The Firsts: A Guzzi Legacy Companion Novel (The Guzzi Legacy Book 7)

by Bethany-Kris

  “Well played.”

  • • •

  Nine months later ...

  Mia Cara made her way into the world on a cold February day. With frost crisp on the ground and a chill in the air, his daughter graced a cold world with her warm life. The hours and hours of her birth had seemed to bleed together to him over the duration, and yet as he sat in a hospital chair in the corner of his wife’s recovery room, it was like he could suddenly recall every second of it down to the smallest of details.

  Blinking awake in that chair in the hours after his daughter’s birth, when the sky was dark outside, and the hospital halls were quiet. After their family had long come, celebrated, and then returned to their homes for the evening.

  He remembered it all. Because he would never forget.

  From the corner of the room, Chris watched his wife coo to their swaddled daughter. Her hospital gown had been pulled aside, showing her naked shoulder gleaming under the dimmed lights. With her dark hair pulled back and high into a messy bun, all the range of love and adoration on her face as she looked at their child was on clear display for him.

  He understood that stare.

  That instantaneous love.

  The wonderment of it all.

  He’d look at their daughter with the same expression the first time she’d been placed into his arms.

  “You’re amazing,” he told her.

  Val looked his way as though she’d known he was awake. “You, too.”

  Always for her.

  BENE & VANNA: PART 3

  19.

  Bene

  “THERE?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “And there?”

  “Everywhere, Bene.”

  Bene’s chuckles colored the master bedroom of their downtown Toronto penthouse. He kept mentioning that maybe they should start looking at an actual home. With a backyard, somewhere quiet ... but so far, Vanna seemed perfectly content with their penthouse in the city. If he were being honest, he was more of a city boy than the suburbs type, too.

  But if her wants changed, so would his.

  That’s kind of how love worked.

  He continued working his fingers into all the tight muscles Vanna complained about from the moment she returned home. She finally started back to school which meant now she was eighteen weeks pregnant, on her feet most of the day, and too tired to even speak by the time she got home. All he wanted to do was make her smile.

  Love on her.

  Constantly.

  Like now.

  “Better?” he asked.

  Vanna sighed, and rolled over to her back. Those twinkling eyes of hers stared up at him, dark hair spilling over their pillowcases. He couldn’t help himself but to touch her—it was an uncontrollable urge that not only drove him crazy, but settled him in a way that nothing else could when he did finally get his hands on her.

  “Better,” she breathed.

  Bene rested down beside her on the bed, reaching out to stroke his fingers through the strands of her hair. Then, those touches of his moved to her neck, too. And just like the sweet kitten she could be when her claws weren’t out and ready to kill, Vanna softened and sighed, shifting toward him so that they could tuck in close to one another.

  This was better.

  It always would be.

  “Well,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on top of her head, “at least you have Christmas break to relax before you have to go back to school.”

  “God, I’ll be huge by then.”

  It took everything in him not to roll his eyes. Bene learned his lesson after doing that once to her already because she smacked him for it. When he told his twin, Beni said he probably fucking deserved it because who was stupid enough to dismiss a pregnant woman’s feelings about herself? Divert it, deny it, or just love them ... but never dismiss them.

  “It’s only a couple of weeks away, and you’ll be beautiful,” he said. “Same as you are right now.”

  Tilting her head back on the pillow, she stared up at him. Those soft, pink lips of hers curved into a pretty smile. That’s what he wanted to see the most.

  “Smooth talker,” she told him.

  Bene winked. “I do what I can, babe. Now, what else can I do for you, hmm?”

  That smile of hers turned far sexier when he rolled Vanna to her back, and then went with her to hover over top of her with both his hands pressed to the bed on either side of her head. A shift of his lower half had him tight between her widened thighs. The small swell of her midsection—she hadn’t really popped yet—pressed between them, reminding him all over again, as though he might possibly forget, that this woman was carrying his baby.

  And goddamn, didn’t she look so fucking perfect on her back under him?

  He certainly thought so.

  Leaning down, Bene kissed her once, and then twice. The third time, Vanna answered his kiss back with her own in a way that had his dick perking to life under his slacks. Her lips parted, and she finally allowed him a taste of her sweet mouth.

  Candy.

  She always tasted like candy.

  “Yes,” she breathed against his lips, “you should definitely do that, too.”

  Bene grinned, winking. “Yeah?”

  There was a lot about pregnancy that he hadn’t known or really understood until Vanna was carrying his child. Like morning sickness? That shit was a fucking myth. It wasn’t exclusive to just the morning. And it could be caused by anything from the smell of food cooking to getting up out of bed too fast after a damned nap. Pregnancy was also exhausting, but especially in the first trimester; he swore for those first thirteen or fourteen weeks, his girl slept more than she stayed awake and when she did have to be up, it was to go to school. It wasn’t exhausting to him, unless you considered that every ad which popped up on his phone was about baby stuff because that was tiring.

  Nonetheless, pregnancy was a beast.

  A whole new monster.

