Of course Ethan leaves and doesn’t call Ben, I didn’t expect him to. I just needed Ethan to know that Ben is my concern in this whole fucked up situation. Ethan can try to ‘deal’ with me but Ben remains untouched. Until it’s my time to deal with Ben.
I make my way to St Cloud PD and it is EXACTLY as I remember it to be. Not one thing has changed in the last 13 years. I highly doubt anyone would still be here from all those years ago, and even if they were they wouldn’t remember or recognise me. I park my car and make my way inside.
There’s a lady about my age sitting at the counter. She’s certainly not a police officer. She looks to be an aid. Maybe she’s a receptionist of sorts here. Her name tag says Grace. She greets me with a huge smile, “Hello Mam. Can I help you?” Her eyes show kindness and warmth.
“Yes please, I was supposed to meet Ben Pearson today however I lost his phone number. Could you please call him and let him know Anna is here. It’s for a personal matter.” She can’t ask anything else of me because I’ve given her all relevant information.
“Of course Mam. Please take a seat and I’ll call his phone” Again the smile in her eyes and her face is genuine. She doesn’t look me over, she doesn’t say anything narky, she simply does as I’ve asked her. She turns and leaves and goes towards the back of the station. She picks up a mobile phone, possibly her own personal one and hits a few numbers. Ben’s number, obviously. She turns her back to me and I can see her nodding her head. She comes back within a few minutes wearing that lovely smile.
“Ben said he’ll be here within 10 minutes and that I am to offer you a beverage,” she looks at me waiting for what I would like from her.
“Thank you so much Grace but I’ll just wait for Ben.” I take a seat where I can see the entire room and out the front of the station. Nothing will escape my eyes here. I’ve only been waiting for a few minutes and as I’m watching a few cars and trucks have driven by. A few pickup trucks, a huge milk truck, a few cars. Some from out of state, most from within Minnesota. I see Ben’s Ford Mustang pull into the parking lot. He barely stops the car before he jumps out. He breaks into a run inside and is straight through the door. He’s got me up and in an embrace so tight that the breath is leaving my body. “Ben,” I croak out. “You’re hurting me”. He immediately lets me go and starts kissing me passionately and hungrily. “Ben,” I’m trying to push away from him but his arms are around me like a boa constrictor and he’s not letting me go. “BEN” I finally shout at him.
He stops and grins at me. Oh no, that sexy grin is hitting that one spot it always does. The butterflies in my tummy are increasing and I need to look away to contain myself. “Sorry,” he says. “I knew we hadn’t exchanged numbers so I didn’t know if you would find me. I tried running your plates but only your Florida address came up. I couldn’t get anything on you at all and I just got a horrible thought you may leave so I’m so glad when Grace called me and told me you were here.” This man has a case of verbal diarrhoea. He can speak enough for both of us.
“Ben, I’m hungry. Please take me out and feed me.” I lean in and whisper in his ear. He lets out a moan when he feels my hand on his arm and my breath around his neck.
“Gladly. I was thinking that instead of going out for lunch, it may be possible you would let me take you to my home and cook for you. I mean nothing has to happen it’s just I would like to take my time talking with you. He is still babbling as he leads me out the door towards the car park. This is a perfect opportunity for me because I really want to get to his house and access everything I need. Plus I want to see where, on my old home street, Ben’s home is situated.
“And, I like to watch you eat. It’s so sexy. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a food fetish but there is something about you that completely draws me in. And when you eat, I just can’t take my eyes off you,” he says avoiding my eyes. Is he blushing? Gee I only thought women did that. He’s cute. NO!! Hit 149. Hit 149. Hit 149!
“Thank you Ben. I think that is a terrific idea”
for more than one reason.
“I’ll follow you seeing as I don’t know where you live”. Well I do, but I’m not telling him that.
“Of course”, he says as he gets in his car.
We start off heading out of town a little way, yep going home. My stomach is knotting and as we are getting closer and I feel something wet on my face. Is it raining? My windows are up. I quickly look in the mirror and see I have a tear rolling down my cheek. I know we are only 2 streets away. Once we round the next street then we will be on my road. My hands are sweating so much I’m having an issue gripping the steering wheel. My knuckles are white and I’m holding on to the wheel like I’m about to be sucked into a vortex. We round the corner. I’m on my old street. I can see where our home used to be. Ben begins to slow. My heart rate has elevated. Where is he going to stop
? Keep going, keep going, do not pull into the house up on the right. Keep going Ben
. Please do not let him turn....................... oh shit.
