The Promise Page 27

I tightened my arms around him. “Don’t blame her.”

  “No way she should walk into my house like that, she knows I got a woman in it or not. That said, she knew I had a woman in it.”

  “It’s not her fault,” I pushed.

  “Okay, maybe not,” he gave in slightly. “But that’s not the point. I’m a thirty-five-year-old man, and my ma lets herself in, shouts up the stairs she’s climbin’, when I got my woman hot for me in my bed and the bedroom door is open? That shit’s whacked, starting at the lettin’ herself in part.”

  It kind of was.

  It was also not so kind of Theresa.

  “She won’t do that again,” Ben declared.

  “I bet not,” I muttered.

  “What about her showin’ tripped you?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe it was just…just…” I searched for it and found something. The problem was, I wasn’t sure if it was the thing. “It was just that we were taking the next step, a big step. Theresa showed, reminding me what I’d lost and got back, and I freaked. As in, Frankie-style freaked, making a huge deal out of it and doin’ stupid shit that hurts people.”

  His focus got weirdly acute and his voice got weirdly cautious when he asked, “When’s the last time you Frankie-style freaked like that?”

  “I do it all the time,” I told him. “You know that.”

  “No, babe. When’s the last time you Frankie-style freaked, doin’ it and hurting people?”

  I shut my mouth and thought about it.

  “When, Frankie?” he pushed.

  I opened my mouth. “I…I guess I don’t know.”

  “Was there ever a time?” he asked.

  Was there?

  I thought about that too.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  “Why’d you say that, then?”

  Why did I?

  Oh my God.

  I stared into his eyes and whispered, “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah,” he whispered back.

  “You’re the only family I ever had, Benny,” I said, still whispering. “The only good one. The only real one. I lost you once. All of you. I just…panicked. And it was panic, honey. I wasn’t freaking. I was freaking and I was freaked.”

  “Saw that,” he told me. “Even fuckin’ felt it.”

  “Oh God,” I breathed. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I am too, but not sorry about seein’ it or feelin’ it. Sorry that you wouldn’t even try to get a handle on it so I could see if I could get you through it.”

  To that, I said nothing.

  Benny did.

  “That comes up again, Frankie, need you to plant it somewhere where it’ll grow, where you can get to it so you can find your way to gettin’ a handle on it, at least so I can see to you.”

  “What if I can’t do that?” I asked hesitantly.

  “I don’t know, cara. That’s why you gotta do what you gotta do to plant that deep.”

  I decided to visualize, meditate, get crystals and talismans—whatever I had to do to plant that deep so I didn’t fuck us up again. Not to mention so I didn’t feel that panic again because it was not fun. And last, so I didn’t make Benny feel it.

  His thumb gliding over my lips took me out of my thoughts, and I focused on him again just as he said gently, “You know, you’re not your ma.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Babe, even before you hooked up with Vinnie, it was like you weren’t part of that family,” he continued. “Everyone said it.”

  I opened my eyes.

  “Enzo Junior’s the shit because the man is funny,” Ben told me. “He can hold his drink. He’s got a sixth sense when it comes to locating fine tail. And he’d drop everything if you needed him to have your back. But I know one of the things he’d drop is his woman, even if she was in the middle of her own shit, doin’ that so he could take his brother’s back. He’s a player. He’s in his late twenties and still says stupid shit when he sees a fat girl, which makes him a dick. And he’s the best of that crew you call family.”

  “There’s Dino,” I told him.

  “Dino’s an anomaly, proof that you weren’t switched at the hospital ’cause he shares your blood and he’s a good guy. But he’s a good guy because he got outta the mess you were bounced around in growin’ up. You’re you because of a miracle.”

  His words made my breath catch as I stared into his eyes. “You think that?”

  “Fuck yeah,” he replied. “Word is, Nat’s back with Davey, and she’s since hooked up with two other guys who are not Davey, he just doesn’t know about them yet. She’s also lost her job and found another since we last saw her, and the word about that is, she’s dancing.”

