For a moment she thought he wasn't going to answer her and then he turned, his expression blank as he looked down at her. Ellie's heart sank;
He regretted it.
Well, she wasn't going to worry about that now.
'Ben, please, come back inside.' She touched his arm gently and he shook his head.
Finally he spoke, and his voice had an early morning roughness about it. 'I owe you an apology.'
'For what?'
'Do you really need to ask that?' He raked a lean hand through his dark hair, his gaze incredulous. 'After what I did last night?'
'What we did, Ben. I was there, too, remember. And there's certainly nothing to apologise for.'
'How can you be so relaxed about it?' He stared into her eyes for a long moment, his jaw tightening. 'Or do you do this sort of thing all the time?'
He had to be kidding!
She gave a lopsided smile. 'Never in my life before.'
Some of the tension left his shoulders. 'You've never had a one-night stand before?'
She hesitated and then decided to tell him the truth. 'I've never had sex before.'
The silence was so loud it screamed at her.
When Ben finally spoke his, voice was, hoarse. 'You've never had sex before? You're telling me that was your first time?'
'Yes.'
What was the point of lying? She loved him and she wasn't ashamed of what they'd done.
'Oh, Ellie…' He gave a groan and rubbed a hand over his roughened jaw, his dark eyes haunted. 'Why the hell didn't you tell me? Why didn't you try and stop me?'
'Because I didn't want to stop you,' she said simply. 'Why would I have tried to stop you?'
'Because it wasn't how your first experience should have been.' He sounded weary. 'You should have been with someone who took more time, who paid you more attention...'
'Ben, I was as desperate as you were,' she pointed out, and the shyness which had failed to surface the night before suddenly appeared and she pulled a face. 'This is becoming embarrassing, isn't it? Can we just drop the subject?'
'I don't think we can.' His voice was heavy. 'Ellie, we have to talk about this.'
'Why? What is there to talk about?'
'Are you seriously telling me that you're happy for your first time to be a one-night stand?'
Was that all it had been?
She winced slightly at the brutality of his words; but refused to look away from him.
'Obviously I'd like a lot more than that. But whatever you want is fine by me.' She paused. 'I love you Ben.'
His mouth tightened. 'I wish you'd stop saying that.'
'Why? It's true. I do love you. I can't change that. It's not as if I expect you to say it back.'
He closed his eyes briefly. 'Ellie, you're very young and I'm the first man you've ever slept with. It's normal to have confused feelings.'