by Bethany-Kris
“Fuck me, Beni.”
“Yeah, that’s what I wanted to hear.”
He kissed her mouth, hard and deep, their lips parting instantly for a taste of each other. He felt her reaching for the bag she’d thrown to the counter earlier with one hand, while her other worked between them, rubbing over his hard cock through the fabric of his pants before moving higher to tug at the waistband.
She found the condom she was looking for in the bag, and he managed to get his pants down ... even if it wasn’t as fast as what he would have liked for it to happen. He let her roll that latex down his cock, the feeling of her fingers tightening on him with fast strokes as she finished was damn near enough to bring him to his knees.
What was even better was slipping inside that tight, wet heat of hers. So fucking slick—she welcomed his thrusts with tightening inner muscles and low moans that said she loved the way his cock stretched her out.
Shit.
So did he.
That brutal, frantic pace of theirs was familiar to him now. The knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to get enough of her urging him on faster, and harder. Right along with the demands of more, more, more from August, too.
He bunched that shirt of his she wore in a fist, pulling it taut so her naked skin was flush against him. His other found the underside of her throat, so he could tilt her head back and stare into her face as he fucked her harder. Like this, he could feel all those shivers wracking her body, and the sounds rumbling from within before she even let them loose.
And he could see her.
See that pleasure.
See his name come out of her mouth.
See her.
That alone was enough to get him off. There was something about the way she looked like this, and how privileged he felt to have her give it to him. To trust him enough to let him do it at all.
He’d never thought about sex that way before.
Not that deep.
And that’s when he realized this was more.
“Beni,” she breathed.
He knew already.
“You gonna come for me?”
Her high whine answered him back.
“Fucking give it to me, then.”
She did.
And that was beautiful, too.
He enjoyed the sight of her coming apart like that just long enough for her to catch her breath before she was demanding the same of him.
To come.
To please, come in me.
His control was gone.
He saw stars when he came.
Goddamn.
Beni licked the remaining powdered sugar from the tips of August’s fingers as she shivered, a pleased sigh falling from her plush lips that had him wanting to kiss her again. Hell, he could and would spend the rest of his life happily doing exactly that.
Kissing this woman.
Touching her.
Being with her.
All of it.
He wanted it.
The words that Beni had refused to really say because he wanted August to make her choices about him and Chicago without his influence started to bubble up from his chest. They were going to spill out, irrevocably changing this agreement between them, if he didn’t get a hold on it, and fast.
“Now that,” August murmured, still trembling in his hold, “was a great way to make breakfast, even if it’s probably cold now.”
“Microwave,” he said, “and it’ll heat up just fine.”
“Mmm, maybe.”
“Except right now, I’m wondering how much convincing it would take for you to let me take you back to bed instead of—”
A knock echoed throughout the apartment, cockblocking Beni in the worst possible fucking way. August laughed at the deep scowl that settled into his expression, but it quickly melted away when she leaned forward to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw.
“Someone checking up on you, probably. Don’t be mad people care.”
“Right, right.” He stepped back from her, although it was the very last thing he wanted to do. “Better get dressed, but just know ... the clothes won’t stay on you for long. As soon as I can get whoever the fuck that is gone, they’ll be going. And me and you will be—”
“Go answer your door,” she said, tossing a dishrag at him.
Damn her.
He loved it.
Loved her.
Beni blinked as the words drifted through his mind fast and yet, not at all fleeting. They couldn’t be something he just thought and then they went away when it felt like an echo chamber in his brain, the words coming back again and again to reverberate through his entire soul.
Love her, love her, love her ...
You love her.
God.
It was so fucking obvious.
Once the words were there, he couldn’t forget them. Once he allowed himself to think them, there was no taking them back. His mind made good and sure of that.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly, stepping back to tuck himself away, and do up his pants quickly. Annoying, considering he hadn’t even discarded that fucking condom, but he would do it soon enough. “But get dressed.”
“Okay.”
She was oblivious, though.
Didn’t have a clue that a simple thought had just changed his whole life. To be frank, she had been the one to change his life from that first meeting, but it was only now that he was truly realizing what it meant, and that he had no fucking idea how to deal with it.
Strange how that worked.
The knocking continued, annoying the hell out of him further. Beni left the kitchen, shouting toward the apartment door, “Just a second—relax, fuck. I need a minute to get decent in here.”
The knocking stopped.
Thankfully.
Beni made a beeline for the bathroom, quickly discarding the condom and washing his hands. He grabbed a semi-clean shirt that he’d left sitting on the vanity counter the day before, and punched his arms through the sleeves as he headed for the door. He didn’t even bother to check the peephole before swinging the door open.
“Do you realize what fucking time it is?” he snarled.
And immediately regretted it.
Because there stood Bene.
