides quaked as she came, the most convulsively, powerful orgasm she'd ever experienced. She felt Ben's muscles tensing under her arms and the vibrations as he groaned in satisfaction at the same time, although he never took his mouth away from her own.

After the climax of their passion spent itself, the air cooled the sweat from their skin, and their fervor calmed into tranquil affection and gentle caresses, Ben started to move away from her.

Lauren looked at him and then extended her arms up to pull him back against her.

"Wait," she whispered, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

She opened her mouth a few times before she was able to say what she wanted, because expressing need for or dependence on another person was very difficult for her to do.

Finally, summoning up all of the courage inside of her, she said in a soft, tremulous voice, "I'm not ready to feel you leave me yet."

She could hear the smile in his voice as he wrapped his arms tighter around her and replied, "Baby, you'll never have to be."