by Bethany-Kris
Anticipation, again.
He didn’t let her tease him for very long, though. Once he got his hand between her thighs, his deft fingers sweeping across her slit and straight up to her clit, he leaned in for another kiss. The pads of two of his fingers roved circles over her clit while his tongue warred with hers. And then he was crowding her against the wall, hard lines pressing against her soft curves.
His hand left her pussy to find her right thigh as his other found her left. In a fluid motion, he had her up against the wall, letting her grab the base of his cock to slide against her slit as he raised her a little higher.
Fuck.
And then he was filling her.
Stretching her.
The moan that fell from August’s lips felt raw. She hadn’t realized until that moment just how much she missed this man, and the way he fucked her. A lot like the way he touched her, kissed her, and more. All of it, really.
His hold kept her steady against the wall while she pulled him in for another kiss. The taste of his mouth—tinged with the mint gum he’d been chewing earlier—saturated her senses as each flex of his hips had his body slamming into hers.
Again and again and again.
The beat was steady.
Sure.
So fucking deep, too, because he pulled her into every thrust, his teeth pulling at her bottom lip to draw out her whines, and pleas. Every push of his body to hers rubbed against her clit, making her desire skyrocket fast enough to make her see stars.
“I’m going to come,” she breathed.
“You better.”
It was curling in her belly.
Teasing her mind.
His hands squeezed hard to her ass as she finally reached orgasm, and though she felt the lead up ... it still felt like a surprise. As though she hadn’t been at all ready for it when it crashed through her senses. He fucked her through the orgasm, too, each thrust sending shockwaves of shudders running through her body.
“Oh, my God.”
Beni’s approval came out in a low groan that vibrated against her mouth. “Fuck, yeah.”
“Let me make you come. Let me.”
He said nothing, simply lowered to the floor, and she went with him. Like that, she could control the speed, slow at first, until his teeth were clenching, and his breaths came out a little heavier. She sped up, his hands driving up her spine, and then down to grab her ass, too. Gazes locked, she enjoyed the sight of him losing control under her until his head fell back to the wall.
“Fuck, gonna—”
“Give it to me,” she whispered.
Never stopping.
Not slowing.
Until his fingers dug into her ass, and he pulled her hard onto his cock, stilling them both as she felt him jerk inside her with his release.
“Fuck,” Beni grunted. “Shit, yeah.”
A second passed.
Then, two.
It hit her all at once what the two of them would look like in a pile of forgotten clothes in her apartment’s entrance hallway. God save the poor soul of the person who might have made the mistake of passing her front door in the last fifteen minutes.
Her laughter coated the hallway in between her breathless pants. Beni’s chest heaved as he stared up at her, a mixture of amusement and disbelief lighting up his eyes.
“Why are you laughing?”
“We’re still in the hallway.”
“So?”
“On the fucking floor, Beni.”
“And?” His hands flexed against her ass, that sting from his fingertips clenching in mixing in sweetly with the bliss still singing in her blood. “Laughing after fucking a man is not good, August.”
She heard what he was saying, and managed to sober up just enough to tell him, “I was just thinking ... I can’t remember a time when I was crazy enough over a guy to fuck him wherever we stood just because I couldn’t help myself.”
His palms flexed again.
A grin curved his lips. “Oh?”
“Just now,” she whispered, “just you.”
“You know it, baby.”
She hoped that didn’t change.
Whatever this craziness was between them ... she hoped it stayed exactly the same.
17.
“You know,” Beni said, thoroughly enjoying the feeling of August’s fingertips walking up his naked back while he rested on his stomach, and hugged a pillow to the side of his face, “you never did show me that project for the magazine.”
Her touches stopped instantly.
He felt that hesitation.
“No, I guess I didn’t.”
“And it got accepted, so ...” He turned his head a bit to the side, eyeing the way she grinned but refused to meet his gaze. The naked slope of her throat led his gaze further down to her chest as she propped herself higher with an elbow to the bed. “I was curious to see it.”
“Right now?”
He hummed under his breath, leaning over just far enough that he could press his lips against the curve of her shoulder. Kissing the spot, and then quickly darting higher to drop one to her lips when she tipped her head down for him, Beni nodded. “Yeah, why not? How long do we have before the food gets here?”
“Forty-five minutes or so. That’s their usual.”
She didn’t want to cook.
He didn’t care as long as they fed themselves.
In a couple of hours, they were going to be rushing to the airport to fight through TSA checks, and get on a damn plane. Right now, he could enjoy being in bed with her, because like this, they didn’t have to pretend like the rest of the world existed.
It was just them.
August and Beni.
“I have the digital spreads they made as a mock-up on my phone,” she said, “but I won’t know how it’ll all look and what will make it in for sure until closer to printing time.”
“So, show me the digital.”
