by Bethany-Kris
Although, watching her let his cum fall onto her fingers before she used it to stroke fast circles into her clit until she was coming again with loud cries … well, that was enough to get Bene hard again.
“Fucking look at you,” he said, tone thick with a groan.
“Are you?”
“For as long as you want me to.”
She grinned, her lashes fluttering open for their gazes to meet. “Good.”
This woman?
She was absolutely going to kill him.
But damn.
What a fucking way to go.
“See, told you.”
Bene grinned at Vanna when she turned, wearing his shirt from earlier, her shivers wracking her whole body for a second before he covered her in the blanket he’d grabbed from the back of the Lambo. It wasn’t unusual for people in Canada to keep a blanket in their car, but especially in the winter, in case one went off the road and needed to stay warm until help arrived. His precaution came in handy tonight.
Vanna had been perfectly fine in the water until they had to get out. Then, the shivers started. And her chattering teeth. She was barely even able to pick up her own clothes, let alone put them on. Bene quickly pulled his shirt down over her head and asked if she could stand to wait for ten minutes while he ran to the car for something better.
The blanket, that was.
Her happy sigh at being warm was all he needed before he gathered her in his arms, she tucked the ends of the blanket around him, and the two of them stood like that next to the bottom of Maggie’s Falls. He rested his chin on the top of Vanna’s head while he watched the water pour down from overhead on the rocks.
“You’re happier now,” he murmured.
Her shivering stilled, before her head slowly tipped up. Bene met her gaze, raising an eyebrow as if to dare her to deny his statement. She didn’t even bother to try.
“You helped with that.”
“Still don’t want to talk about it?”
Vanna smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Or it just doesn’t matter now.”
“It matters to me.”
“Okay, so maybe it doesn’t matter when I’m with you.”
Huh.
And her smile was more real now, too.
He took that for what it was and dropped a quick kiss to the tip of her nose. The way her face scrunched up, all sweet and cute, and how her eyes crinkled at the corners, had something warm growing in his tightening chest.
Fuck.
He wasn’t the type for soft and sweet.
Didn’t care to snuggle.
Couldn’t be bothered.
What was this chick doing to him?
Vanna made a soft noise under her breath when he leaned in to kiss her again, only this time, it was his lips meeting hers. God knew he had gotten more than enough of his fill of this woman over the evening—still had the flavor of her in his mouth, too—but that didn’t seem to matter to his brain, or his cock. He just wanted more.
Except their kiss stayed soft, and slow. He didn’t move to deepen it, and neither did she. He liked that just fine, too.
“How much convincing would it take for you to jump off the top rocks again with me?” he asked, pulling away from the kiss.
Vanna shook her head. “You’re crazy. Once was enough.”
“Come on, that was awesome.”
“Until you realize you’re jumping twenty feet down into a six-foot-wide pool of water, and if you jump too far, you might hit the rocks. Which, you know, if it doesn’t kill you … it’s really going to hurt, Bene.”
“And?”
Vanna smacked his bare chest with her hands. “And? Are you serious?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
That was basically his whole life in a nutshell. His mantra should be but did it kill you? He didn’t think it was the right thing to say to her right now, however. He was a little crazy sometimes—still wasn’t stupid, though.
Bene squeezed her tighter. “But you didn’t hit the rocks, and it was fun, right?”
“That’s really what it is for you, huh?”
“What?”
“Fun.”
He thought about that. “I mean, yeah. What’s so great about life if you’re not actually living?”
Vanna nodded. “You’re not entirely wrong.”
“But?”
Because he could hear it.
Even if she didn’t say it.
“But I am not jumping off those rocks again.”
Bene smirked, his hands sliding down the damp fabric of his shirt she was wearing overtop her shivering spine. Those shudders of hers picked up when his palms found her bare ass, palmed the plump flesh, and squeezed. He pulled her harder into his body, letting her feel the firm length of his erection under his jeans.
“You sure?”
She smirked right back at him. “Oh, is the promise of your dick supposed to make me risk my life?”
“It might …”
“Let’s be honest, I can get that dick whenever I want it, and all I have to do is tell you I need it.”
Bene’s mouth went dry.
She wasn’t wrong.
God, he loved that.
How she threw his shit right back at him.
Vanna cocked a brow at him. “Well?”
“Fine,” he half-heartedly grumbled.
“Are you always like this?” she whispered against his grinning lips.
“Hmm?”
“Fun—wild?”
Bene laughed. “My family would say yes.”
“Oh?”
“Usually, it was Beni and me together, though. Always looking for the next thing to chase after—whatever might get us into trouble, but would be fun, too.”
Vanna’s gaze glittered with amusement. “I have no doubt.”
“I miss my twin all the fucking time.”
There.
He said it out loud; he actually told someone instead of keeping it inside his head where no one would know the truth, and he could keep lying to them, and himself, that everything was okay. It was out there. He couldn’t take it back. Maybe he didn’t even want to.
