Page 74 of Bennett

Still holding her gaze, Bennett sighed. “You always deflect when things get real?”

Her hand stilled, the crust dangling from her fingers. She set it down before meeting his gaze. Laurel looked at him, really looked, and something soft flickered in her eyes. “Only when I really like the person I’m talking to.”

That did it.

He leaned in and brushed a kiss against her cheek. She turned slightly, and their mouths met. The kiss was slow, familiar, sweet, but full of promise.

When they pulled apart, she leaned her head against his shoulder with a soft exhale. He slid his arm around her and tucked her close.

“I don’t do this,” he said quietly. “Any of this.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“And yet…”

Her hand slipped over his where it rested on her leg. “Yeah. Me too.”

The air between them shifted again, the same teasing rhythm but laced now with heat and something quieter beneath it. That low, whirring current that had followed them since the moment he’d pulled her into the shower.

He let his head tip back against the couch cushion, her weight warm beside him, her presence sinking deeper under his skin than he ever intended. And for the first time in a long damn while, Bennett didn’t feel like a man passing through.

He felt like a man staying put.

For several minutes, they sat in silence, the low hum of the fridge the only sound in the quiet, dim apartment. His gaze drifted to the door. He was grateful it was locked and to fate for keeping the world out for once, giving him a damn break.

She shifted beside him, her body warm against his, her presence something he was already getting used to in a way that should’ve made him uneasy but didn’t.

Then her hand moved to rest flat on his chest. Her fingers flexed slightly, like she was anchoring herself. Or maybe anchoring him.

“Bennett…” she said softly, voice barely above a whisper. “Who’s Theo?”

The name landed like a blow, low and sharp.

He froze.

For half a second, he didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. Because what the hell? He hadn’t said Theo’s name aloud—not oncesince arriving in Harland. That ghost stayed buried. Or so he’d thought.

He forced his face to remain neutral, though his pulse betrayed him. Inside, a thousand thoughts snapped to life at once.

How does she know that name? Who told her? Why now?

Laurel turned her head to look at him, her expression shifting, and before he could formulate a response, she reached up and lightly touched his jaw.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to blindside you. I saw the name on your phone, the other day. Just a text that popped up. I wasn’t trying to snoop, I swear. It stuck in my head because you deleted it without responding.”

Her honesty disarmed him more than the question had.

He looked down and flexed his jaw. “Theo’s…someone I used to trust.” He hated how flat his voice sounded. “Family. He made mistakes. And I made the mistake of thinking I could fix them.”

That was all he was willing to say. The rest—the guilt, the fallout, the grave he’d watched his father get buried in—that stayed behind the wall. The one that cracked more every damn time the beauty looked at him like she saw him.

He didn’t want to keep seeing that look. Didn’t want to feel that ache again.

So, he leaned in and kissed her, because kissing her was simple, powerful, but grounding. And because the weight of that name had no place between them.

Not right now.

Maybe not ever.

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