Shaking her head, which caused her headful of corkscrew curls to go wild in every direction, he smiled at the unusual shyness she displayed. He wasn’t sure when she had taken her braids out, but those curls of hers looked just as good as her braids.
“Come on,” he said, “I want to see what made it in.”
She sighed. “That’s part of the problem.”
“What?”
Without answering, she was fast to jump out of the bed, just barely out of his reach when he tried to smack her ass. Almost. Her light laughter followed her out of the bedroom, teasing him and making him think he should have just kept her right there in bed with him.
What had this woman done to him?
Many good things.
Despite his last-minute decision to hop on a flight to spend a single day with her before she was coming to him for a weekend, being here with August settled Beni in a way nothing else could. All his worries, the shit keeping him up at night, and busy in the daytime, well, none of it mattered when he was with her.
That’s why he did this.
Why he was here.
Before long, August was back in the bedroom, phone in hand. He did his best not to leer as she climbed—beautifully naked and on display—back into the bed. And failed like the fucker he was, because shit ... how could he not stare at that woman?
And she was his.
Because yeah, Beni decided on that.
He just had to make it clear to her.
“Okay, here it is,” she said, settling down into the bed beside him on her stomach. She flipped through the mock-up digital spread of her article showcasing the urban areas of Chicago, the brands that had come out of the city, and the impact it had on the culture. “All in all, it has the tone I wanted, and showcases what I intended for it to display.”
“But?”
Because he heard that.
Her unspoken whatever.
Felt it, too.
August frowned as she pressed the button on the side of the phone, blanking out the screen. Tossing it aside to the table next to the be
d, she stared at the print on her silk pillowcase, shrugging those delicate shoulders he loved to bite when he fucked her from behind.
Head in the game, Beni.
Right, right.
“I wanted to include other things, too,” she said, “initiatives for the communities, and whatever else might encourage the reader to want to be involved with, well, if not Chicago, maybe their own community. Especially youth, and whatever else.”
“I didn’t see anything in there for that.”
“Because it isn’t. They vetoed it. Not on brand for Bared Brands, apparently. They’re not in the business of showcasing what could be better, only what is good for them, and what looks perfect on a magazine rack. It’s very likely the team will veto a lot of that kind of thing from my pitch by final print.”
Ouch.
She didn’t even try to hide her bitterness.
“Sorry,” he said.
August rolled to her back, staring at the white ceiling above them as she replied, “It wasn’t a bad thing ... or I guess, something good came out of it, right? Because this whole experience made me look at my career in a different way. More what I wanted from it, and what I wanted to do with the platform I was creating for myself, and less about being the tool someone else uses for what they want.”
“And what did you figure out?”
“I was going to wait to tell you ...”
“Tell me what?”
She had all his attention now.
Not that she didn’t have it before.
August grinned, peeking over at him through those dark, long lashes that framed her brown eyes. “I gave my resignation yesterday.”
“What?”
“Yeah, and when I get to Chicago, I plan to meet up with Alessa again. Take that job ... I still have to get some logistics figured out like moving and where I’m going to live, or whatever, but I would rather work for a company that will let me be great and do great things at the same time, than one that only wants to harvest my talent for their own gain.”
He heard a lot in there.
The most important was the loudest.
“You’re going to move to Chicago.”
That didn’t even sound like his voice.
August nodded once. “I am—”
Beni didn’t even let her finish her sentence fully before he was on her. Her laughter melted into something lower, and sexier as he settled between her opened legs, his hands skimming over the curve of her waist, while he leaned in to kiss her. He wished he could take all those sounds of hers and keep them on repeat in his mind for the rest of his fucking days.
They were that addictive.
“That,” he said, kissing her smiling lips, “is fucking awesome.”
“Yeah?”
“So much.”
She gave him a look. “So, what about your issue, hmm?”
Yeah, shit.
He knew what she meant.
“My twin, you mean.”
August shrugged, but said nothing.
Beni understood.
“We’re working on it,” he said. “It’s not as bad as what it was, but it’s not perfect, either. He’s got some shit to work on—being separated hit him harder than it did me, that’s all, and he had it confused on what he wanted to blame for it.”
“You mean me.”
“No, I mean he wanted to hurt me, and he used you to do it a couple of times.”
“He thinks I’m taking you away from him.”
Beni let out a slow exhale, letting her words have their impact. “At first, maybe.”
“I guess—maybe, in a fucked up way—I can understand why he hates me, then.”
“Absolutely not.”
August’s brow dipped as she peered up at him. “What?”
“He doesn’t hate you. Not at all.”
“He certainly acted like—”
“He can’t hate things I love, August. He can be a lot of things about them—jealous, usually—but he never hates them. Including you.”
She stilled under him.
Blinked up at him.
