The Promise Page 24

  The next action was to drive my fingers into his hair, tilt his head down, then me going up on my toes so I could slam his mouth on mine.

  And the next was me touching my tongue to his lips.

  The next actions were all Benny’s.

  I was up, legs around his hips, his hands at my ass and his tongue in my mouth. He was walking and turning. Then we were down, Ben sitting on the end of the bed, me straddling him.

  We did all this kissing, tongues sparring, heads shifting one way and then back, both of us drinking deep, hard, wet, desperate.

  His hands went up my nightie and straight down into my panties.

  God, they felt good there.

  I whimpered into his mouth but didn’t break the connection as I moved my hands to his jacket and shoved it down his shoulders.

  I lost his touch when he tore off his jacket. I vaguely heard it land on the floor with a soft flunf, and this was vague because most of my attention was centered on his hands back in my panties.

  As much as I liked having them back, I wanted more.

  I pulled his tee up at the back, breaking the kiss to demand, “Shirt off, baby.”

  I no sooner had the words out when Ben’s hands went to the hem of the tee. He tore it up and it was gone.

  I saw bare chest and shoulders, and it was an amazing chest and shoulders, then I saw nothing as Benny shoved his fingers into my hair, tilted my head down, and took my mouth with his.

  Finding myself in the miraculous position of being wrapped around a shirtless Ben who was kissing me, I didn’t waste the opportunity. I rolled my hips into his hard crotch, running my hand down his chest, down his abs, liking what it encountered a whole lot, but I had a premier destination in mind. I twisted my hand, flattened it, and rubbed it hard over his jeans.

  “Fuck,” he groaned in my mouth.

  “Now,” I whispered into his.

  His brows shot up over dark, heated eyes. “Now?”

  I pressed my hand deep. “Now, baby.”

  He said not another word. He shifted slightly to the side and I went for his belt. He had his wallet open while I undid the buttons on his jeans. I caught a glimpse of the fact that Benny Bianchi didn’t carry a condom with him, he carried a string of three, but I didn’t let that penetrate. I had a mission, and that mission was pressing my hand into his boxers and finally getting what I’d been craving for far too long.

  It wasn’t difficult to find. It was big. It was hard. And it was all mine.

  I pulled his cock free of his jeans and found it was also beautiful.

  I stroked.

  Ben growled.

  His noise made my hips jerk and my eyes went to his.

  “Hurry,” I begged.

  “Gotta unlatch, baby,” he whispered.

  I didn’t want to, but I unlatched.

  Ben had the condom out already (thank God) and rolled it on while I watched, squirming in his lap.

  He barely had it to the base before I shoved his hand away and grabbed on. I used the fingers of my other hand to shift my undies aside, then took the tip of his cock and rocked my hips against it, sliding it against me.

  Ben’s hands came to my hips, fingers digging in, and he rumbled, “Fuckin’ hell, baby.”

  I looked into his eyes. “I want it, Benny.”

  He looked into my eyes. “Then take it, Frankie.”

  I rammed down, filling myself with Benny.

  Oh God.

  Perfect.

  When I took him, Ben’s hands dragged up, fingers digging deep into my flesh, pulling my nightie up my back.

  But he didn’t take it off. This was because I was riding him and doing it fast, hard, driving down, grinding, and I had to hold on to stay steady. He shoved one hand up through my nightgown, cupped the back of my head, and pulled it down so he could have my mouth.

  I gave it to him, letting Benny take my mouth in a brutal, devouring kiss while I took his cock.

  I felt his other hand slide around, in, and down, then his thumb was at my clit.

  He put on pressure and rolled.

  Benny inside me, Benny all around me. Almost eight years without any goodness but what I could give myself, now finally having it and it being Benny. The instant his thumb rolled, my head shot back and I cried out, sharp and hard, as my orgasm powered through me.

  Still coming, Ben pulled me off him, flipped me to my back, ripped my panties down my legs, hauled me up the bed, covered me, and drilled back inside.