  He didn’t blame Vanna when she wasn’t interested in him because she just wanted to sleep. Or even when she was snappy and whiney because she had the worst cravings, yet she knew in a few hours, it was liable to come right back up out of her mouth after she ate it.

  Nah, he just ... talked to his brothers who’d done this very thing before. And his father. He figured it was all pretty normal, and he just had to wait her out. After all, what was a few weeks without sex compared to the life she was giving him, anyway?

  “Love you,” she whispered into his next kiss.

  “Ti amo, principessa.”

  Vanna laughed breathlessly when his kisses dotted down her jaw and then made a hot path over her throat. “When did I become a princess?”

  “The second you became mine.”

  “Ah, well, I do like that.”

  Good.

  She should.

  “One week,” he told her, “until we find out the gender.”

  Vanna fell back to the pillows again, her smile softer than ever. “Are you nervous—I haven’t really asked, but do you have a preference for a boy or girl?”

  Honestly?

  “No,” he told her. “I’ll be happy either way.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Absolutely, but if it is a boy ...”

  Vanna arched a brow. “What?”

  This conversation had been a while in the making, and he hadn’t quite figured out exactly how he should tell her about his family’s tradition when it came to naming the first boy of a generation. He knew he had to tell her, though, because if he didn’t ... someone else surely would, and he preferred to be the one to do it.

  “The first boy of any Guzzi generation is always named Marcus,” he said. “My father has it as his middle name—his grandfather was a Marcus, and so was his uncle who passed when he was a younger man. My oldest brother is a Marcus, too.”

  Vanna blinked. “Oh.”

  She didn’t feel sad.

  More ... hesitant.

  “It’s
not modern or—”

  She didn’t even give him the chance to finish before saying, “Will that even be okay if the baby is a boy?”

  Oh.

  Now he understood.

  Worse, she wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  Shit.

  20.

  Vanna

  “YOU know they don’t hate you, right? Or us. They certainly don’t hate a baby that isn’t even born yet, babe.”

  Vanna gave Bene a look. “That’s ... a bit of a stretch when you say they don’t hate me. I do, in fact, think some of your family—”

  “They don’t. We wouldn’t be here right now if they did.”

  His firm—so sure—statement quieted her, but that was fine, too. It allowed her the chance to think about all those gross feelings that constantly kept poking up whenever she wasn’t ready to deal with them and what she wanted to say next.

  Pregnancy was a lot of things ... difficult; emotional. Vanna wasn’t the kind of girl who cried at the drop of a hat, but yesterday she spilled a glass of milk on the counter and sobbed for a half an hour while Bene sat at the table staring at her like she was crazy. Probably because he didn’t have the first clue what to do, and without really trying or meaning to, he often made things worse. Yep, she cried over spilled fucking milk.

  The irony was not lost on her.

  God.

  She loved her baby already, though. That was the one clear thing about this entire situation. Though she didn’t think some people in Bene’s family were particularly happy that she was carrying his child, she was behind on school, and she no longer had people from her father’s side to act as a family—although, had they ever really been one?—it didn’t matter. None of that took away from the ferocity of the love she felt for a child who she had yet to name, and didn’t even know their gender. She had no clue if the baby would look more like her, or Bene ... right now, she couldn’t even imagine actually giving birth, but she knew one thing that was certain.

  That she loved her child.

  She wanted everyone else to love the baby, too.

  “Stupid pregnancy hormones,” she muttered in a sniffle.

  Though she hadn’t voiced her inner thoughts out loud, it didn’t seem to make a difference to the fact her eyes became wet and a couple of tears dared to escape and tell the truth of the war inside her mind and heart. Still hovering above her in the bed, Bene reached down and wiped the traitorous tears away with the pad of his thumb before they could reach her trembling lips.

  “Sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t mean to cry.”

  “I’ve been told that comes with the territory.”

  She had to laugh at that.

  He wasn’t wrong.

  Besides, Bene was great. More than she would ever be able to explain. Even when he thought he wasn’t helping her, he truly was. And he tried. He made a fucking effort to, for one, make her days better, and for two ... he made sure she knew she was loved by him. Every single day he did that, and she loved him for it.

  “I’m not sure if something like the traditional name would be welcomed by some of the people in your family,” she said.

  Like his brother, Marcus.

  Who currently had the name.

  “Actually, it doesn’t matter,” he told her, “because that’s the tradition. So, whether or not Marcus likes it won’t make a difference to what the family expects. Because I know that’s who you mean even if you’re not saying it. But ... we’re not even there yet, Van. We don’t know if the baby is a boy or a girl, so I might have just brought this up for nothing.”

  “But it could be a boy.”

  Bene smiled. “Could be.”

  “And if it is ...?”

  He shrugged. “Then, we’ll tell everyone after church on Sunday when we go to my parents’ place for dinner.”

  Oh, God.

  “Way to freak me out, Bene,” she said, shaking her head.

  He leaned down faster than she could blink, his lips hovering over hers with a sinful smirk playing at the edges as he murmured, “How about you let me get back to that other thing, and we’ll forget all about this one right now, hmm?”

  “Oh, the sex thing?”