Vanna stilled in his arms, her smile fading as their stares met. “You don’t see him often?”
“Used to. We lived together—fucking woke up in rooms right next to each other for two decades, and then it just changed. He met a girl, got married, stayed in Chicago, and I had to figure out how to do everything by myself. I wasn’t very good at it.”
“Hey.”
His gaze darted back to hers.
Vanna lifted one shoulder under the blanket. “I don’t really know anything about him—just you, Bene.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And I think you’re pretty good at being you. I mean, without him, and all.”
Was he?
“With you, maybe.”
Vanna’s brow dipped. “What’s that mean?”
“It’s easier with you maybe because you don’t know him, or my family … any of it, really. I only need to worry about being me with you—you distract me, it’s easy.”
Her pink lips pursed.
Bene let out a heavy breath.
“Or maybe it’s just me,” he muttered. “Everybody keeps saying I need time without him to just be me … but I keep wondering if all they see is us, and I’m busy trying to prove I can be okay, anyway. Fake it until you make it, kind of thing.”
“But are you?”
“Hmm?”
Vanna stood up on her tiptoes, the blanket falling a bit on her shoulders when her lips pressed to his, and those fingernails of hers dug into his chest in the best way. “Are you okay, Bene?”
He didn’t even have to think about it.
Not really.
“I’m getting there.”
It was better with her.
She was only part of it, though.
“Good.”
She grinned against his kiss. He forgot he was also cold, and still damp,
when her hands slipped under the waistband of his pants. Wicked woman. That’s what she was, and her smile was just as sinful, too. Especially when those teasing fingers of hers wrapped around his shaft, and her words whispered along his lax lips.
“Maybe I lied.”
“About what?” he asked.
“Maybe,” she said, pulling away a bit and winking, “you can convince me to jump off the rocks one more time.”
Bene chuckled. “Knew it.”
Bene drummed his fingers against the steering wheel while eyeing the phone in his other hand. Parked in the underground garage of his building, he should have entered the place a half an hour ago when he first arrived. Instead, his mind just ran crazy.
On the woman he dropped off well over an hour ago. The kiss he gave her before she got out of his car. Her smell still lingering on him.
All of it.
He only thought about the fact that as soon as he took her home, and then arrived at his place alone, the first thing he wanted to do was go right back to her. Make sure she was still smiling because something that beautiful didn’t ever need to be sad.
And then he wondered …
Was it like that for Beni, too?
When he met August, and it was like his brother suddenly did a whole one-eighty with his direction in life, and everything else … had it been that?
Bene never thought to ask, and he kind of felt like a shit about it. Mostly because the first thing he wanted to do was call his twin, and tell him all about the woman he met. This chick he was so fucking on for all of the sudden, who just came into his life by chance, and now he didn’t know where to go next with it all.
Thing was, Beni would answer.
He’d talk.
And let Bene talk, too.
No questions asked.
It still made Bene feel like shit, though, because for all this time, he’d just been trying. Barely getting by. His twin worried about him all the time, and he knew it. Everyone told him. Instead of calling his twin and letting him know he was okay, Bene just pushed it aside.
Lied to himself.
Said it would be fine.
It wasn’t.
Or it hadn’t been.
Yeah, his brother would answer, and they’d talk like everything was fine because Beni would never admit how much it bothered him that Bene never asked about August back then—only acted like a prick—never mind how he’d been acting lately.
Those thoughts, the doubt, and his self-loathing was almost enough to keep him from calling his brother, but Bene turned on his phone, and brought up his brother’s contact before he could think better of it. Beni had already tried making several first steps to fix this shit between them, but Bene kept holding them back.
He would stop that.
Starting now.
On speaker, the call rung three times while Bene stared at the clock on his Lambo’s dash. Chicago was an hour behind Toronto, and it was already a little past one in the morning his time. Chances were, his brother was fast asleep next to his wife, unless someone had him out doing business for the Chicago mob.
And even then, he might not pick up the phone.
Business first.
Everything else second.
Beni did pick up on the fourth ring, though, right before it went to his voicemail. “Yeah, fuck … hello?”
“Sorry, I woke you up, huh?”
It took a second.
Then, two …
“Bene?”
“Hey, man,” he said quietly. “Uh, if you’re not up for talking, I can call you tomorrow or—”
“Now is fine.”
It clearly wasn’t.
He’d obviously been asleep.
And still …
It had been so long since the two of them talked that Beni didn’t even seem to care his twin was calling way too late for it to be normal.
“Everything good your way?” Beni asked.
Bene cleared his throat. “Yeah, I mean, it’s good. A lot of shit’s changed, and—”
“Yeah, Marcus mentioned you got the button, huh?”
His laughter filled up the car.
“Can’t say it was because I deserved it, or anything.”
“You did,” Beni replied quietly, “you just had a moment for a bit, that’s all.”
