I push harder, grinding my heels into the bed. "I've never been fucked like this before."
His eyes widen, his breathing stalls and he drops a litany of curse words from his lips as he pumps his hips into me.
***
"What kind of a doctor are you?" I pull the sheet over my breasts as I watch him toss the condom in a wastebasket in the corner of my bedroom.
He turns his head sharply; the grin on his face is disarming. "A very good one."
I don't doubt that. He has a compassionate edge to him that I haven't noticed in Noah. I have seen small flashes of concern in his gestures and the way he cares for Alexa, but Noah has built walls around himself emotionally because of the stabbing. Ben doesn't have those same restraints. I don't push the issue. It's not pressing on my mind like other questions are right now. "When will you talk to Noah?"
"I thought we were talking about me." His tone is teasing in an abstract way. He's preoccupied. I can sense it by the way he's reaching for his smartphone.
"I want to talk about Noah." I need to talk about Noah. I want to understand what happened between the two of them that was so significant it fractured their bond. "I'd like to understand your relationship with him."
He turns to face me now, his hand dropping to his hip. "It's very complicated, Kayla."
"He used the same word to describe it." I pull my knees to my chest, wrapping the sheet around me. "Noah said it was complicated too."
His brow peaks slightly at the admission. "What else has he said about me?"
It's a question typically reserved for teenage girls when they have their eye on a boy who will only share his feelings through a friend. "Noah doesn't talk about you."
I can't gauge his reaction. He throws his eyes to the floor to mask whatever emotion might be there. "I don't like talking about him either."
He's looking for an out. He came here to fuck me with the hope that I'd forget the reason I initially called him over. "I can't keep this from Alexa much longer."
The 'this' I'm referring to isn't singular. It's not solely about the fact that I'm sleeping with Ben. It's not exclusively centered on my knowledge of who Noah's brother is and the fact that he lives only a few blocks from them. It's the entire fucked up scenario. I just had amazing sex with Noah Foster's twin brother. I ache inside to be near him when I'm not. I'm falling for him and whether that's my heart's way of masking the pain of Parker's rejection or it's genuine and is coming from a place of purity, it's my truth. My life is fucked up. My heart is twisting about in my chest and the only person I can talk to it about is the man at the center of my emotional hurricane.
"It won't be much longer." It's a classic technique meant to stall me. He doesn’t offer anything to back it up. His eyes dart to the screen of his smartphone again.
Ultimatums have no place in the bedroom unless I've been denied an orgasm. In that case I'll use them to my full advantage, but now, in the tortured place my mind is I'm going to pull one out and shoot it at him.
"If you don't talk to Noah soon about us, I will." There's not a drop of hesitation in the words. There can't be. I'm serious.
He drops his phone on the dresser before walking to stand next to the bed. "It's not as cut and dry as that, Kayla. He believes things about me that aren't true. He'll turn you against me."
"He can't." My voice is insistent. "There's nothing that Noah can tell me that will change what I'm feeling."
"What are yo
u feeling?" His hand scrubs the back of his neck. The nervous energy that surrounds him is palpable.
"I like you," I offer.
He pinches his fingers together on the bridge of his nose. "I like you too, Kayla. I really like you."
I smile at the confession. "I'd like to see you more often."
"I want to see you every day," he says in a low voice. "I actually want to see you every moment of every day. I wish that I could."
"It's so strange that I met your family before I met you. Do you talk to your father?" I throw the question out as bait. I want to show him that I'm already connected to his family in a roundabout way. Smoothing over the issues between him and Noah is inevitable, given the budding connection between us. Alexa is an integral part of my life, just as I'm an integral part of hers.
"My father?" He parrots back with a furrowed brow. "Do you know my father?"
"I've met him." Once. It was a few months ago at Noah's thirtieth birthday party. His father was brilliant, bold and very charismatic. I remember thinking that if my mother was single; Ron Foster would be the perfect fit for her. Now, the thought borders on uncomfortable.
"When? Where?" The questions rush out on top of one another.