The Pull

Chapter 24

The sound, or maybe even more the feeling, of a steady heartbeat woke me. The warm chest I was resting my head on heaved in slow, deep breaths. Ben.

This was a hot mess. Ben was my boss, the co-owner of the company I worked for. I wasn't sure what sort of office relationship policies Papercut had, but I doubted they were in our favour. Also, I was probably in my worst in years. The whole thing with Mark had, for some reason, brought up bad, bad memories. Memories I had fought tooth and nail to suppress. With the memories came the reactions: the anxiety, the self-sabotaging. The nothing. I felt fragile, like I was a small push from tipping over the edge. There was something going on with Ben, too. That look on his face in the office back in San Fransisco, that day when we left for England. I knew there was more to this than our client's case stirring up trouble. That happened all the time. This had to be so much more. Had they found something on Ben, or Simon? Or someone else? On me..? I wasn't sure what they could do with it if they knew, I didn't even know who they were, but I did know this: I did not want my ugly past being dragged out into the light. I didn't want people to know what I had done, who I really was. I did not want anyone to connect me to that man.

Hot mess, indeed.

Ben's strong arms closing around me got me out of those not so pleasant thoughts.

"Your head's spinning, Rachel. I can feel it on you. Relax." He brushed his lips on my hair, slowly caressing my arm. "Whatever's going on in that lovely head of yours, we can manage. One thing at a time, Puck." I sighed, feeling the tension let go a bit.

"Well, the first thing in that order would be getting to breakfast with the others without me wearing the walk-of-shame-outfit from yesterday." He chuckled, making my head bounce a bit on his chest.

"I for one couldn't care less if they all saw exactly what we've been up to. But I get you. How about you head on down to your room to change clothes and we meet for breakfast?"

I nodded. However, Ben didn't seem quite satisfied with my answer. He gently grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him.

"Puck. I mean it. I won't pretend. I don't care what anyone thinks. I only care about what you think."

Suddenly a whole flock of butterflies went amok in my chest. I knew my mind went to dark places when he wasn't around, and I knew that's what would probably be what ended us, but as long as he held me like this, I would be fine. I had to.

"You do know how to make a girl swoon." I jested to hide what had to be showing on my face: me feeling feelings I really wasn't ready to feel this soon. He gave me a thoughtful smile. Never fooled, this one.

"Go on, Rachel. Do your walk-of-absolutely-no-shame whatsoever, and I'll see you in fresh clothes downstairs in a bit." I forfeited wearing my not so fresh panties and went commando under my dress, shoes in hand. I felt like I was on a spy mission sneaking around in the halls, but I got all the way to my door without meeting anyone whatsoever. The relief was palpable. And also: a victory celebrated too soon, as it turned out. The same second I reached to put my key card in the lock, the door to my left opened.

Nononononono -

"Puck? Are you going down to... oh." Will stopped in his tracks, staring at me. I couldn't blame him. Having gone to bed with my hair wet I looked like I'd been electrocuted, and to better do the ninja stealth sneak back to my room I had my dress bundled up in one hand, showing a great deal of thigh, and my high heels in the other. Acutely aware of the fact that I was also holding my panties.

This was so, so bad.

"Eh... good morning, Will. I was just... I'm going to... I need to just... get something from my room. I'll meet you downstairs." Will, the poor soul, got impossibly red in his face.

"Yeah, of course. I'll meet you down there." He turned his back on me and closed his door before rushing by me to the lifts. I felt like I wanted to cry as I entered my room. How was it possible these things kept happening to me? I knew for a fact Will wouldn't let that one slide as soon as the shock settled. What was I going to say? Deciding I had to grab the bull by the horns, I slipped into fresh clothes, put my wild bed-hair in a somewhat controlled bun on top of my head, slammed on some mascara for war face and headed down to meet my shame. All the others, except for Ben, was already there. And every single one of them met me grinning as I approached the table.

Not wasting any time there, Will.

"Good morning, Puck!" Lane spoke loud enough for the people on third floor to hear. "You had a good night as well, I hear!" And that was the exact moment Ben stepped up behind me.

"Morning, everyone." Ben looked a bit puzzled as he studied Lanes face, the latter absolutely beaming with pride over her clever remark. Oblivious to the fact the good night she'd been referring to was all on him.

"Morning, Ben! Puck was just telling us about her first night in London." Ben looked at me with raised eyebrows and I really contemplated just running. I did after all sport sneakers this morning. I could make it pretty far.

"Um, I wasn't really. I'm gonna get coffeeanybodywantsomething -" I was already walking away as I spoke, hoping my legs would carry me. This really couldn't get any worse.

Oh. How little did I know.

As I stood there staring at the coffee pot, Will came up.

"I'm sorry Puck, but this had to be shared. Who did you do last night?? I thought I saw you go into your room?" My mind was racing, trying to come up with a plausible explanation that didn't involve hot sex with Ben Campbell.

"I was –"

"Good morning, Puck. I was hoping I'd run in to you again. We ended rather abrupt last night."

Oh. No. Seriously?!

Looking up I met Kun's smiling eyes, glittering. This morning, he sported a black shirt, and he was still rocking that male-model-slash-bad boy kind of vibe. I could feel Will staring at him.

"Kun! Good morning. I, uh... sorry for leaving like that, I... yeah." This was just excellent. Kun smiled at me. Will was practically levitating.

"No worries. There was obviously something that needed to be addressed there, I get it. But I would like to buy you another drink. I'm in town for three more days. How about tonight?" Shit. I wanted to say no but that would raise a million questions from Will.

"Um, I'm not sure. We're meeting with a client today and I don't really know what lies ahead."

"I do." Will, the little bastard, decided to complicate things further. "We won't get back here later than seven o'clock tonight because the client has a fund raiser thing. Ben's going but the rest of us aren't." Will winked at me like a proud little boy scout while Kun nodded at Will.

"Awesome. So, eight o'clock? Perhaps somewhere else than the hotel this time?" He tilted his head just a tad, as if we shared this intimate little secret.

No, please. Don't do that. You're making it worse.

"I.. Yeah. That'd be nice. Eight o'clock it is then." I really didn't have a choice. For now, I just had to get away from this dark-haired devil – and Will – and gather my bloody thoughts for a second. I really needed to call Emma. Going back to the table and the rest of the gang I felt like I needed to lay down on the floor with my feet in the air to get blood to my brain again. As we sat, Will didn't waste a second.

"So. Puck. That's who kept you up last night. Not bad." I winced – and immediately felt Ben's eyes on me.

"That's not what happened." I could hear desperation in my own voice.

"What, who? Will, is he here?" Lou almost jumped out of his seat.

"He is. You see that hot guy in black over there? They're going on a date tonight as well. Puck, you vixen. He is fire! I mean, I'm a straight dude and even I get a pulse." Everyone turned to ogle Kun, who was helping himself over by the table with cereals. Everyone – but Ben. His eyes were steady on me. Dark eyes.

"We need to get going. Be ready in fifteen minutes." Ben stood and walked away, refusing to meet my gaze no matter how hard I tried. Like that, he was gone. I could feel the anxiety he chased away last night come crawling back like an angry little monster wanting to devour me whole.