Chapter 12
He pulls into the driveway where my home was. Before Damon and Nox killed my father then blew it up. I’m sitting in my car behind Ben’s and I’m trying to calm myself, this is very hard. My façade is letting me down. I need to calm myself. I close my eyes and take 2 deep breaths. Ben is rapping at the window and looks worried. I get out of my car and Ben quickly embraces me. Not in a passionate way but in a way that he’s trying to comfort me.
“It’s ok Baby girl. We don’t have to stay here. We can go into town if you like”. He’s really quite worried, but for all the wrong reasons.
My arms snake around his waist and I pull him to me. My façade is properly in place now. “That’s ok I want to be here. This street just reminds me of somewhere I once knew”. Breathe Anna. Breathe.
“Alright Baby. Let’s get inside and get you fed.” He tugs me up the first 3 stairs to the porch and he unlocks the door. Of course the house is completely new, built sometime in the last 13 years. But the land is the one Henry and I lived on. I’m willing my body to calm and my breathing to return to a normal rate. The good thing is that this house design is nothing like my home. “I’ve cooked a lasagne this morning; I was hoping you would agree to come here today so I’m sorry if it seems presumptuous. But even if you said no, I would have frozen it and kept it to eat when I was late from work. Oh my god. I’m rabbling” the look on his face is one of embarrassment. He looks away and is flittering around like a nervous teenage girl on her first date waiting to be kissed.
I can’t help it. I start laughing. And I mean laughing, I start trying to catch my breath and I’m laughing so hard I start to cough from lack of air. This whole day is surreal, hell I would even say the whole situation is surreal. Even though I knew I had to come here for recon work, I wasn’t expecting these emotions to surface. I’m still laughing a few minutes later and Ben is chuckling to himself too. I literally have tears coming out of my eyes.
“Stop laughing at me, it’s making me mad,” he’s still chuckling as he says that. This makes me laugh even more. “I’m serious Miss Moore. I won’t be accountable for my own actions if you don’t stop laughing”. He’s leaning up against the island in his kitchen and I’m sitting on a stool on the other side and my tears start all over again. I’m laughing at nothing and everything. Ben leaps up over the island bench and grabs me and starts attacking my mouth. My laughter stops immediately and I return his assaulting kiss. But this time I turn him and throw him across the island. He’s lying down and I jump up and straddle his hips. The pressure in my panties is way too much. I sit up and he’s looking up at me but his hands are being rough as he’s running them up and down my thighs. I rotate my hips so I can feel his hard on beneath me and I rock a small amount just to relieve a little pressure that is forming in my pussy. “Fuck Anna,” Ben growls a deep enticing and hot sound. His eyes roll to the back of his head and I throw my head back as this feels fantastic. His hands are all over my body. He lifts my shirt and his hands are on my breasts. He’s rolling my nipples and then he sits straight up, making the pressure of where I’m grinding into him intensify even more. I let out a long moan at the intense and erotic state I’m in. I mean, here we are fully dressed and I’m grinding into him on his island bench and his hands are all over me. He lifts my shirt and takes it off and throws it somewhere in the kitchen. His mouth finds my breasts and as I straddle him and rock back and forth his tongue is singing to my nipples. He’s pushed my bra down so it’s sitting under my breast and his entire mouth is greedily going between both. It’s like he can’t get enough, I know I’m struggling but he’s just not holding anything back.
“Anna, let me take you”, his words are laboured. “Anna, let me please you,” the more he’s talking the more I want it. “Anna”, his hands are now finding their way through the front of my jeans and I shift to allow him access. Every part he touches is hot with desire and want. At that very moment the picture of Ben Pearson that I took out of the envelope comes forward in my mind. I snap my eyes open and think Hit 149. I stop my body rigid. I quickly jump off Ben and retrieve my shirt.
“Bathroom please?” I ask Ben. His face holds so many questions and all he does is point in the direction of the hallway. I leave straight away and go to the bathroom. In the time I’m in the bathroom I regain my emotions before I go back out to Ben. Breathe Anna, Breathe in, Breathe out. Calming my body. Calming my mind. Ok I’m ready to return to him.