  “Yes,” I breathed, still climaxing.

  Ben thrust, his hips tilted to the side, his hand gliding over my ass, down the back of my thigh to lift one knee high.

  “Yes,” I repeated on a gasp, opening my eyes to see him up on a forearm, pounding in, staring down at me.

  “Crazy-beautiful,” he whispered.

  Oh God.

  Benny.

  I had one arm trapped under his body, so I curled the forearm around his lower back and held him as best as I could while I lifted my other hand and trailed it down the new, unfamiliar, but awesomely fabulous ridges and flats of his chest and abs.

  I lifted my hips so he could get more, I could get more, and he thrust in, started grinding, and bit out, “Fuck yeah, Frankie.”

  “What do you need?” I whispered.

  “Got it,” he grunted.

  God.

  My Benny.

  I wrapped the leg he had mostly pinned to the bed with his weight around his thigh and moved my hips in tandem with his, letting my fingers drift over the definition of his abs, looking into his eyes, feeling the glory of Benny Bianchi repeatedly filling me.

  He yanked up my leg, powered so deep, it felt like he touched my womb. My neck arched and I breathed, “That’s it, baby, fuck me.”

  At that, he threw my leg around his back, his hand gliding up the front of my thigh, my side, in, it rubbed hard over the material covering my breast, the drag over my tightened nipple forcing a moan to glide out of my throat. Then his hand moved down and his thumb was again at my clit.

  My head righted and I moaned, “That’s it, Benny.”

  “It fuckin’ is. Get there, Frankie,” he growled.

  Our hips moved, Ben pressed and rolled, then pressed deeper and rolled harder as his hips rammed into mine and my breath caught.

  “Benny.”

  “Close, cara, get there,” he groaned.

  Too late.

  I was there. Digging my fingers into his back, clutching him with my legs, my other hand shooting up to curl around the side of his neck and hold tight, my back arched off the bed and it again shot through me.

  I felt Ben thrust deep through it, his thumb moving from my clit to clamp around the back of my thigh. I just had it together enough to open my eyes when he started bucking, his breaths coming rhythmic and harsh. When I did, I saw his head dipped down and felt his hand gripping my thigh tight, the harsh breaths turning into the hard grunts of his release.

  His bucking slowed, gentled, until he slid in, released my thigh, lifted his head, caught my eyes, and lowered his body to mine.

  “Well, uh…how’s that for healing the breach?”

  That came from me. Right out of my mouth. I heard it and I couldn’t believe it.

  Benny couldn’t either. I knew this when he blinked. Then he stared.

  Then his head went back and he burst out laughing.

  It was at this inopportune moment that all that I’d just done hit me in the way of the sane, rational person I wanted always to be (but rarely was) rather than the insane, crazy slut I’d just acted like, which seemed to happen a lot around Benny.

  I knew Ben felt the tightness that came into my body because his head snapped back down, and when his eyes caught mine, there was zero humor in them.

  “Oh no, cara, fuck no,” he growled. “You are not pullin’ away from me now and not just ’cause I got you pinned to the bed with my dick still hard inside you.”

  “I threw myself at you again,” I whispered, soundin
g horrified, and my voice started rising when I finished, “This time literally.”

  “Yeah, you did, thank fuck.”

  It was me who blinked that time before I asked, “You’re not mad?”

  His head jerked, his eyes narrowed, and his voice was disbelieving. “Babe, been wantin’ to be right here” —he ground his hips into mine and my legs tensed around him when he did— “for a long fuckin’ time. I’m here” —he pressed in between my legs again— “and I like it. Why the fuck would I be mad?”

  I didn’t want to bring it up, but I couldn’t get around the fact that I had to bring it up, and the only way I could think in that moment to communicate it was to say softly, “Cookies.”

  I knew Ben didn’t want me to bring it up either when the dark, scary look passed over his face.

  “That was a fucked-up play, Frankie,” he said quietly.

  He said it quietly.

  He didn’t get mean. He didn’t get pissed. He didn’t get sarcastic.

