by Bethany-Kris
“In the kitchen with Val and Ginny and the kids.”
“Oh?”
“They seem to like her.”
It was just … everyone else.
Yeah.
Beni, seeing the nerves in Bene’s jittery hands, said, “Give Marcus some time, huh? He’ll relax and fall in line with the rest of us. He just needs to get shit figured out in his own head before he’ll come around, that’s all. It’s been a rough couple of months for him.”
“Doesn’t matter if he does or not. She’s mine anyway.”
“No, right,” Beni agreed, “I’m sure you’re more worried about Ma and Papa.”
Bene shifted on his feet, clearing the lump in his throat. “A little, maybe.”
“Don’t be.”
Easier said than done.
“Marcus headed into the city for the night and will stay at his penthouse, I guess.”
Vanna didn’t miss the way Bene’s jaw clenched at Chris’s statement.
“Because he has things to handle there, or he’s pissed—”
“Oh, no, he’s still pissed.”
Bene grunted under his breath. “All right, thanks.”
“Mmhmm. Have a good sleep. Hopefully, Dad will be out tomorrow.”
“Right, right.”
Over Bene’s shoulder, Chris called, “Night, Vanna.”
She managed a smile from where she sat at the foot of the bed in Bene’s bedroom. “Thanks, you too.”
Bene closed the door behind his brother, but he clearly hadn’t missed the change in Vanna’s tone when he turned around to ask, “You okay?”
She shrugged, focusing on her hands folded in her lap. After pulling on clothes to sleep in from his walk-in closet—an over-sized tee, and a pair of boxers—she just wanted to climb into bed and forget this entire day had happened.
“Tonight was supposed to be very different for me.”
A new husband.
A bed she didn’t want.
A life that wouldn’t be her own.
And now, here she was.
“It’s a lot to take in,” she admitted.
Bene crossed the space between them, rounding the bed to come and stand in front of her. His hands came to land on her thighs, and instantly, she opened her legs for him to fit in between. Tipping her head up, the two of them took a moment to stare in silence before he was the first to break it.
“It’s all on you now. You know that, right?”
“For now, maybe, until your parents—”
“Vanna.”
She dragged in a sharp breath at the strength in his stare. “As long as you want to be here with me, then that’s where you’re going to be. No matter what. Regardless of what anyone says. That’s how it’s going to be.”
He made it sound simple.
She wondered if it would be.
“You shouldn’t fight with your family over me, Bene. I’m not sure I’m worth that.”
And she wasn’t.
Truly.
Not after everything.
“Except you’re worth the world and more to me.”
“But not for them. To them, I’m just—”
“Mine,” he said thickly, squeezing her thighs at the same time to make his point clear. “To them, you are mine. And that’s what matters, Vanna. I promise, and it might not be easy at first, but we’ll get there. Just trust me.”
“I want to believe you. I do.”
But everything that had ever been hers was taken away in one way or another. A mother she’d never known. A father she wasn’t sure she ever really understood. A life that could have been so different. And almost a future, too.
She wanted him, though.
Bene.
More than anything.
She chose to want something, and she was willing to give anything to have him.
Vanna didn’t pretend to be the victim, not anymore. She did terrible things for a cause that wasn’t even hers, and she was just selfish enough to want to keep a man she knew she had hurt. She wasn’t the good guy here … she was a villain who wanted their happy ending. And still, she wanted to believe him that maybe there was something worthy enough in her to be given a second chance, to start over as someone better.
To be his.
Bene leaned down close enough to her that his body flattened against hers while her hands balled into the chest of his dress shirt. His lips found hers, words whispering along the seam of her mouth in the most wicked, but promising, way. “Then just trust me, Vanna.”
That whisper turned into a kiss lighting up every nerve in her body all at once. It took nothing at all, just their lips dancing a smooth rhythm before his tongue found its way to hers, slashing with hard strokes that already had her wet between her thighs. Because she knew how good his mouth was going to feel once it was on her pussy again.
God.
It had been way too long.
“You want that—me?” he asked when his mouth skimmed her jawline. “You want me to fuck you now, Vanna?”
“Jesus, yes, please.”
That was all Bene needed to hear. Her clothes were pulled from her body by his rough, fast hands, and she only wanted more. A shiver raced through her body when she fell back to the bed, and he took his damn time dragging her panties down her thighs, leaving her spread wide and bare to him when he stood back up.
She hadn’t forgotten what it felt like to be under the weight of this man and his passion but she still loved how it managed to sneak up on her every single time. She heard the tug of his zipper when he leaned into her reaching hands. She found his kiss again, just as hot and heavy as it had been only moments ago before he was pulling away.
Vanna only took in one sharp breath of air before Bene was between her thighs. Her hands, fisted into the bedsheets, quickly left to find purchase in his dark head of hair while his tongue stroked her from slit to her clit, and then his tongue found a fast rhythm beating against the already-throbbing nub.
He knew how to make her fly.