Except his twin looked two seconds away from a total, and complete meltdown. The dark circles under his twin’s eyes spoke of no sleep. The slight trembling in his hands told him something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Bene was a mess.
His clothes rumpled.
Hair wild.
Panicked stare.
“Bene?”
Bene’s gaze darted to the bruise that was still ugly looking on the side of Beni’s head. “I called. A lot, Beni.”
Shit.
His phone hadn’t stopped ringing.
August turned it off for him.
“The phone was shut off so I could—”
“I felt that,” Bene said, pointing a finger at his brother’s head. “That right there—I fucking felt it.”
Yeah, damn.
Beni hadn’t even given his twin a second thought the day before when the attack happened. Although, he figured his excuse was justifiable considering the whack he took to the head, and the concussion he suffered because of it. Not that any of those excuses would make his twin feel any better about the situation.
“I figured Tommaso would get someone to call Ma and Dad, and that they would let you know what was going on. I should have picked up the phone, and let you know shit was okay. Did you drive all the way here, or catch a late flight?”
“Drove.”
Yikes.
That was a good sixteen hours or more.
Depending on traffic, and other shit.
“You couldn’t call me back this morning or something?” Bene asked.
“I haven’t even turned my phone back on. We were just cooking, and—”
“We?”
“Everything okay?”
Fucking hell.
Beni wa
s able to watch the way his brother’s features morphed from worry and panic to something else entirely. That understanding washed over Bene’s face, replacing his pain and fear with anger and disbelief.
Bene didn’t even look past Beni to see August standing down the hall. Instead, he just glared at his brother. Like he blamed him for this. Like it was Beni’s fault this had happened. And shit, maybe it was, but he still didn’t have the first clue what was going on with his brother, never mind how to help him through it.
If he even could ...
“Oh, now I fucking get it,” Bene muttered, nodding as he took a wide step backward. “Now I get why you were too busy to call me, yeah.”
“Beni—”
Bene held up a hand, except really, it was just a single finger. The middle one. “No, it’s all right. I got it, Beni, no worries. You’ve made it really clear where you and I stand here.”
“Would you knock that off?”
“What, the fact that you’d rather bury yourself in new pussy instead of—”
“Watch your fucking mouth.”
He didn’t know why the suggestion that August was just pussy to him—something to fuck, and keep himself distracted—bothered him so much, and so quickly. Violently, even. Oh, sure, he’d had moments with his twin over the years where the two of them went to blows over something fucking stupid. That was typical boy nonsense. Average for brothers. And yet, he’d never wanted to really hurt Bene before, but he felt like he might right then.
And that scared him.
It was also a lie.
He knew exactly why Bene’s words bothered him. It reminded him of something his father had once told him about men and women, and it was a lesson he refused to forget. A woman’s worth should never be based on her behavior in the bedroom, but a man’s should always be determined by the way he treats her outside of it.
There had never been an act like a slut, be treated like a slut rule in the talks he had with his father and brothers as he grew up. Things like that, his father made clear, were just a way for men to shame women for the same shit men did all the time without consequence or thought to their own morals. Men didn’t get to expect more from women than they demanded from themselves. It was something that stuck with Beni.
It made sense.
He wasn’t an angel, God knew it, but he also didn’t speak with negative connotations toward women like his brother just did, either. But neither did Bene. That was the thing—his brother would never have done that before.
He took one step out of the apartment, but Bene stayed firm in his place. “Don’t you ever say something like that about her again, unless you want to bleed an apology for it. Do you fucking hear me?”
Bene flinched at Beni’s sharp warning. “It’s not her.”
“What?”
His twin’s gaze darted behind Beni, past the doorway to the beautiful woman who was likely still standing down the hallway, watching them. “Her—I swear this isn’t about her ... I don’t even know her, but it’s an easy way to hurt you. She’s an easy way to hurt you, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m sorry it’s fucked me up. I’m sorry, Beni.”
Too little, too late.
That was all.
“Go home,” Beni snapped, stepping back into his apartment, and grabbing the door in his grip. “And figure your shit out because I’m not doing this with you anymore. I can’t do this with you.”
Not without hating you.
And he didn’t want to do that at all.
He got it now—what his uncle and father meant about the two of them really needing to spend some time apart, and figure out who they were without the other constantly at their side. His whole life had been defined by his brother. He didn’t feel like Beni without Bene. He used his twin as a way to distinguish who he was as in individual, and that wasn’t normal, or healthy.
Because he couldn’t be his own person when he depended on someone else to define who he was. It was only now ... now, when he found a woman that he loved, who wanted him, and defined him as just him that it was becoming very clear his twin was still at that old place.
That them place.
Bene wasn’t him without Beni, but his twin had already figured out who he wanted to be without him at his side.
