A Matter of Trust by Lorhainne Eckhart

had
opportunities in school. There had been something about the
awkwardness and shallowness of those men—boys, actually, that had
stopped her from giving herself to them. This meant something to
her, but right now she wanted more than anything for Ben to come
back to bed and finish this. She wanted him inside her. She wanted
it to be him who filled her and finally made her understand what it
was like to really be a woman. She couldn’t explain why it had to
be Ben, but there was something about him. She craved his touch,
and she thought she’d go out of her mind if she never had the
chance to be with him.
    “I wanted you to want me,” she said.
    He stopped pacing and really looked at her,
then moved toward her like a predator. He reached for her hand and
pressed it over the bulge in his pants. She knew very well what
that was, and the size had her swallowing.
    His expression took on a dark, possessive,
and very male look. “The first time won’t be comfortable for you,”
he said, and then he stepped back and reached for his shirt, her
hand falling away. She didn’t want him to stop, so she did
something she didn’t think she had the nerve to do: She dropped her
shirt and stood up, stepping toward him, naked.
    She reached for his shirt to stop him from
buttoning it up as she slid her hand over his chest. She wanted to
see all of him. When she found the nerve to look up at him, Ben
Wilde was not smiling.
    “Carrie, this isn’t going to happen. I’m not
taking your virginity. Good grief, I can’t believe I’m even saying
this.” He put his hands on her shoulders and leaned down to kiss
her open mouth, but he pulled away just as quickly and groaned.
“Stop it, Carrie, because if you do that again, I’m going to toss
you down on that bed and show you what it feels like to be a
woman.”
    Then he actually stepped around her, picked
her sweatshirt up, and pulled it over her head.

Chapter Eighteen
    Ben woke up from one of the worst nights of
sleep he could remember. Even an icy shower had done little to
relieve his discomfort after leaving Carrie’s. This was the first
time Ben had ever turned down a woman who was ready and willing,
but there was a fine line between bedding a woman who knew what she
was doing and one as inexperienced as Carrie. There were some lines
with women that even he wouldn’t cross.
    Worse, his body hadn’t gotten the message.
He wanted her badly, and thinking about how tight she’d be, how no
man had ever been inside of her before, was not helping. His cell
phone buzzed beside the bed. He reached for it and growled,
“What?”
    “Whoa, bad night?” Verna, of course. She
always called bright and early, like sunshine, but today he wasn’t
in the mood.
    “Look, Verna, I just have a lot on my mind.
What do you need?” Okay, now he was being a prick. He’d apologize
later. He could hear her tapping something in the background.
“Verna, come on. Spit it out.”
    “You know, Ben, the last time you were this
cold with me was when Kimberley—remember her, that nice, sweet,
mousy brown-haired girl who fell in love with you? You broke her
heart, and she showed up at the office…”
    “Okay, stop,” he barked. He remembered, of
course. He’d been a miserable prick for days, weeks, and Verna,
like everyone else, had tiptoed around him. It had broken his heart
to hurt Kimberley. She was nice, and what business did he have
dating someone like her? It was because she had fallen in love with
him that he broke it off. The idea had terrified him. “Point
taken,” he said. He sighed and ripped back the covers, putting his
bare feet on the icy cold floor, sitting naked at the edge of the
bed. His head ached from the lack of sleep, and he leaned forward
and rubbed his eyebrows with his fingers.
    “Ben, what’s going on?” Verna asked.
    “Look, Verna, why can’t you just let it
go?”
    “Because I’m worried about you, and you’re
not here for me to fuss over. Besides…Kenny left for