I go into the kitchen and Ben is sitting at the same island that we were lying on, that island is going to make for one hot memory. He’s done his shirt up and is running his hand through his hair. He looks up to me through sad eyes. He doesn’t even try to get up and come to me. I lean on the wall at the back of the kitchen. I cross my feet at the ankles and put my arms behind my bottom. “Ben, why don’t we spend the next few days getting to know one another? It’s painfully obvious to me that we both want each other. I mean, all I can think about is ripping your fucking clothes off and have my tongue run all over your body”
as well as the best possible way to kill you
– I don’t say that out loud “I know you want me too, because you can’t stop touching me any way you can. Your eyes become loaded with lust and your breathing becomes laboured. So how about we just get to know each and we can see where this goes. It’s going to be more difficult for me though then what it is for you.”
because I still have to find a way to kill you.
“Not fucking likely. Not touching you is torture. When you left last night all I wanted to do was jump in my car and follow you home”, he takes a deep breath. I automatically think – stalker. I know he isn’t but I still think it. “Anna, I have to tell you, I think I may be falling for you”,
wrong thing to say Ben
.
I let out a huge huff and roll my eyes. My jaw tightens and my body becomes rigid. I push away from the wall I’ve been leaning against and scratch my head. “WHAT THE FUCK BEN! Are you serious? Fuck me, if you’re going to become all emotional and act like a fucking school girl I’ll walk out this fucking door right now and you will never see me again, what the fuck is wrong with you. Why say shit like that. Have you learnt nothing about me? What the fuck...... FUCK” I am yelling at him. I walk out the front and slam the door. What the fuck is wrong with him. Like really? Who says shit like that? He’s 33 and he’s saying that crap. I need to calm down before I kill him. Even though I know I’m going to have to kill him sometime over the next 7 days before he returns to work from his vacation. Just not today. I’m standing out the front on the porch and I’m calming my body down after hearing his ridiculous statement when I hear the door open and Ben steps outside. He doesn’t come near me, does he sense that I’m pissed off? I think I made it clear enough. I can feel his eyes on me, taking me in.
“I’m sorry Anna. I thought you felt the same way about me” Do I? No, I mean I don’t. He’s just a target. Hit 149. He’s got to be just a target.
But....
“Ben” I take a deep breath and come and stand directly in front of him but out of arms reach. “This is probably the most fucked up situation that I could ever be faced with. And let me tell you I’ve been in some hair raising situations,” I say as I purse my lips together and frown my eye brows whilst I shake my head. “Ben, you can’t want me like this. You need to detach your heart”. I’m hoping he kisses me because all I want right now is for him to wrap his arms around me and tell me everything will be fine. But I can’t have that because everything won’t be fine, until I kill him.
I’m so torn.
“Anna, I know you’re hiding something from me. You barely say anything, you’re always taking in your surroundings, you have this.... This... I don’t know almost like a mask that you slip on when something bothers you. You can be so closed off and cold” Fuck, he has just described me down to a tee. Does he know more about me than he’s letting on? Has he found something on a background check that I have missed? Has someone been in touch with him and warned him. “But Anna, you are also the strongest, most complicated, sexiest woman I know. You tell it as it is. You don’t care who hears you. You’re passionate and so alive”. He takes one step closer to me. I stand rooted in my spot. “It’s impossible not to fall for you.” What the hell is happening here I ask myself? He leans in to my ear not touching a single part of my body and whispers, “impossible not to”.
Shit Anna, think
.
“Alright Ben, let’s get back inside and have some lunch. When I’m hungry I get even more pissed off than normal. You invited me here today and you have cooked. So let’s have it.” I side step him to go around him. Nothing has resolved itself here and nothing will. I just need to keep my head together long enough for recon work. As Ben opens the door for me his hand finds its way to the small of my back and that pure electric rawness is pulsating between my lower back and his hand, I don’t say anything. I just take in the amazing feeling. In a few days I’ll be gone from St Cloud and Ben will be dead. I think I won’t take on another job for the rest of the year. I’ll need to call Agent and let him know. I need some time to process all the crap that’s happening. We head into the kitchen and I sit at one of the stools at the evil island that holds some pretty hot images in my head. Ben gets to work making a salad for us to eat. He’s pretty silent. He has laid his cards out on the table for me and I can’t respond to his feelings of want and desire. “So Ben what are you working on at this point in time? I know you’re on vacation but you’ve got to be working on something”. I need as much information as possible because someone has a hit on Ben and I’m going to find out as much as I can.