“Just work your shit out,” Beni muttered thickly, “please.”
Bene nodded. “Yeah, I hear you. I will.”
“Good.”
Beni slammed the door, but he didn’t move away from it. Behind him, August cleared her throat, and he swore he could feel the change in her mood and demeanor without even needing to see the expression on her face in that moment.
“Sorry,” he said quietly.
“It’s all right. I just ...”
“What?”
“I think now’s a good time to let you know. My flight leaves tomorrow, so I’ll be heading out of the city. It’s clear I’ve got some things to figure out, and I think you do, too.”
“Is that what you want to call it—figuring things out?”
“What would you call it?”
Beni turned around to face her. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, me either.”
“It’s fine,” he lied, “I get it—you have to do what’s right for you.”
“Beni—”
“No worries, August.”
She sighed. “I should get going ... Camilla is probably worried about me, and whatnot.”
Right.
Because five minutes ago, before Bene and this fucking conversation, she had been perfectly fine to stay there with him. He didn’t bother to mention the food she hadn’t even eaten that was now cold in the kitchen.
He walked past her in the hallway.
She wouldn’t meet his gaze.
It kind of felt like heartbreak.
That was the thing about life, though. It kept moving even when his came to a standstill. The universe didn’t revolve around him and what he needed, and so he was going to keep on keeping on, so to speak. Whether he was fucking happy to do it, or not.
“I’ll see you later,” he murmured.
August dragged in a shaky breath. “Yeah, I hope so.”
14.
“You don’t have to walk in with me to check in,” August said.
Outside of departures at the O’Hare airport, one could tell the place was busy. There was barely any room, and even Camilla said they might as well just take a cab over because she wouldn’t be able to park her car for long enough to say goodbye. Not without getting ticketed, or told to move the fuck out of the way.
August could see why.
“I won’t, if you don’t want me to,” Camilla replied.
August sighed. “Are you still mad?”
“No.”
“Really?”
Cam’s familiar smile curved her lips upward at the edges as she met her friend’s gaze. “You were right, even if I didn’t want to admit it. Had you told me about Alessa and the meeting ... I probably would have gone a little overboard trying to make you stay.”
“I want to, you know?”
“Hmm?”
“Stay,” August clarified. “I want to be the kind of person that can just leave everything at the drop of a hat—someone who can take that kind of risk, but I’m not.”
“You always were a planner.”
Facts.
“And maybe I should have told you, anyway,” she added, shifting the bag hanging off her shoulder to ease the weight of her laptop, and couple of books inside. “But I didn’t want to tell you that, Cam, and have to turn right back around and say I didn’t want to be here.”
“Except you do.”
“Now, yeah. Things changed since that meeting.”
Camilla arched a brow. “Or did someone change your mind?”
Well ...
“Beni helped,” August admitted, “but I don’t know what’s going on with that now, either. He’s not very happy I’m heading back to New York—I get why.”
“B
ecause neither are you.”
God.
Life was not simple.
Or easy.
August wished her heart didn’t feel so heavy standing there. It only grew heavier as she watched the people flood in and out of the automatic glass doors. Maybe that should have been her first clue that this really wasn’t what she wanted to do, and her heart was trying to be louder than the rational side of her brain.
That side screamed be responsible, make the right choices, and don’t make decisions based on your feelings. The other side, and her heart, whispered stay, stay, stay. That was it. Just one fucking word.
Stay.
It was almost heartbreaking how the part of her asking that she stay was quieter than the rest, and yet she still heard it loud and clear simply because of how strong the feeling was for her. And yet, the disconnect between her wants, and her rational side was a bright contrast ... leaving her confused, and lonely.
Surprise, surprise.
“So, I didn’t miss sending you off, then?”
That voice.
August didn’t even need to turn around to confirm it was him. The goddamn smirk on Camilla’s face was more than enough for her to know it was Beni. Like her friend was a cat that had just caught the mouse, and was proud of herself for it, too.
“A little bird might have told him what time to be here,” Camilla said.
August gave her a look. “Why?”
“Because even though I’m not mad, I still want you to stay. I will pull all the punches, even last minute.”
Lord.
Camilla winked.
August laughed.
What else could she do?
Reaching for her friend, the two hugged tightly. She wasn’t ready to let Camilla go, either—that was the thing, it wasn’t just Beni. Or the job. It wasn’t even the fact that the longer August stayed in the city, the more she found that she liked it.
It was Cam, too.
She loved her friend.
Missed her already.
“I’ll let you two have a minute before you have to go in,” Camilla said, stepping out of August’s embrace with a smile, but watery eyes. “Love you and miss you—call me as soon as you land, okay?”
“I will.”
August turned to watch Camilla head for the line of cabs down the way, but her attention was drawn in by something else. Or rather, someone else.