So, maybe he hadn’t meant to say it like that. To just blurt it out, and let it hang between them. Except there it was, and here they now were.
“Because I do,” he added quieter, “love you.”
“Do you?”
“Entirely too much.”
“Or just enough.”
Beni smirked. “I like the too much better.”
August’s tongue peeked out to wet her bottom lip. “Me, too. Because that’s how it feels for me—like I want to just love you crazy. Love you until you make me insane.”
“Because you do ...”
“Hmm?”
“Love me,” he murmured, lowering until their lips grazed.
“Too much,” she echoed.
• • •
Beni’s phone dinged again as he and August headed down the hallway to his apartment. The flight to Chicago was mostly uneventful, thankfully. Except once they landed, he swore his phone hadn’t stopped ringing. Apparently, someone figured out he had left the city without letting anyone else know.
Too little, too late.
He was already back.
“Here,” he said, handing August the keys for the apartment, “I gotta take his.”
He lingered back a couple steps while she unlocked the apartment, and he focused on texting his boss back with a simple, Back at my place tonight—no worries, I’ll be back to work tomorrow.
Tommas was not pleased.
Beni figured, eh, it was done now.
“Oh.”
“Hey there.”
Beni glanced up from his phone to see his reflection staring back at him just over August’s shoulder. Bene, that was. In his hand, his twin carried a weekend duffle bag just big enough to hold a change of clothes, but not much else.
“Um.” August glanced back at Beni, clearly confused. “I didn’t know someone was inside, or I wouldn’t have just opened the door.”
“Oh, I’m heading out. Have a plane to catch, and all. There’s some ribs in the fridge, though, just heat ‘em up, and they’ll be good to go.”
August nodded. “Sure, thanks.”
“No worries.”
Bene stepped aside to let her pass, and she shot Beni a quick look over her shoulder before disappearing further into the apartment. He stayed in the doorway, waiting until he couldn’t hear August’s footsteps before he spoke.
“Thanks,” he said.
Did he need to say more?
Shit wasn’t perfect.
Bene had this thing.
They would figure it out.
“Yeah, no problem,” Bene muttered, rubbing at the back of his neck with his palm. “You know she DVR’d that whole medical drama series? It filled the memory. I ended up binge watching it last night when nothing else was on. It’s not so bad.”
Beni chuckled. “Yeah, I know ... figured I would leave it so she could watch it again. You know, if she came back around.”
“That’s Ma’s favorite show.”
“I know.”
“She’s going to love her.”
Beni nodded. “Yeah, I hope so.”
The silence stretched on between the two before Bene broke it first with, “I gotta head out, but I found that info you wanted on the gang ... passed it along to Tommaso, and he’ll fill you in. Cory knows, too.”
“Was it what I thought?”
“Pretty fucking close.”
Damn.
That was going to be rough news to deliver to the Capo.
“Be safe,” Bene murmured, stepping past his twin.
“You, too.”
Bene laughed darkly as he headed down the hall. “That is the last thing on my mind. It’s full of too much other shit for me to be worried about that.”
Yeah.
Beni knew all about that.
Or, it felt that way.
18.
The bay window in Beni’s living room didn’t g
ive a good view of anything in particular except the large apartment building next to his, and yet August found she didn’t mind that at all as she stared between brown brick, and a blue sky. It gave her something else to focus on other than the private conversation happening between the brothers down the hall. Not that they tried to tamper the level of their chat for her benefit.
She figured ... Beni and Bene deserved their privacy. Whatever the two of them were going through, it was for them to figure out in their own time. If what Beni said was true, and Bene’s issue wasn’t really her in the grander scheme, then she didn’t want to step in between them and make it about her.
Or make it worse.
It was the least she could do.
The longer she stood there, watching dust blow around in the alley between the two buildings because of the wind, and the cloudless sky overhead, the more she realized how much she missed Chicago. She felt it when they drove through the city after leaving the airport, too, but it was only now that she understood what that light, happy feeling in her chest had been.
To be fair, it wasn’t only the city.
Camilla, too.
And Beni, definitely.
New York was comforting. Familiar, really. August knew, no matter what, she could return to that place, and fall right back in step like she hadn’t missed a beat. She knew those streets, could walk them with her eyes closed.
Chicago felt new—something to explore and grow into her own. And yet, it also felt as though it had become apart of her life, in some way. It wasn’t lost on her how something that had seemed scary to her before, a risk she wasn’t sure that she wanted to take, was now something she looked forward to doing.
Huh.
It was only the vibrating of her phone that drew August from her thoughts. She didn’t bother to check the caller ID before digging the phone out of her bag, and putting it to her ear, if only because she assumed it was her father calling back after not picking up her call earlier. She’d left him a message just to say she landed safely, but knowing him, he would still want to speak directly to her to make himself feel better.