by Bethany-Kris
It wasn’t the first time one of the brothers broke the rules. They simply didn’t talk about it when they did it.
Plus, why not?
Bene felt reckless.
Time to have some fun.
“Come on,” he said, unlatching the driver’s door of the Lambo. “I’m sure you want to see the inside.”
Vanna laughed, following his lead. Outside of the vehicle, he rounded the front, and met Vanna in the middle. She took his hand with her own, letting him lead them toward the grand entrance of the mansion, its sloping roof hanging overtop a large outdoor fountain more than big enough for cars to drive under and park.
She stopped to admire the fountain while he went for the front door, and the panel right beside it. The only way his father wouldn’t get a notification for the security was if he punched in the correct code, and the fingerprint reader scanned a print it recognized—like his, or any one of his other brothers’—and only then could he put the key into the lock. He was sure his father hadn’t given his sons the codes and ability to get inside for Bene to do what he was doing, but he would deal with that at another time.
“Are you coming?” he called to Vanna.
She came his way as he unlocked the front door, following him inside. If one didn’t get to see anything else but the grand entrance of the Guzzi mansion, it would still be more than enough to amaze them. As large as most people’s homes, with two curving staircases on either side, and with a large indoor fountain featuring a naked statue to give it just that extra bit of ... excessiveness, it was quite a sight.
White marble floors clicked under Vanna’s heels as she walked in ahead of Bene, her eyes wide as she looked all around, taking in the paintings hanging on the walls—probably ten of hundreds in the place—although some of the most expensive rested in this hall.
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” he said, “it’s a little much.”
Her laughter colored up the space, echoing back to them.
“But is it, though?”
He grinned, saying nothing.
Frankly, he hadn’t been sure what she would think about the mansion. Sure, he could have just as easily grabbed them a hotel in the city for the weekend, but it wouldn’t be quite the same as this. Besides, he liked familiar spaces. This home was certainly that, and if it meant he got to spend the weekend with a beautiful woman in bed with him, then he didn’t see a problem. His father might, but if all went well, then Gian wouldn’t even know when they left on Sunday.
Simple enough.
Bene kicked off his shoes at the door—habit from hearing his mother repeat the order for him to do it for as many years as he had been alive—while Vanna walked over to the fountain. He watched her as she leaned over the side, admiring the sight of those boyfriend jeans hugging her pert backside, and remembering how good it felt to dig his fingers into her ass as he fucked her deeper. She really did look like an angel, with the body of a sinner. He didn’t have the first clue what he was doing with this woman, but he liked it.
Wasn’t that good enough?
Vanna let her fingers drift through the sprinkling, dancing water while she peered back at him with a sly smile. Clearly catching him looking at her ass, but he didn’t have shame, and she didn’t seem to mind, either. He winked when she just shook her head.
“Was this your childhood home?”
Bene nodded, now shoeless and heading for her. “Yeah, we used to have the best games of hide and seek in this place.”
“I bet. You must have loved growing up here with your twin, and other brothers.”
He blinked, taking in her words. His mind flooded with a dozen different memories, most of him and Beni running after one another through the house, or across the large back property. From sliding down the banisters to putting a slip and slide in the upstairs hallway which had not impressed their parents in the slightest. They even had their own hiding spots and things they liked to do together in the mansion that they’d never told anyone else about because well, twins had to have some secrets, right?
It made him smile.
For a brief second, Bene realized that was the first time he’d thought of his brother all day. In fact, the last two weeks had been so busy for him, and he was enjoying himself so much right now, that all the shit he’d been dealing with his brother getting married and moving to Chicago had become nothing more than an afterthought.
Oh, his chest ached now.
Was that a betrayal?
To not think about his twin?
Bene didn’t know.
Now was not the time.
“Bene?”
He hadn’t realized it until she spoke, but he had come to stand right next to her beside the fountain. Entirely lost in his thoughts and the memories he shared with Beni, his entire demeanor and mood shifted just like that.
Except all it took was her calling his name. A pretty smile curving her sexy lips, and a glimmer in her eye that said they were about to have some fun together.
Just that.
And his mood was gone.
“Hmm?” he asked.
Vanna flicked her hand in the water, making droplets fly up and splatter across his chest and face. Her laughter echoed all around them again as she turned and darted away from the fountain. She’d said earlier that he shouldn’t make a woman run in heels, but fuck ... she was damn good at doing it. He supposed his distraction at watching the way her hips swayed gave her a decent head start to run from him.
Worth it.
He found himself saying that a lot about this woman. And he didn’t even know anything about her. He had to wonder if that was part of the draw—that she didn’t know fuck all about him, and he knew less than zero about her life, too. It made this thing, whatever they were doing together, easier than if both their baggage needed handling, too.
Instead, they could just have fun.
Enjoy all of this.
There was no need to get deep.
Right?
“You can have me wherever,” he heard her say as she headed for the left staircase, “but only if you can catch me.”
Well ...