  “Yeah, that. Say yes, please, Bene.”

  She pursed her lips. “You’re something, aren’t you?”

  “That’s not yes, please, Bene.”

  She loved it more when he acted like this.

  So much more.

  “Yes, please,” she breathed, “Bene.”

  That mouth of his kept going lower with every whisper that left his lips. His can’t wait to fucking taste yous and his shorts off now came out so rough in contrast to the soft ease at which his hands worked against her clothes. He knew her body so well now. Could play it like an instrument he could trace with his eyes closed.

  That was why the second he got her silk night shorts off and had nothing separating him from her pussy, Vanna became weightless. She was entirely content to let this man eat her to heaven like only he could. Every hard stroke of his tongue through her slit got her hot and slick before he went straight to her clit until her heart started to hum and all she could do was breathe his name between her fingertips.

  It was only once she’d stopped grinding against his mouth, did he hover above her again. He pressed a kiss, wet with her arousal against her shoulder as he slid in behind her. That was how he fucked her. Side by side, her leg lifted and hooked around his thigh, while his hands worked her crazy.

  His strokes came with an ache. Deep inside, he fucked her with fast, short thrusts that had her falling into a second orgasm faster than she’d ever done before. She had no doubt that before the night was over, the man would have her mind blank and blissed.

  They would be them again.

  Vanna and Bene.

  Nothing else had to matter then.

  21.

  Bene

  “HEY, did you get that text I—”

  “Oh, you mean the meme of the cat?” Bene rolled his eyes, adding, “Yes, Beni, I saw it. You do know I have better things to do than answer your fifty text messages each with a different meme, right? Do you even work?”

  “First of all—”

  “So no, you’re not working.”

  “I’m collecting payments for a Capo, all right,” Beni muttered. “It’s fucking boring. The least you could do, since you don’t want to come visit me in Chicago on a regular goddamn basis, is answer back my texts. Even if they are cat memes.”

  “Does August know about your love of cats?”

  “She’s allergic.”

  Bene snickered. “That’s ... that’s perfect, eh.”

  “And I don’t love cats; I like funny memes that make driving on this road bearable—fucking move, you fucking stupid cocksucker! Who taught you how to drive?”

  He had to pull the phone away from the side of his head because that’s how loud his twin’s voice was in his ear. It hurt. The one thing a lot of people didn’t know about his twin was the fact Beni had terrible road rage, and it only became worse when he was on a freeway where traffic often became backed up.

  It was Chicago, after all.

  “And now you know the reason I don’t visit you in Chicago as much as you want me to,” Bene muttered, shifting through the papers on his desk to find the one he needed. Once he did, he could fax it off to the asshole who called about it that morning wanting numbers on a business venture he was attempting with a friend outside of mafia business. The asshole being his lawyer because contracts were a real thing, and everything needed to be perfect. “I can’t talk for very much longer; I need to head out of here soon.”

  “What, why? August is busy, Bene. She’s got a thing today with Lissa. I need somebody to talk to while I drive.”

  “That’s illegal.”

  “I have Bluetooth. Everybody has fucking Bluetooth.”

  Right, right.

  “And besides,” his twin said, scoffing, “driving while talking is the least illegal thing we
do in this family, let’s be honest.”

  “Yeah, but people with kids drive on the roads, Beni. Pregnant women. You know?”

  That quieted his brother.

  “Vanna getting knocked up made you different,” he eventually said.

  Bene nodded, though his brother couldn’t see it. “I know.”

  “It ain’t bad.”

  “No.”

  “But it’s ... new.”

  Bene sighed. “Yep.”

  “What are you doing, anyway? What do you have to run off for?”

  “Ultrasound appointment.”

  “Shit, yeah. You’re finding out the sex today, right?”

  “Supposed to if I can get you off this damn phone.”

  Because ah-ha he’d finally found the paperwork with the numbers his lawyer wanted. Opening the top of the fax machine, he slapped the paper down and pushed the buttons needed to send it off to his lawyer.

  “Okay, I gotta—”

  “Bene,” his brother said sharply enough to make him quiet.

  “What?”

  “Promise you’ll call me right after?”

  He grinned at that, and really, kind of wished his twin was there. “Well, we’re gonna tell everyone on Sunday, actually,” he said. “You’re coming into town for dinner, so I thought—”

  “Really? If this was my first kid, I’d fucking tell you as soon as I knew.”

  Bene laughed. “Fuck it, I will call you as soon as I know, okay? But I swear to God, Beni, if you tell Ma or Papa what the baby is before I can ... or anyone else, I will carve your heart right out of your chest. You got me?”

  “You know how I appreciate a good threat.”

  “Mmhmm. And how I follow through.”

  “Right, got it. Hey, what if there’s two babies in there?”

  “Beni, there’s one. One single baby. We’ve heard the heartbeat.”

  “Yeah, but I heard about some twins that hide behind the other, and you can’t see them until they’re on—”

  “The ultrasound, yeah. But we had one of those when she was like ten weeks just to check on size and everything. We saw the baby. There’s only one, and that’s it. Back to my threat because I was fucking serious.”