  He pointed it out and did it quietly.

  God, my Benny.

  “I didn’t want to lose you,” I told him.

  “Well, just sayin’, the way not to do that was the play you made fifteen minutes ago. Though, for future reference, I got your ass to tap in my bed, in my kitchen you can make all the cookies you want.”

  Even though I knew I was on rocky ground, I couldn’t help it. At his words, automatically, I screwed my eyes up and glared at him. “My ass to tap?”

  The dark, scary look left and the light of humor came back when he said, “Yeah. You’re there for me to eat and fuck whenever I want, I’m not gonna be pissed you’re makin’ me cookies.”

  My stomach dipped at the thought of Benny going down on me (much less fucking me again).

  However, that was not what I shared.

  “I can now officially report that women do not like it when men talk like that, Ben.”

  He moved his face close and whispered, “Then why, when I said it, did your pussy clench tight around my dick?”

  I was pretty sure it did that, and I was pretty sure because, along with the belly dip, I felt other more pleasant sensations elsewhere.

  As much as I enjoyed bantering with Benny, enjoyed it even more in our current position—Benny heavy and warm on me after having sex with him for the first time, sex that included two orgasms—this was not the time to banter.

  This was the time to freak out.

  And being me, I commenced in doing that.

  “Ben, I’m not sure what we just did was smart.”

  His expression turned guarded and he asked, “Why?”

  “Well, I’m pretty certain you didn’t miss this, considering the drama I perpetrated in your bathroom five months ago with you in attendance, but I’m kind of fucked up.”

  “No, babe, I didn’t miss it,” he replied immediately but did it softly. “But you missed something. Something really fuckin’ important.”

  I was fucked up so I had a strong idea that I missed a lot of things that were really fucking important.

  At that moment, however, I needed to know which one he was referring to.

  “What’d I miss?” I asked.

  “The part about how I don’t want easy.”

  My stomach clutched, my limbs clenched around him, and I stared up into his eyes.

  “You walked away from me, shut me out and walked out of my house, and that was not cool,” he said quietly. “But I’m sensin’ you needed to do that, and my sense is right because you did it, knowin’ you’d fuck me and knowin’ you’d fuck you doin’ it.”

  I pressed my lips together, partly because there was no response to that, but mostly because he told me I’d fucked him, not in the good way, and I hated that I’d hurt him.

  But he was right. I did it knowing I was doing it. To him and to me.

  “And, Frankie,” he went on, “you did that and you did other shit since, but you do not want to be my friend. You have not been phonin’ me and makin’ me cookies because you want me in your life like that. You’ve been phonin’ me and making me cookies because you want me in your life like this.”

  He emphasized his last words by, again, pressing his hips into mine, as well as momentarily giving me more of his body weight.

  “I do. I told you that,” I reminded him. “I also told you I’m not right for you.”

  “Babe, how about you let me decide what’s right for me,” Benny stated.

  At that, I blinked again.

  Ben kept talking.

  “Seein’ as you’re fucked up, I suppose you can take what just happened between us, what you just gave me, what you just threw at me, literally, and twist it or deny it or bury it so that you can walk away from it, even though it was unbelievably fuckin’ hot and proves not only that we both want this, we’re really fuckin’ good at it.”

  He could say that again.

  “I’m just gonna tell you now,” he continued. “I let you have that play five months ago because I was hopin’ you’d get your head straight and come back to me. I’m takin’ this” —he again gave me more of his weight before he took it away— “as you comin’ back to me. Now, what you gotta get is that I will not allow you to walk away from me again.”

  My breath started to come faster as I lay under him and stared up into his eyes.

  Ben kept going.

  “I’ll make that clear. When I say I won’t allow that to happen, I’m not talkin’ about me not lettin’ go again. Right now, Francesca, you gotta decide. Are we gonna work this out and see where this can go? Or is this a fucked-up play you instigated with zero control and you have every intention of carryin’ on with that, jackin’ me around, you’re cognizant of doin’ that or not, but you got no intention of puttin’ in the work to sort yourself out, sort us out, and give us a shot?”