  Oh fuck. That wasn’t good. That meant Nat, money, a lot of men, and not very many clothes.

  Poor Davey.

  “Cat has dropped off the face of the earth, which could mean anything,” Ben carried on. “Your ma, I don’t know and I don’t care. And in the time I was with you after you got out of the hospital, and our time earlier on this couch catchin’ up, you didn’t say a word about your dad and he lives fifteen fuckin’ minutes away. You fucked me over and sent me cookies. You make meetings on time and think about how to make an employee respect you. Your outfit today, babe…sexy, way too fuckin’ sexy…but admittedly, it was also don’t-fuck-with-me business. Sounds of it, you live in an upscale apartment building. You travel for your work in a way that they put you up in fancy hotels. Your future includes raises, promotions, the possibility of gettin’ a dog—but only the kind I want—and findin’ some way to do all that and circle back to a life with me. You are not them. You are nothin’ like them. You grew up fucked and you still grew up smart, strong, capable, funny, and loving. So yeah. Fuck yeah. That’s a miracle.”

  That was all too much, too beautiful, I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t even believe it.

  I certainly couldn’t comment on it.

  But my voice was husky when I asked, “What kind of dog do you want?”

  He gave me that play, but he did it with his eyes gentling, along with his voice, showing me he knew I needed to make it when he said, “Kid friendly.”

  Kid friendly.

  God, he was killing me.

  “A pug?” I asked, and the gentle look vanished.

  “No fuckin’ way.”

  “They’re cute, sweet, snorty, and friendly.”

  “Any dog that is even partially a permanent fixture in my life has to be at least five times bigger than a cat, and when I say that, I mean a big cat.”

  “That’s the only rule?”

  “That, and it has to be a Labrador, a golden retriever, a German shepherd, a boxer, or a bulldog.”

  My heart thumped with joy in my chest as my lips said, “Oh my God, Benny, we need a bulldog named Churchill.”

  I got the gentle look back and it came directly on the heels of the word “we,” but I couldn’t wallow in it because he stated, “We are not namin’ a bulldog Churchill. We get a bulldog, he’s named Gus.”

  I screwed up my face. “That’s a boring name.”

  He ignored that. “Lab, Charlie. Golden, Honey. Shepherd, Attila. Boxer, Bruno.”

  Jeez, he had it all figured out.

  “Those are all boring names, Benny,” I decreed, though Attila was kind of cool.

  “You pick the dog, I pick the name,” he offered.

  I shook my head. “No, you pick the dog, I pick the name.”

  “Deal,” he said instantly.

  Shit!

  “No, wait, I wanna pick the dog!” I cried.

  His lips turned up and he shook his head. “We had a deal.”

  “We didn’t shake on it.”

  Something changed in his face and I liked the change.

  It also changed in his voice.

  “Is that our gig? We make a deal, we shake on it?” he asked, his face getting closer to me.

  “Yes,” I declared firmly.

  His head v
eered at the last moment and his hand at my neck tightened as his face disappeared on the other side.

  “We’ll shake on it later,” he said against my skin, then his mouth opened over it and I felt his tongue start gliding.

  “Okay,” I agreed, suddenly breathless.

  “Take your panties off, baby.”

  “Okay,” I wheezed, totally breathless, shifting my hands to get my thumbs in the sides of my panties, thinking I was about to learn the meaning of what Ben said earlier about focus.

  In short order, I found I was right.

  I also found I liked Benny’s focus.

  Definitely.

  * * * * *

  “Ben.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ben.”

  “Fuck yeah.”

  I drove down on his cock and ground in, coming hard. Ben was sitting up while I rode him so my arms were tight around his shoulders.

  I was finding with Ben, once I got there, he needed power. So he flipped me and gave me the power. His hips beat into mine, his face in my neck, one forearm in the bed, the other hand at my ass, tipping me up to take him deeper.

  I slid both my hands to his ass and clenched in, holding on and coaxing at the same time.

