The Promise Page 34

  And anyway, his folks went down first and left Brownsburg to go back to Chicago this morning so they could help out at the restaurant while Ben was away. It was also so his pop could get Theresa away from Angela because, as reported direct to Benny from Cal, “You’d think the woman pushed her out herself, she’s hoggin’ her so much.”

  This Ben read as Cal not getting enough time with his woman and girls, especially the new one.

  Now it was near on six o’clock, Frankie was done with work that day, and Benny was there to stay.

  For three days.

  Which was not near long enough.

  Still giving him a look, Frankie ordered, “Ass back in your truck. We’re goin’ directly to Cal and Vi’s.”

  “No welcome to Brownsburg kiss?” he asked as she veered to the passenger side.

  He in no way liked it when she didn’t turn her ass right around to give him what he wanted.

  Instead, she opened the back door to his truck, dumped the basket, slammed the door, and climbed right in the front seat.

  He angled in the driver’s seat and turned to her to tell her precisely how he felt about her non-greeting. The minute he did, she latched onto either side of his head, yanked him to her, and laid a hot, wet one on him.

  She broke away but didn’t let go as she whispered, “Welcome to Brownsburg, Benny.”

  He grinned at her and replied, “That’s the way I like it, Frankie.”

  Something even more crazy-beautiful than the crazy-beautiful she always was lit in her eyes before she kept whispering, “She’s so beautiful, you would not believe.”

  He knew what that crazy-beautiful was and he wondered, when she gave him their babies, how much more crazy-beautiful it would be.

  “Then let me go, baby, so I can meet her,” he whispered back.

  She grinned and let him go.

  Ben turned to the wheel, started her up, and put her in gear.

  He was backing out when she declared, “By the way, that gift’s from you and me.”

  “Good, seein’ as I’m never shoppin’ for a girl baby. When they have their boy, I’ll kick in. Though, sayin’ that, I’m not kickin’ in in a way I’ll go shoppin’. I’m kickin’ in in a way where you call me and get my approval before you buy anything.”

  To that, he got silence and this silence lasted until he was at the gate to her complex.

  So he called, “Frankie?”

  Her voice was soft when she said, “That’s a deal.”

  He’d stopped to make the turn on the main road so he turned his head and looked at her.

  Her gaze was directed to the side, but he saw that smile on her face. He liked all her smiles, but that was the one he liked the best. It was the one that said she had a secret.

  And it was a good one.

  But Frankie didn’t have any secrets, except the ones buried deep inside, planted by the whackjobs who were her family.

  “What you thinkin’, cara?” he asked and she looked to him.

  “I’m just glad you’re here, Benny.”

  That wasn’t it, but he’d give her that play. He had a cousin to meet and he was hungry. But also, he knew she’d give it to him when she was ready.

  So he just gave her a smile, checked the street, and made the turn when it was safe.

  He parked in Cal and Vi’s drive, got out, and made his way around to grab the basket. He held it in one arm, Frankie’s hand in the other, and they headed to the front door.

  Frankie knocked, but she barely quit doing it before the door was open and Cal stood there, his arm lifted. In it was cradled a little bundle with a tiny, light green cap on her head, her baby body wrapped up tight in a soft, pink blanket.

  For a second, Benny couldn’t move. This was because this wasn’t the first time he’d seen his cousin holding a baby just like that. The last time was nearly two decades ago with Cal’s little Nicky, a beautiful baby boy that Ben was pretty certain Cal had convinced himself the world revolved around. A beautiful baby boy that Cal’s junkie ex-wife let drown in the bathtub.

  His eyes went from Angela to Cal and he whispered, “Cugino.”

  Cal grinned a grin Ben had never seen before from him. He’d seen it though. It was the kind of grin his father aimed at his mother. The kind of grin he was starting to see from Manny.

  It was the grin of a man content in the knowledge he had everything.

  “Get your asses in here,” Cal offered as an invitation and stepped out of the door.