So damn fast.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck … Bene.”
Her words came out just like that.
High.
Broken.
Unintelligible curses of his name. Because damn him for being the only thing in the world capable of taking away everything she thought she was and making her better if only for him. Damn him for making it feel so fucking good, too.
It was the sudden graze of his teeth along her clit that sent Vanna falling over the edge. The orgasm came rushing in fast, a cry catching in her throat when her back arched from the bed. She was still shaking and whispering his name when he slid up her body, already shoving his pants down to step out of them. Oh, he stopped just long enough to kiss the spot below her navel, a soft and brilliant smile tugging at those lips of his, before he was on her again.
Vanna took his violent kiss, and found his cock pressed between their bodies with her palms, stroking his hard cock fast while he grinded against her.
“Vanna, damn …”
She swore her name was a prayer on his mouth.
He worshipped her always.
That, more than anything, got her off like nothing else ever would. There was something about knowing she took away all his control like this that made her sky-high.
Bene’s arms hooked around her thighs, pulling her legs high and wide as she dragged his cock against her slit, letting him feel just a bit of her slick heat before his hips jutted forward. He filled her full and stretched her wide with one thrust, making her let him go so that her palm could rest against the hard ridges of his toned stomach while he fucked her hard and deep.
Fast strokes that had their bodies trembling.
Her heart racing.
And her pussy aching.
She needed to come again, and he knew it. Bene let go of one of her legs to use his thumb to stroke along the seam of her sex where his cock continued to fill her pussy. And then he was circling fast with that same thumb against her clit, using
her own wetness as a lubrication to have her feeling and sounding wetter than ever.
“Fuck yeah, I want that pussy to come, Vanna.”
All his dirty words.
Those dark promises.
Of course, she came again.
Harder than ever.
Bene’s arm tightened around Vanna’s waist where they stood on the right, curving staircase in the grand entrance of the mansion. Three steps higher, Beni and his wife waited with them. Down in front of the main doors, Marcus and Corrado stood in tense silence. Apparently, whatever argument the two had been having just moments ago in hushed tones was now over, and they were comfortable with pretending as if the other didn’t currently exist.
Siblings, Bene had said, it’s normal.
She didn’t know if that was true.
Or if it was—once again—the brothers arguing about her, or her presence in the mansion. She hadn’t left the home once Bene brought her, although Christopher’s wife had brought her some clothes to use, but she made sure to stay with him whenever she could. And not because she thought someone might hurt her, but rather, she didn’t want any of them to be uncomfortable with her.
Hadn’t she done enough?
It was already awkward.
Why make it worse?
Besides, it was about to get worse, anyway.
All eyes went to the front doors of the mansion when they were pushed open, and Chris stepped inside first. Right behind him came his mother, and father. Vanna was sure that they expected to come home to a celebration, of sorts. Or at the very least, happiness. After all they had gone through with the man being in jail, his future uncertain, this should have been a wonderful day.
Instead, the first thing that happened when the couple walked through the front doors of their mansion, returning to their grown children and grandchildren playing in a connecting room, was look their way. Directly at her and Bene.
Gian tipped his chin up, the hard line of his jaw flexing as he bit back words. She didn’t need him to speak those words for her to know they were on the tip of his tongue. The heat blazing in his gaze, practically nailing her to the floor, said it all.
Bene’s arm tightened on her side.
“So, what Chris explained on the way here is true, then?” Gian asked.
“Depends on what he said,” Bene replied.
Chris dropped a handful of bags to the marble floor. “Everything.”
“Oh, and Tommas called, Bene.”
Right.
The man—the Guzzi brothers’ uncle—who helped Beni and Bene put the information Vanna sent him about the Camorra and the dirty cop to use.
Basically, all of it, then.
He knew it all.
“While I understand that you might consider yourself in love with—”
“Gian,” Cara said quietly.
Vanna’s stomach flipflopped, threatening to spill what remained of her breakfast after her first round of throwing up that morning. At least, Bene had been there to hold her hair back, and make her feel better after. She willed the vomit away, begging her body to not betray her.
It was just nerves.
She could handle that.
His gaze flew to his wife instantly. “He brought her here.”
“See,” Marcus muttered to Corrado beside him.
“Shut your face,” Corrado replied.
“Well—”
“That’s enough,” Cara told the two, and then to Gian, “don’t make rash decisions; because he clearly didn’t.”
“You don’t think some of things he did were rash?”
“Stop it. Think about it, Gian. All he did, he would have known what it meant to bring her here, so consider that it means something, and we should discuss it before you say something you cannot take back. Is our son not worth that? And the other thing Chris told us—we have to consider that, too, now.”
What other thing?
Vanna knew better than to ask.
Still not the time.
“That’s not fair, bella.”
“Gian.”
“Cara—”
“We’ll talk, and then you can talk as much as you want,” the woman said, offering no room for argument. “Please, Gian.”
“It won’t change what I think or feel.”
