Page 40 of The Destined SEAL
We’re both smiling wide, stupid lovers’ glee written all over our faces. “Enough to throw gutter balls for the rest of the game?” Ben whispers, tucking my hair behind my ear.
I shake my head. “Probably enough to throw gutter balls for the rest of my life,” I respond.
“Damn,” Ben says, sliding his hands down to cup my ass. “I like your enthusiasm.” His dick hardens against me.
“The prospect of winning gives you a boner. There’s something wrong with you,” I hiss into his ear, looking to our side to see if anyone is watching us.
“You make my dick hard,” he says, leaning close to whisper in my ear.
I fidget, trying to break free from our salty, completely inappropriate, public embrace. Ben doesn’t let me. He kisses me on my neck, my chin, and then trails his soft lips to my mouth. His eyes fall closed as he kisses me, slowly, deliberately. Someone somewhere in the bowling alley celebrates a strike, and the sound of pins being pelted by heavy balls cascades around us. I melt a little, turning to a fine putty in the safety of his strong, familiar arms. I’ll never worry if someone will be there to catch me or contemplate the way his mind works.
I lick the edge of his lip as I pull away from the kiss. “I can’t feel anything except everything,” Ben admits.
“Feeling everything is a gift.”
He rubs his lips together, tasting me. “It’s also a curse. I can never go back from here. It’s an impossibility.” His gaze skirts from the bottom of my face up to the top and back down again. “You’re my blind spot, Harper. I can’t see around you.”
There has to be some negative connotation associated with being a blind spot, but Ben says it in a way that forces me to realize the magnitude of his feelings. I decide on the truth as my retort. “If what you’re trying to explain is that I’m your handicap, then I have the advantage. I can cause darkness whenever I want?”
He shakes his head, a small grin playing on his lips. “You blind with light.”
He loves with his whole heart. A fact I can’t fault because I do the same. It’s also the first time he’s wearing it on his sleeve. “It’s your turn,” I say. How do I respond to that? There’s no follow-up appropriate enough, strong enough.
Ben grabs his ball and winks at me over his shoulder. He throws a damn strike and celebrates by moonwalking into our neighbor’s lane. Everyone around us laughs at his antics.
“Stop breaking the rules!” I call out.
He does some other weird dance back into our lane.
Shaking my head, I take a sip of my piss beer. I wince at the awful flavor and grab my ball to go next. Ben’s phone starts ringing on the table behind the computer. It’s Norah, and I glance away, unwilling to ruin this moment. He kisses me quickly on the cheek.
“I’m going to grab this. Try not to lose too badly,” Ben says, smiling.
It’s a decent ball. I knock over seven. I’m waiting for a barb, but when I glance at Ben, he’s ashen, the phone pressed against his ear.
Slowly, his eyes meet mine, and the sheer terror I see there is enough to incinerate the whole world.
Twice.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ben
I’m married to Norah.If I say it to myself seven hundred times a day, it still doesn’t sound right. Her birth control failed, and I’m going to be a daddy. Doing the right thing was the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my life. I made the decision to make her an honest woman after drinking a case of beer with Tahoe. Harder still was telling Harper that Norah was pregnant and I intended to marry her to make sure our child has both parents all the time. Sometimes you make things work for the greater good. I know this firsthand. I expected hostility, but what I got from Harper was even worse.
Pride.
Harper was proud of me for doing the right thing. Part of me hoped she’d tell me to love her, stay with her, that she’d be a great stepmother to my child, but Harper Rosehall will always do the right thing. The one time she deviated will go down as the best night of my life. Nothing is going to change that. Not a marriage of moral code and conduct, and surely not a child. Harper is too rational and calculating for that. Granted, tears started to pour down her face a minute later, which erased some of her proud words.
It’s fitting that the one thing that could pull me away from Harper and our age-old love happened the moment I felt the most secure in all ways. It was a rug ripped out from underneath me when Norah called me at the bowling alley. She’d been trying to tell me earlier when she stopped by my house, but I was still in a fucking love cloud with Harper—too wrapped up in my perfect world to see how upset she was.
I’m a dickhead. No man has ever carried the amount of guilt on his shoulders that I do. I don’t let it show because that would make the women feel even worse about this fucked-up situation. Norah wasn’t easy to convince, either. She immediately went on to tell me she’d raise the baby by herself and that I could be involved as much or as little as I wanted to.
Once the shock of her insinuation wore off, I was furious she thought I was the type of man to not take care of his responsibilities. Especially one as great as being a proper father to a child. Everything else stemmed from there. My love and Harper’s feelings had to take a backseat to the new life I helped create. Norah is still wary of my love for Harper, but with a baby girl coming, it’s easy for her to get lost in the world of everything baby and pregnancy. She overlooks a lot. Or she pretends to.
The way I stare out the window waiting for Harper to pull up. The way I close my eyes when Norah kisses me good night. How I can’t bear to look at the full-length mirror in our bedroom. How I haven’t smiled in weeks. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to be a father. More than I ever thought I’d be. I’m upset that it’s not what I pictured in my mind, but then again, what ever is?
Norah gets out of bed to use the restroom. Again. I roll over to face the window and stare. The long window is naked as Norah is redecorating, so it’s bright as fuck in the morning, but you can see everything at night. The stars. The clouds. The moon.