  Ben pulled Frankie in and was accosted directly by Keira, then Kate. Keira took the basket from him after hugging Frankie. Kate went in for hug from Francesca and Ben moved to Vi, who was lying on the couch.

  “I’d get up, but I’ve had kind of a long day,” Vi explained, lifting her arms to curl them around his shoulders as he bent into her to brush his lips against her cheek and round her with his arms for a quick, light squeeze. “Theresa and Vinnie left and Joe practically threw Dad out. I had to intervene.” Her voice lowered. “Joe doesn’t know, but Dad’s at a hotel by the highway, giving us some space.”

  “You don’t have to get up for me and I won’t say a word,” he said in her ear and straightened, feeling her arms slip away while letting her go, all this smiling down at her as she beamed up at him.

  And there was the look of a woman who had it all, lost most of it, and found herself again having everything.

  He then turned to Cal. “I wanna meet my cousin.”

  Cal came to him and stopped two feet away. He looked down at this daughter and said, “Angie, Benny.” He looked to Ben and finished, “Ben, my baby girl, Angie.”

  Benny waited and started chuckling when his cousin just stood there and didn’t offer up the baby.

  “You gonna let me hold her?” he asked through his laughter.

  “You know how to hold a baby?” Cal asked back.

  “Uh, yeah. Carm’s had three, and at one time, they were all babies.”

  Cal hesitated. Ben stopped chuckling and started laughing, hearing himself joined by four women.

  Kate pushed in, got close, and took control, gently taking hold of Angie and turning with her toward Benny.

  “That’s my baby, baby sister,” she declared, handing Angie to Benny.

  Ben wrapped both arms around her, cradling her against his chest. Her mouth was puckered and her eyes lazily opened, then closed and stayed that way when Ben settled her close.

  Staring down at her, he saw Frankie was right. She was so beautiful, he couldn’t believe.

  “I’ll get you a beer, Benny,” Keira called, then asked, “Frankie, do you want Joe to open you some wine?”

  “That’d be great, honey.” He heard Frankie reply as he moved to an armchair and sat down.

  “Joe, that’d be your cue to get Frankie some wine,” Keira prompted, and Ben looked up to see Cal scowling down at him, legs planted, arms crossed on his chest.

  “She’s safe with me, cugino,” he assured his cousin, fighting back a smile.

  “He’s that way with everybody,” Kate said, going to sit at her mother’s feet and promptly picking them up and putting them in her lap. “I thought he’d belt Granddad a good one when he hogged Angie.”

  Ben could believe this. Not because Cal was insanely protective of his brand-new daughter. Because Cal had been insanely protective of his son, he was a man who took protecting his loved ones seriously, and he’d lost Nicky when he wasn’t around to keep him safe.

  Ben figured anyone around Angie was going to have to deal until Cal worked that out.

  “Joe, I could open a bottle of wine,” Keira offered.

  Cal’s body jerked and he turned her way. “I got it, Keirry.”

  Ben looked from his cousin to Vi and said quietly, “You did a good job, honey.”

  She grinned proudly, her eyes dipping to her daughter in Ben’s arms before she looked back at Benny and stated, “I know.”

  Ben looked meaningfully at his cousin in the kitchen with Vi’s daugh
ter and back to Vi before he repeated, “You did a good job, honey.”

  Her face got soft and her grin went sweet and she, too, repeated, “I know.”

  Ben smiled back before he sat back and turned his attention to the baby he held in his arms.

  He felt Frankie sit on the arm of his chair and he didn’t have to bother looking up because she bent over. He smelled her hair, her perfume, and felt the side of her tit press against his arm as she got close and peered at Angela.

  Her head turned and her eyes caught his. “What’d I say?” she asked quietly, eyes so warm, he could feel their tenderness on his skin.

  “So beautiful, I don’t believe,” he answered.

  She smiled.

  Then she bent deeper and kissed Angie’s little hat. She moved and kissed Benny’s jaw. After that, she sat up, turned to Vi, and asked, “What’s for dinner and can I help?”

  “Shanghai Salon,” Vi answered. “We’re bein’ lazy.”