Cara smiled softly. “Oh, is that what you think?”
“I know what I know, and that’s more than enough.”
“Exactly, what you know … but you don’t know them.”
Gian visibly stiffened. “I—”
“We’ll talk, and then you can talk,” she repeated, “please.”
He sighed, gaze skipping to Bene and Vanna again in just enough time to see him press a quick kiss to her temple. “Fine, we’ll talk first.”
“Good. I miss my library. Let’s go.”
“Right now?”
“No better time, Gian.”
That was that.
“You always had to do everything different, didn’t you, son?”
Bene’s chuckles echoed out to reach Vanna’s spot in the hallway. She hadn’t been invited into his father’s office yet, but they knew she was there. It wasn’t like she was spying, or anything.
“You couldn’t make things easy … not once,” Gian added. “From the day you learned to walk, it felt like I was constantly chasing after you. Well, both of you.”
“Where’s the fun in anything easy?” Beni asked.
“Gives me less gray hair.”
“Yeah, well …”
“So it’s known,” Gian continued, “and so Marcus doesn’t chew my head off later, no one is impressed by how this came about. But because there are special circumstances here, and your mother locked me in a room to make me listen to everything she had to say about all of this, we have to make other decisions. We have a lot of things to discuss, but we’re also going to do so respectfully.”
“Or try,” Marcus returned.
“No, we will.”
A sigh answered that.
The conversation continued. For the most part, Vanna followed along, listening to a father act as the referee between his sons when things became heated like they had when she first arrived at the mansion with Bene. Except, it seemed with their father there, all the Guzzi boys were far more likely to calm down when told.
“I often try not to step in when they have these kinds of moments. Gian always managed the boys better alone than with me trying to step on his toes and remind him to be a father first, and their boss second.”
Vanna spun around, stunned at how quietly Bene’s mother managed to come down the hall without her even realizing she was there. Or maybe it was because she had been far more focused on the conversation happening within the office.
Cara, wearing a periwinkle dress that reached the floor, with her red hair let down in soft waves, didn’t look like a woman who had spent months worried her husband would never see the outside of a jail cell again. She hadn’t spoken a word to Vanna after returning to her home that day, but she didn’t take it personally.
Sometimes, one needed a moment.
Just a single moment to breathe.
She was sure that’s what Cara had done.
“Do they do this often?” she asked.
Cara shrugged as she came to stand next to Vanna, just a couple of feet away from the open office doors. She busied her attention on straightening a few of the items on the decorative table and rearranged the roses that had been placed in a vase near the back corner. “Whenever it’s needed, I think. This is … a special circumstance.”
It was habit for her to apologize, now. She felt like the more she said it, the more they might believe her. Besides, apologizing was really the only thing she could consistently do for them after everything. This time was no exception.
“Sorry,” Vanna muttered.
Cara smiled her way. “Do you love him—my son?”
She dragged in a burning breath. “More than I can explain.”
“You know
,” Cara said, raising a brow as she folded her arms over her chest, “I thought it was your face that reminded me of someone the first time I met you, but it wasn’t that at all.”
“Oh?”
“No, it was what you were doing. Getting close, lying to do it, and hoping to use it against us. It was the same thing your aunt did to my husband, and even though I wasn’t around when that happened, I knew enough from him to sense it.”
“I—”
Cara didn’t even give her the chance to speak before she added, “Except there was something different about you, and it confused me. Because I felt that part of you that could do us harm, and I also saw something else in you … something changed when you looked at him. And I couldn’t ignore that, so it made me overlook the rest.”
“I don’t want to be like my aunt at all.”
She really didn’t.
Not anymore.
“You can’t be like her,” Cara replied simply, “because she couldn’t love, Vanna, and she never once tried to help when she only wanted to hurt.”
“Thank you.”
Before Cara could respond, she heard Gian say inside the office, “Have her come in, son.”
Cara nodded toward the door with one of those knowing smiles. Bene came out into the hallway, his gaze darting between his mother, and Vanna. He offered her his hand, and she didn’t hesitate to take it. Vanna took in the people in the office—only his father, and brothers. Downstairs, she knew the women and kids were keeping busy. A part of her wanted to be down there. If only because it was easier to be a coward.
“Sit,” Cara said, joining them before she went to stand behind her husband where he currently sat at the large desk dominating the room. “And then we can all go downstairs and find out what that delicious smell is.”
“Sit,” Bene urged.
She let him lead her to the chairs opposite to the desk. He took one, and she took the other. She kept her hands folded at her middle, but Bene reached over to grab onto her jittery leg, the press of his palm against her jean-clad thigh more than enough to settle her nerves before he removed his touch.
Yes, she wanted it back.
Still, she kept quiet.
Now was not the time.
It was only once everyone had settled into their spots that Gian decided to speak, and Vanna was a bit grateful for that because she certainly didn’t have the first clue how to begin. A part of her still wondered what she was even doing here.