  He didn’t need my coaxing. It was Saturday night. He’d come home from the restaurant, woke me, felt energetic, and this was the culmination of a lot of hard work from Benny and me.

  He drove deep and grunted his release against my neck, his hand at my ass clasping tight, fingers digging deep.

  He didn’t give himself the chance to come down before he rolled us, still connected, so I was resting on top of him. Once there, he heaved a deep breath and kept his hand at my ass while he wrapped the other arm tight along my lower back.

  I nuzzled my face in his neck and sighed.

  Friday had been good. Ben took another night off work to be with me. So Benny, he took me out to dinner and a movie. Date night. Not Giuseppe’s, but it was still sweet.

  That day, Saturday, we slept in. We lazed. We talked in whispers. We made love. Then Ben went to the restaurant and I camped out on his couch, watching TV, relaxing, trying to get to a place where I could accept the promise of a life that was what Benny seemed to be offering me.

  Easy.

  We’d agreed that my return would not be shared officially with the family (though it was certain Mrs. Zambino had been on her phone, so it was in no doubt this had happened unofficially) until I was ready.

  I had a feeling Ben agreed to this to make certain my return took. But I didn’t ask. He wasn’t being cautious; he was all in. But I didn’t suspect my departure with Ben in close proximity of at least Theresa didn’t garner him some headaches. I could see him not wanting to court that again just in case I freaked, did something stupid, fucked up, and bailed.

  “It gets too much, baby, you have my permission to give up on me.”

  I said that against his neck. I didn’t think it before it came out. But what I’d been thinking before just made it come out.

  When it did, Ben’s grip on me tightened momentarily before he rolled us again. He slid out while he did, but he ended full-out on top of me.

  It was dark. When he came home and woke me to make love with me, he didn’t bother with a light.

  Still, from moonlight and streetlight coming in through the windows, I could see the angles of his handsome face. I just couldn’t read them.

  “Where’d that come from?” he asked softly.

  “I don’t know,” I answered in a whisper.

  “Where’d that come from, Frankie?” he repeated.

  I slid my arms around him and held tight, feeling a curl of fear in my belly.

  “I don’t know, honey.”

  “It came from somewhere,” he noted.

  “I know.”

  “How do we get to that place so we can dig that out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He went silent and I did too, holding tight to him, looking into his shadowed face.

  Finally, he spoke, deep, easy, quiet, and sweet.

  But what he said was scary.

  “Okay, cara, I’ll be givin’ you a bunch of ‘I don’t knows.’ But then, for you, for me, for us, I’ll get to a place where I can’t give you them anymore. I cannot dig blind. You gotta show me where to put the shovel. And that’s gotta come from you, Frankie.”

  “I know.”

  And I did know. I just didn’t know how to find that place, and I didn’t want to get to the place where Ben got sick of me not knowing.

  “So locate where you want me to put that shovel, baby,” he urged. “And while you’re searchin, do it knowin’ I’m at your side. That means, you need to talk, I’m here. You need to freak, I’m still here. Bottom line, I’m here.”

  On the heels of his words, I felt the fear evaporate. I slid my hand up his back and into his hair, asking, “How’d you learn to be so awesome?”

  “I got my eyes to the prize, honey.”

  I slid my hand to his cheek, lifted up, and put my mouth to his.

  Ben slanted his head and took it.

  The kiss was deep, sweet, and easy.

  When it was done, Ben shifted to kiss my neck and rolled off the bed. He went to the bathroom and came back to me.

  Naked, he tangled us together and murmured, “Sleep.”

  I cuddled closer and closed my eyes.

  “’Night, Benny.”

  “’Night, Frankie.”

  I snuggled deep and fell asleep.

  * * * * *

  “This sucks,” I declared, standing in Benny’s arms outside the security lines at O’Hare.

  “Yep,” Ben agreed.