  “Perfect,” Frankie replied.

  “I’ll get the menu!” Kate cried as she slid out from her mother’s feet and dashed to the kitchen.

  This was when Keira came in, holding a glass of wine she gave to Frankie and a bottle of beer she set on a coaster on a table beside Ben.

  And this was when Cal moved to his woman and didn’t sit at her feet. Like she was crystal, he lifted her in his arms, turned, sat, and adjusted her so she was ass and legs to the seat, the weight of her upper body resting against Cal’s chest, his arm around her ribs.

  Vi’s head fell naturally so the top was tucked in Cal’s neck and her eyes fell on Ben with her daughter.

  Taking in Cal with Vi, holding the love he saw on that couch in his arms, Ben looked back down at Angela, wondering if she’d ever know in the miracle that was her, what a miracle she was.

  He wondered it.

  But he hoped not.

  * * * * *

  Ben felt every muscle in his body turn to stone.

  Somehow, though, he managed to get his mouth to move in order to say, low and slow, “What?”

  Frankie was next to him in her kitchen. It was Saturday morning and they just got back from the bakery, a place called Hilligoss. A place Vi shared had the best donuts perhaps anywhere in the world. A place Frankie took Benny frequently when he came down to see her.

  He’d had some good donuts, but Vi was right. Hilligoss was worth considering opening a second Vinnie and Benny’s Pizzeria right next door.

  Now, Frankie was opening a white box that contained a dozen donuts they would hoover through in the next two days, wishing they had more.

  She was also talking.

  “I know. Crazy. Murder. Killed in his own house. Shot right in the head.”

  Ben did not have a good feeling about this, mostly because he never had a good feeling about murder.

  He also didn’t have a good feeling about this because Frankie just told him an employee at her company had been murdered, and Frankie was a magnet for drama. It wasn’t her that did anything, unless she was crazily following some goons who’d kidnapped three people a state away.

  That didn’t mean she didn’t attract more than her fair share just by breathing.

  People went their whole lives without, say, their boyfriends getting whacked. Or themselves getting shot. Or working at a place where someone took a bullet to the brain.

  Frankie had all three.

  And then some.

  “The thing is,” Frankie went on, “I’ve got a weird feeling.”

  This did not make him feel any better.

  “A weird feelin’ about what?” he asked as she plucked a powdered sugar, chocolate-cream-filled donut out of the box and turned to him.

  “Dr. Gartner getting murdered.”

  “Babe, he was murdered. That’d give anyone a weird feeling.”

  She took a bite, chewed, and swallowed, and he reached for a glazed as she continued.

  “He was lead on a big product we’re launching. It doesn’t go live for a while. They’re designing packaging, brochures, leaflets. Organizing presales talk ups through the reps. Shit like that. But his boss, the big cheese of research and development, gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

  And Ben again did not feel better.

  “How does he give you the heebie-jeebies?” he asked, taking his own bite.

  She moved to the coffeepot and started filling the cups they’d left there when they went to get donuts, doing this one-handed, the other hand holding her donut in the air, saying, “He’s a dick.”

  Ben’s body got tight again.

  “A dick, how?”

  She looked to him. “How’s a dick a dick? He’s just a dick.”

  “He a dick to you?”

  “Not directly. He just spreads his dick-ness wide.”

  “And so he’s a dick…” Benny trailed off on a prompt.

  “I don’t know,” she said, grabbing a mug and bringing it across to him where he stood at the bar that delineated the kitchen from the dining area. She set it on the counter by him and went back to get her own. “The whole thing just gives me a weird feeling. He’s all over this product, as he would be. Pharmaceutical companies dump a shitload into development, so they like the happy place of rolling it out and finally making money on it. I just get…” She shook her head, lifted her cup, took a sip, dropped it, and caught his eyes. “A weird feeling.”

  “You have anything to do with development and this dick guy?”

  “Not really.”

  “Don’t have anything to do with development or this dick guy,” Ben ordered.

  Her eyes narrowed and she stated, “I have to work with him, Ben.”