Bene did like a challenge.
He managed to finally catch Vanna on the third floor of the mansion, crowding her against the decorative table while he kissed the air right out of her lungs. She didn’t seem to care a bit that she had lost their little game, not when her hands slipped into his pants, and under the line of his boxer-briefs to find his hardening cock.
All it took was tight stokes ...
Her fingertips gliding over the head of his dick ...
And then her getting to her knees.
She took his pants down with her, the head of his cock finding its way between those pink lips of hers to find the heat of her mouth, and fuck. He couldn’t breathe, but he could see. It was a hell of a sight, too, with her on her knees, surrounded by so much fucking wealth, and sucking his dick like it was the only thing in the world she wanted to do. His fingers tangled into her hair, holding tight while moans of her name fell from his lax mouth.
Yeah.
Perfect.
• • •
“Have you picked a room to sleep in, yet?”
Vanna didn’t turn around from the painting of his mother and father that she was currently admiring just outside the hallway on the second floor. “The one at the end here, I think.”
“Good choice. The principessa room.”
She did turn to peek over her shoulder at him, then. “The princess room?”
“You speak Italian?”
He didn’t miss the way her throat jumped at that question, but her gaze remained calm and unbothered as she shrugged. “It’s not hard to guess what principessa means, is it?”
“Your last name is also Falco—that’s Italian.”
He wasn’t stupid.
And he could push the line until she snapped.
“I know a little.”
“Catholic, too?”
Vanna
smirked a bit. “Of course.”
Goddamn.
Who was this woman?
She was perfect in every sense of the word.
She turned her attention back to the painting of his parents, tilting her head to the side a bit as she took in the plaque underneath it that stated the artist, and people featured. All the paintings in the mansion had that little plaque.
“Your parents have a lot of art.”
“One whole hall is dedicated just to pieces of our family.”
“And a lot is just ... expensive art, Bene.”
He nodded, coming to stand beside her. She wasn’t wrong. Paintings decorated the walls of the mansion. Statues and different pieces his mother and father picked up along their travels over the years filled every nook and cranny. That was before he got into everything else. From the imported rugs to the custom tapestries. Or his mother’s library—filled with rare, first edition books. His father’s three garages, brimming with custom vehicles.
Guzzis had expensive tastes.
It came with the lifestyle.
Never was there a better show of their wealth, however, than inside their homes. None of his brothers were quite as showy as his parents, but they were still pretty ... excessive. Yeah, that was as good of a word as any.
“A good way to hide vast wealth is in material things, or that’s what my father always says. Sure, we’ve got a lot of money in the bank, and spread across investment portfolios, but you’ll find the real money in my parents’ properties, and what’s inside those properties.”
“Like the art,” she replied.
“Exactly.”
“Why, though?”
Bene cleared his throat, shifting from foot to foot. “That’s ... not an easy answer.”
Because it had to do with his legacy.
Their family name.
The business.
Mafia.
A lot of his father’s illegal business brought in more money than any person would know what to do with, and so to hide what he couldn’t launder to make clean, Gian often spent it. He donated money, too, but Cara was the one who chose which charities their money would go to at the end of the year. Mostly, money just got spent. New homes. Lavish vacations. Pieces of art. Renovating. Things.
It was easy to hide it.
Easy to liquidate.
“We have a lot of money,” he settled on saying.
Lamely, too.
It didn’t matter that he liked this woman, or that for whatever reason, being with her seemed easy even though they barely knew each other at all. None of that factored into this for him.
He couldn’t tell her the truth.
Simple as that.
Vanna, of course, surprised him. “Is what they say about the Guzzis true?”
His gaze darted sideways to her, but she didn’t look away from the painting. “And what do they say about us, huh?”
“Sorry—did I touch a nerve there?”
Bene arched a brow when she finally met his gaze. That was one of the things he found he liked about her, though. She wasn’t afraid to outright say the things that were on her mind. Like when she stated about his wealth, or that day in the bar.
Vanna was frank.
Straightforward.
He respected it.
Even if it made conversations tough.
“What do they say?” he asked again. “And you never thought to mention to me that you recognized my last name when I introduced myself?”
She shrugged. “What difference would it make? I clearly wasn’t interested in your last name, was I?”
Well ...
He gave her points for that.
“You haven’t answered my question.”
Vanna’s expression didn’t change. “I haven’t figured out how to phrase it.”
“Try anything.”
“Your whole family is all over the society rags.”
“As much as we try to avoid it, sure.”
She smiled a bit, murmuring, “They only hint at things.”
“Because my father has a team of lawyers that will sue them into their graves if they try to state something about us as though it were a fact.”
Even if it was a fact, and Gian would eventually lose in court, it didn’t matter. His father had more than enough money to just throw into lawsuits with magazines that tried to spread information about their family. More disposable cash than the society rags had, anyhow. He didn’t mind spending more than enough to bankrupt them in the process, even if he would fail at winning his case, and that’s what mattered the most. The rags knew it, too. The game of the wealthy was not for the faint of heart.