Right, right.
“How’s August?”
Beni sighed, proud and pleased. “Great, man. Loves her job. You know, her articles made her more famous in this city than I am back home.”
Bene chuckled. “I know, I’m subscribed to Manic Media’s online edition. Swear she could write about a polar bear eating snow, and it would somehow be interesting.”
He wasn’t even lying.
August was an amazing writer.
“Tell me about it.”
The silence stretched on between Bene and his twin, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. He broke the silence first, if only because he just needed to talk to someone about Vanna, and maybe then he could go upstairs to his penthouse alone, instead of rushing back across the city to spend the rest of his night with that woman.
God.
He felt fucking crazy.
“I met someone,” he said.
Beni sucked in a lungful of air on the other end of the call. “Did you?”
“Yeah, man, she’s … perfect. She’s great.”
“Huh.”
Bene chuckled. “That all you got to say?”
“Well, no.”
“What else, then?”
“I mean, does she have a name, or …?”
“Vanna.”
“Has she met Ma or—”
“Not yet.”
“But? Because I can hear that in there.”
“But I think she’ll love her, you know?”
Beni whistled low. “Well, damn. It’s like that, huh?”
“It’s not like anything right now. It just … is.”
It sounded lame.
It was still the truth.
Or, that’s what Bene would keep telling himself.
For now.
“Is that why you called?”
“Pardon?” he asked.
“To tell me about her,” Beni clarified.
“Uh, yeah. Just needed to talk to someone.”
“All right,” his brother murmured, “so tell me about her. I am all ears.”
He did.
He told Beni everything.
“Of course, I am getting ready right now for dinner,” Vanna said.
She carefully balanced the phone between her shoulder and ear as she slid a diamond stud into the lobe. It complimented the thick rope of clear diamonds that hugged her mid-throat like a choker. The only two pieces of jewelry that she wore to compliment her floor-length black gown made up of silk and chiffon with an off the shoulder neckline, and a deep plunge in both the front and back. Not to mention, the slit up her thigh that showed off her sky-high, pointed-toe stilettos and the gleaming skin of her legs with every step she took.
“Just finishing up, and I will be on my way,” she added.
On the other end of her call, Mario continued muttering on about the fact she wouldn’t let him send a car to pick her up, and how that would look on him. His voice droning on in her ear was beginning to get tiring, and she just wanted to get him off the phone as soon as possible. Especially considering her other guest would be there soon.
“The engagement has been announced already,” he continued bitching as though he was going to get a real response from her. “You don’t think someone might assume things based on the fact you don’t have a chaperone, or—”
“Never had one before now.”
“Yes, but because I talked to my father.”
“And you can say that now.”
“Doesn’t mean it looks good, okay?”
Right. Because it was all about fucking appearances in their life. It seemed to now be the most important thing on Mario’s mind, but especially where she was concerned, and t
his ridiculous engagement. She wished she cared to listen to him, but vanity was one of her flaws, and she would willingly admit it. So, instead of paying attention to his nonsense, she found more pleasure in admiring her reflection in the mirror.
Besides, regardless of what she told him, she wouldn’t be going to the dinner with his mother and father in the city at one of their favorite restaurants because she had better things to do. And yes, it was absolutely going to get her in a world of shit, but she couldn’t find a single ounce of her that gave a damn at this point.
Her life had been decided.
Her future, written in stone.
Vanna didn’t get a say.
She wasn’t afraid of what they might do next. At worst, he would kill her for the things she was doing behind his back. At best, they would continue down the same path they were already on with her being forced into a marriage with him that she didn’t want. At this fucking point, Vanna had nothing left to lose. She didn’t even know how to protect herself, hell.
“Listen,” Vanna said when a familiar ding sounded through the apartment, letting her know someone was coming up the private elevator to her hallway for the penthouse, “I need to finish up here, and then I’ll be in a car on my way to you, okay?”
“Don’t make me wait, Vanna. You know how much I hate that.”
Mario’s warning went right over her head.
Oh, well.
“You won’t,” she lied smoothly. “And besides, I am always worth the wait.”
He cleared his throat on the other end. “Sometimes, yes.”
All the time, you fucking asshole.
Not that it would matter to him if she said that out loud, or not. He didn’t give a shit about pleasing her, making her happy, or giving her the things she wanted to make what would eventually be their life better for her. To him, her only purpose now was for her to look good on his arm, act appropriately, and give him whatever he wanted.
Vanna had no intention of doing any of those things, but she had yet to figure a way out of this goddamn situation she found herself in. So, for now, she had to do what she had to do. And tonight, she was doing what she wanted.
The ding sounded again. Someone was in the hallway, coming down to her penthouse. Now, she really needed to get Mario off the goddamn phone. There was no way in hell he would appreciate hearing a man on the other end of the line when she went to answer her door. That would really mess with her plans, too.