  “Right. I get that. But stay away from this. Stay away from talk about this man who was murdered. Put your head down. Do your job. Let whatever happened blow over.”

  Her eyes stayed narrowed as she replied, “I kinda was intending to do that already.”

  “Take the ‘kinda’ outta that and we’re good.”

  “Benny!” she snapped.

  “Baby, you and murder and dicks…not a good combination. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. Let it play out not havin’ anything to do with you.”

  “It can’t have anything to do with me, Ben. There’re rumors it was a professional hit. Obviously, the guy got into someone for money or pissed someone off he shouldn’t have. I mean, it’s shocking but shit happens. It has nothing to do with me.”

  “Keep it that way.”

  At that, her brows shot up. “I’m hardly gonna start my own amateur investigation.”

  “Good news.”

  “Benny!” she snapped, louder this time.

  “Cara, this guy got murdered and he worked for your company. My brother was murdered. My woman was shot. You live in Brownsburg. I live in Chicago. Not easy for me to keep an eye on you the way a man should keep an eye on his woman, and I don’t like that normally. When professional hits are carried out on your coworkers, I really don’t like that. Cut me some slack here, yeah?”

  She glared at him as she announced, “And this is yet another time you’ve made protectiveness annoying.”

  He grinned, lunged, caught her around the back of her neck, and pulled her to him so she slammed into his body.

  Luckily, she’d put down her mug.

  Also luckily, she tipped her head back to say something smart so he had his target and he aimed.

  His tongue sweep encountered donut, coffee, and Frankie. Getting that, even though he’d fucked her before donuts and coffee, he wanted her again.

  On her knees.

  First, fucking her face.

  After that, taking her pussy.

  So he ordered, “Finish your donut. In the mood to fuck you again.”

  Her eyes widened, her body melted into his, but her mouth said, “So annoying.”

  “We could spend the day at the pool,” he suggested.

  “Annoying.”

  He grinned. “You want me to fuck you.”

 
She glared and snapped, “Annoying!”

  His hand tightened on the back of her neck and he dipped his face close to hers. “You want it.”

  “Benny, you’re making it impossible to eat my donut,” she shared.

  He put his mouth to hers and whispered, “Finish it quick, baby. I want you to drop right here and take my cock in your mouth.”

  Again, her eyes got wide right before her lids went hooded.

  Since he talked her through it, there was nothing in bed that fazed his Frankie. She was up for anything with no hang-ups.

  Now, all attitude gone, sweet wonder was in its place when she asked, “Are you hard?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  She slid a hand over his hip and he touched his tongue to her lower lip when she felt for herself.

  “I can eat my donut later,” she stated and proved this true, putting it on the counter.

  Ben could eat his later too and knew he’d be doing that when Frankie dropped right down to her knees in front of him, opened his fly, pulled him free, didn’t hesitate a second, and took him deep.

  Ben’s head fell back at the brilliant feel of the sweet pull when she slid him out and the sweeter glide when she took him back in.

  He looked down and watched her work and that didn’t last very long before he slid his fingers into either side of her hair, pulling it back, and then taking over.

  She held on to his hips as he watched and fucked her face. He did it slow at first, but after he got her first moan vibrating against his cock, he went faster. Finally, he watched her body start moving with his rhythm, coming up and down on her knees like she was riding him with her pussy with each stroke, and he knew she was liking this near as much as he was when he saw her hand move toward her panties.

  That was when he pulled out, reached down, yanked her up, and pushed her against the kitchen counter, facing it.

  “Baby,” she breathed.

  He yanked up the skirt of her dress and tore her panties down to her thighs. She spread her legs and tipped her ass.

  Fuck, Frankie. Ready. Wanting it. Probably so wet she was drenched.

  He drove in.

  Totally soaked.

  Fuck.

  Frankie.

  He kept thrusting into her wet, tight pussy, bending over her to put a hand on the counter and press his chest into her back, face in her neck, smelling and feeling her hair, fucking her cunt, hearing her gasp and whimper, everything that was his world centered on his woman.