Bene learned that lesson well.
“But the hints ...”
“Mmhmm,” he urged.
She sighed, turning back to the painting. “They make it seem like your family isn’t all that it seems, I guess.”
“We’re not.”
Vanna continued staring at the painting of his parents. “Oh?”
“No, we’re far more.”
And that was all he would say about it.
She didn’t seem to mind.
“So,” Vanna said, spinning on her heel and heading down the hallway with Bene following after her, “the bedroom at the end, then?”
“If that’s the one you want to use.”
She grinned over her shoulder, as if their previous conversation hadn’t happened at all, and she moved onto something else entirely. “I noticed speakers everywhere—can you turn music on, or connect the system to my phone?”
He arched a brow. “I can. Why?”
“I want to dance.”
Bene groaned.
Fuck, yes.
“I would love to see you do that.”
• • •
“You know, I do have to feed you.”
Vanna, wearing nothing but his shirt from the day before, peeked over her shoulder at him as she raised up on her tiptoes to reach for a book on a higher shelf. She looked like absolute sex and sin standing there in the library, hair still mussed from the way she’d let it dry naturally after jumping into the shower with him that morning.
Instead of heading to the kitchen with him, she asked if she could explore. He didn’t see the issue, simply said to stay out of the rooms that were closed, like his parents’, or his brothers’ old rooms. She didn’t mind agreeing.
“Do you cook?”
Bene chuckled. “Well, I can try.”
“You said feed me. Not make me cook for you, Bene.”
“I can make a mean bacon and eggs.”
She grinned. “Is that all?”
He was a little distracted by the way his shirt rode up over her bare ass, and how he could see just a sliver of flesh between her thighs when she leaned forward a bit. Teasing and tantalizing him like nothing else ever had.
“Pardon?” he said, meeting her gaze.
Vanna’s smile deepened. “Am I really that good to look at?”
Didn’t she know?
“Donna, you drive me crazy. Yes, you are that good to look at.”
A sweet pink tinted her cheeks, and even with the shyness she dared to show, a heat still lingered in her stare. He’d bitten her plump lips a sexy red that morning when he woke her up already hard between her thighs, and ready to go.
The shower was round two.
He was looking for round three any fucking time.
Let’s go.
Vanna looked ready for it, too.
She finally found the book she wanted on the higher shelf, and pulled it down to flip it over as she turned around to face him. Leaning against the bookshelves in his mother’s large library, she turned pages, and while he couldn’t see what book it was from his position in the doorway, that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the sight of her smiling over whatever she was reading on the pages. One could always tell a bookworm simply by the way they stared at an opened book in their hands. Pure joy.
“Was this a room I wasn’t suppo
sed to be in?” she asked.
“Was the door open?”
Vanna shrugged, peeking up at him. “Yeah, but it’s ... different in here.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, for starters there’s a wet bar near the window and a whole wine fridge. Also, there’s a glass bowl with a bunch of bracelets in the reading nook. Someone must like Lindor chocolates because there’s a whole selection to choose from in the corner. A journal, too, but I didn’t look inside.”
“Not so much a journal,” Bene replied, glancing at the leather-bound notebook his mother kept on her stand, “as it is something for my mother to keep notes of what she’s reading, and what she thinks about it at any given time. She goes back to her notes sometimes—anonymously reviews for a newspaper twice a month, actually.”
Vanna’s eyes widened. “For the Toronto Tribune?”
“I don’t read them.”
“Are you serious?”
Bene laughed. “What?”
“It’s like the only book reviewer in a newspaper anymore. At least, in Toronto. Everything is online now, and that’s one of the only papers still thriving. The fact she gets two entire columns for her reviews is amazing. And she’s anonymous, so it isn’t even her name drawing in readers for her reviews. An actual, physical newspaper. I read it every second Sunday just for her reviews on the latest releases.”
He smiled. “Small world.”
Something changed in Vanna’s gaze—he couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but he didn’t miss the way her stare darkened a bit, a tiny knot forming in her brow as she glanced down at the book in her hands again. It hid her face from his view, but he decided not to ask her what was wrong because she spoke first.
“So, this library is your ma’s?”
“My father uses it as an office sometimes, even though he works more in the one upstairs. But yeah, it’s hers, and no, she doesn’t mind someone else enjoying the books in here. No worries on that, I promise.”
Vanna nodded, but continued staring down at the book in her hands. “You love her a lot, huh?”
“My mom?”
“Yeah.”
Bene wondered if that was a strange concept for her ... considering how she reacted to talking about her own mother the night before. “I mean, we all love our ma. Growing up, our dad kind of put Cara on a pedestal, and nothing less would do except the very best for her. She was always there, too, didn’t matter if she had shit going on, or was sick ... none of that mattered to Ma, she was just there for us when we needed her. The first person to tell us to go and get something, if we wanted it. How can you not love that?”