  “I wish they still let non-fliers through security so I could look out the window on the plane and see you standing inside, watching me. You could put your hand to the glass and I could put mine to the window, and we could have one final moment that happens half an hour from now, and in between we can share a coffee.”

  Ben’s lips tipped slightly up before he noted, “We’re not in a romantic movie.”

  “That makes it better since it’s real,” I returned.

  Ben ignored me and continued, “And I wouldn’t do that shit.”

  My brows shot up. “Even for me?”

  “It’s corny. I’m not corny.”

  “It’s a moment.”

  “I got one final moment with you, it won’t be with my hand on glass. It’ll be with my tongue in your mouth and my hand on your ass.”

  I glared, even as I felt a spasm between my legs.

  Ben grinned and dipped his head closer, muttering, “Bet now you’re wet.”

  I glared harder because he was right.

  Ben grinned bigger because he knew he was right, then he dipped his head even closer and took a Benny-style final moment—hand on my ass in O’Hare and everything.

  I didn’t mind. I liked it. I wouldn’t admit it out loud, but it was way better than my idea.

  He broke the kiss and ordered, “Call me when you get in.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll talk to Man, schedule back-to-back nights so I can take a trip down.”

  “Okay.”

  “Check your schedule and sort a time when you dip into those frequent flier miles.”

  My arms around his shoulders, I gave him a squeeze, smiling up at him and trying not to laugh since we’d been through this already.

  Then I said, “Okay, Benny.”

  His face changed. I liked the change just as I hated it because it told me how much he was going to miss me, mirroring my same feelings.

  “Fuckin’ thrilled you healed the breach, Frankie.”

  “Me too, Benny.”

  His eyes warmed even further.

  Then he bent his head, touched his mouth to mine, and said there, “Go, baby.”

  I pressed my lips together, nodded, gave him another squeeze, and let him go.

  Eight times through security, I looked back, waved, made faces, and blew k
isses.

  Every time I looked back, Ben was standing there, arms crossed on his chest, grinning at me.

  The last time I looked back, I was through security and heading toward the concourse.

  And Ben was still standing there, grinning at me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  And Fast

  For the three thousandth time that evening, I heard a car, went to my window, and looked out.

  Three thousand was the golden number. I knew this when I saw the car outside was Benny’s Explorer.

  This meant I ran to the door of my apartment, threw it open and dashed out, racing straight to Ben, who’d managed in that time to angle out of his SUV.

  I didn’t slow. I hit him on the fly, arms wrapped around his neck, legs around his hips. He went back on a foot on impact, but I only vaguely noticed. This was because I bent my head and laid a wet one on him.

  One arm around my back, one under my ass, he let me.

  In order to breathe, I eventually had to lift my head.

  But when I did, I smiled big down at him and said, “Hey, baby. Welcome to Brownsburg.”

  He smiled back, gave me a squeeze, and replied, “Think it’s safe to say you’re happy to see me.”

  “Two weeks is too long,” I returned.

  “Yeah,” he said, still smiling. “Now, do I gotta carry you in and haul my ass back out here to get my shit, or are you gonna let go so I can take one trip?”

  “I suppose I’ll let go,” I told him.

  I said it, but I didn’t let go.

  Ben waited.

  I held on and kept grinning at him.

  After this went on awhile, Ben started laughing but hefted me up a smidge, his signal he was done with my game.

  It was then it hit me he’d been on the road for hours so I should get him inside, get him a beer, and get him fed. Once I got all that accomplished, I’d get something else out of him, and not out on the street.

  I loosened my limbs and he put me on my feet. But he immediately grabbed my hand and used it to adjust my position in order to open the back door of his truck. He nabbed his bag, slammed the door, and moved with me to my opened apartment door.

  He did this looking around, and we were on the curvy path that led to my place when he looked down at me and noted, “This place is the shit, babe.”

  It was. The Brendal apartment complex in Brownsburg. Steep rent, but the landscaping was amazing. It was kept clean, had security, was gated, had top-of-the-line everything, and each floor plan for each unit was different, but differently awesome.