Misbehaving by Tiffany Reisz Page A

that up.”
    “Thanks for thinking I’d ruin your life.”
    Ben laughed and squeezed her knee. The heat from his hand seeped into her skin. She wanted to wrap her arms around Ben and hold him, but held back. He had to talk and she had to listen.
    “It’s not that. You couldn’t ruin anyone’s life if you tried. I just had my eyes forward and on the future, on what would happen as soon as I graduated. I didn’t want anyone giving me a reason to look back.”
    “And I made you want to look back?” Beatriz asked.
    “You,” he said, taking her face in his hands, “made me want to look at you. Always. All the time. All day and all night. And so when Henry asked me to back off…”
    “You backed off.”
    Ben nodded. “It was the perfect excuse. ‘Do the right thing, Ben. Your best friend asks you not to sleep with his girlfriend’s little sister, then you don’t sleep with your best friend’s girlfriend’s little sister.’ And I could pat myself on the back for being such a good friend. But the truth was, I probably would have slept with you and broken up with you like Henry said I would have. And not because I wasn’t crazy about you, but because I was so crazy about you, it scared me.”
    “I’m going to try to take that as a compliment.”
    “It is. Bea…my father sold his Harley Davidson which he’d saved up for since he was fifteen to help me pay for Brooks. The most beautiful bike on the planet. He sold it without batting an eye. I couldn’t pay him back by screwing up my future.”
    Beatriz smiled at him. “I like your dad. Sounds like a wonderful man.”
    “He is. Hope I take after him.”
    “I verbally castrated you today and you took it like a man, found Henry, saved their wedding and didn’t once tell me to shut the hell up.”
    “Well…your sexy Spanish accent comes out when you’re mad. I should piss you off more often.”
    Beatriz laughed and ran a hand through her hair while trying to think of the best words to say to him. She found two words very quickly.

    “I’m sorry.”
    Ben took her hand and kissed the back of it.
    “So am I.”
    “So now what?” she asked, squeezing his hand.
    “We do need to get back to our work, don’t we?” Ben asked and Beatriz raised her eyebrow at him. “What? Too soon?”
    Beatriz burst into laughter and she stood up in front of him. She took his phone from his hand and laid it on the bedside table.
    “Never too soon,” she said and started undressing.
    Ben stood up and ran his hands down her back before slipping them under her dress. He cupped her bottom and squeezed.
    “So what chapter are we on?” Ben slid the straps of her dress down and pushed it all the way to the floor. They quickly dispensed with all her clothes and his, too.
    “Anal,” Beatriz said as she dragged Ben down to the bed and on top of her. He kissed her roughly as his hands roved all over her naked body. She lifted her hips in an invitation and Ben pushed his thumb and index finger into her, letting the knuckle of his thumb grind deep into her G-spot. As she moved her hips in rhythm with his hand, she reached out and grabbed THE MANUAL off the bedside table.
    Ben took the book from her hand and tossed it across the room.
    “What did you do that for?” Beatriz asked, shocked by his violence to the book.
    “Because, I got this.” Ben grinned down at her and Beatriz’s body temperature shot up from the heat in the look alone.
    “You did say you were bi in college,” she said.
    “For like a week. But trust me, it was an educational week. You want to do this?”
    Beatriz raised her head and kissed him. As she kissed him she felt the stirrings of something deep and dangerous, something she thought she’d killed and buried back in college. Love. Stupid, foolish, stubborn love. Ben had let her chew him out and then instead of pouting or fighting back, he’d gone out and saved the day. And although he’d walk away from her again at the end of the week, she let go