  Pure Benny, not beating around the bush or wasting any time.

  My chest was working hard at allowing me to breathe as my heart beat fast in my chest. Both of these, coupled with the fear coursing through my system, didn’t allow me to reply.

  When I didn’t, Benny’s hand found mine. He laced our fingers and pulled our hands up to press them against the side of his chest, saying softly, “Baby, simple yes or no. With what we just shared, you meant to share it with me or not, did you come back to me?”

  “Yes.”

  It was one word, one syllable, it sounded strangled and just as terrified as I felt.

  Terrified for me and terrified of what I might eventually do to Benny.

  That one word was selfish. It wasn’t right.

  But it was true.

  At my word, clearly not knowing all my thoughts, Ben closed his eyes as relief swept through his features, then he dropped his forehead to mine.

  I closed mine too.

  God, I hoped I hadn’t just fucked up huge.

  I opened my eyes when he lifted a breath away and, again, looked at me.

  “How long you in Chicago?”

  “I have more meetings tomorrow with docs, introducing them to me, as well as a new member of my team who’s three years older than me—a guy who has been in the pharmaceutical business for ten years when I’ve been in it for five months. So tomorrow, I’ll also be furthering my endeavors to convince him I know what I’m doing and he has to respect that ’cause I’m his boss. I leave the day after.”

  “The day after is a Friday.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you don’t leave on Friday. You leave on Sunday. Tomorrow mornin’, you pack your shit, and when I go home, I’ll take it with me. You’re done with your meetings and convincing this asshole he’s gotta respect you, you come to me.”

  I go to him.

  That didn’t make me feel terrified.

  That made me feel warm and safe and happy.

  But that made me feel terrified.

  “You with me?” Ben prompted when I didn’t say anything.

  “Yeah, Benny,” I whispered.

  “While you’
re here, we’ll talk, we’ll fuck, we’ll sort things out and make a plan. And, heads up, Frankie, we’ll be fuckin’ a lot ’cause I only had you once, but we clearly already got that down. And my guess is, we fuck enough, shit will sort itself out.”

  “That would be your guess,” I mumbled, and he grinned.

  “One good thing about the five-month lag, baby. You’re fully recovered so I didn’t have to hold back and could ride you hard. Better, you could ride me and do it really hard.”

  Another belly dip, which, in turn, made me glare at him.

  Unfortunately, Ben kept speaking.

  “Personal best, gettin’ a woman to come that fast…twice.”

  “Um…I’ll just point out the first time was due to my activities.”

  The grin came back.

  “Bullshit, baby. You were workin’ hard to find it, but you didn’t get it until you got my thumb.”

  That was true.

  And annoying.

  I shut my mouth and kept glaring.

  Benny’s grin turned to a smile.

  The smile faded as his gaze roamed my face and finally came back to my eyes.

  When his caught mine, he whispered, “Leave it to my Frankie. When she does somethin’, even when she doesn’t intend to do it, she goes big.”

  He sounded like he liked that.

  Then again, we were where we were after what we’d just done so that wasn’t a surprise.

  Still, I liked that he liked that about me. I also liked that he let me off the hook so easily. Of course, the sex was great and an awesome motivator to get a man to let you off the hook. But I’d fucked up huge, and still, he opened it up for me and gave me another shot without making me work for it at all.

  Then again, back in the bathroom, he told me if I came back, he wouldn’t make me work for it.

  And he was true to his promise.

  I still was not certain what the hell I was doing. Worse, I was worried that eventually I wouldn’t do right by Benny.

  But I just couldn’t seem to stop myself.

  “It’s late, Ben,” I reminded him quietly.

  “Yeah,” he replied, slid down, kissed my shoulder, and rolled to the side. He allowed himself an eye sweep of my body before they came back to my face. “Like the nightie, Frankie.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered.

  Ben grasped a hip, rolling me to my side, and he pulled the covers over me. Only then did he exit the bed.