by Bethany-Kris
Still beautiful in her gown.
Still surrounded by life and love.
Forever the Guzzi queen.
“Oh, Gian,” Cara whispered, “it’s beautiful.”
Despite her low tone, the room had grown so quiet that everyone heard her just fine. All over again the applause started from the guests. Bene, his twin, and August joined in. He looked around the room to find Vanna once more, ready to join her.
Problem was ...
She was gone.
• • •
“There you are.”
“Here I am,” she whispered.
He came to a stop in front of the chair she sat in, twisting her phone around repeatedly in her hands. Bene had no clue how Vanna found herself on the third floor of the mansion’s largest wing, never mind why she sat outside his father’s office, but at least he found her.
The guests had started to disperse before he finally was able to pull way from his twin, and the rest of his family. It seemed like once his father showed off the portrait, everybody and their mother suddenly wanted a damn picture with everyone and it, too. And then each of the boys with the painting, and then all the boys that were there together with the painting.
It didn’t end.
Vanna wasn’t far from his mind, though.
Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he tried to ignore the fact that she wouldn’t look up at him. Not that she needed to because he could still see that sadness in her pretty, downcast features. Something that killed him with its silence, yet its presence still felt oh, so heavy.
But why?
That was the better question.
What made her sad?
If she told him ...
Well, he’d kill it.
Whatever it was.
She continued playing with that phone as he took a step back to lean against the wall opposite to her in the hallway. Right next to her chair was the opened doorway to his father’s office—rarely did Gian leave it open, but sometimes, he did.
Had it been open?
“Where did you go?” he asked.
Vanna sighed, and let out a tired laugh. “Just ... needed a few minutes.”
“You looked like you were having a great time.”
“I was—I did, Bene.”
So, what was this, then?
He didn’t think she wanted him to ask.
And really, he didn’t want her sad.
Never with him.
All at once, Vanna glanced up, her stare meeting his. He swore a line of water wet her eyes, but when she blinked, he couldn’t be sure because those long lashes of hers made it all disappear. She gave him another one of those smiles.
Soft, and sweet.
Still somehow sly and sexy, too.
“I came looking for you,” she said.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“I heard you with your mom.”
Bene stilled.
Vanna swallowed hard, her throat jumping when she added quickly, “Did you mean what you said to her—that you could love me?”
Well, damn.
“I did—do,” he murmured.
She dropped her gaze back to her hand, and the phone. “Even if I’m a liar?”
“What are you talking about?”
Vanna didn’t answer.
Bene just waited her out.
Eventually, she shook her head, and glanced up with another one of those smiles. “Maybe I just got stuck in my head ... this place, all these people, your family, and you. It’s a lot to take in, that’s all.”
Was that it?
Or was it something else?
“Why come up here?”
“I got lost,” she said, laughing under her breath as she stood from the chair, picking up her clutch from the floor at the same time. “Sorry, did your parents think I was being rude? I didn’t mean to—”
“No, not at all.”
“Oh, good.”
“And they said we should spend the night, if you’d like to.”
“Did they?”
He nodded. “This time, we’re not picking a room, though.”
“Well, that’s not nearly as fun.”
His chuckles colored up the hall before he pushed away from the wall, snagged her hand in his, their fingers weaving tightly together as he pulled her down the hall. “Come on, it’s down this way. The room I shared with my twin—rooms, really. It’s two bedrooms connected in the middle with a large sitting area that we used to use to game, and shit.”
Not that he intended on giving her a tour. Once they were at the end of the hall and slipped into the middle room that connected the two bedrooms, he slammed the door behind them. Vanna was already moving for him. He reached back and kissed her, the force of them meeting sending her flying back to the closed door with a hard thud.
She didn’t look so sad anymore.
He liked that more.
14.
Sometimes, being weak was easier.
Vanna did her best to never be weak in situations—it didn’t matter which kind, really. And yet, right now with Bene, she found it was easier for her to just be weak. To let him react from seeing her sad, wanting to make her smile, but doing it in the way he did best.
By fucking her crazy.
Vanna barely remembered moving from the door to the bedroom to the left side of the room. She didn’t even get a chance to admire the set up of two private bedrooms connected by a main sitting room because Bene yanked her into what she assumed had once been his bedroom in the mansion. She heard the door kicked closed behind her, but she was already walking to the bed. Already yanking her dress high, and letting it fall to the floor. She came to stand in front of the leather bench resting at the foot of a four-poster bed covered in black and red sheets, and draped in a matching duvet.
That was really all she got to see of the room. But did it really matter right now?
By the time she turned around, Bene was on her. His dark words whispered along her skin as his hands fisted into her black lace thong, and yanked it down her thighs, dropping to his knees as he went.
She stepped out of the underwear when he murmured, “Get these fucking things off and spread those legs so I can have my dessert, Vanna.”
“God, yes.”
The sight of him on his knees in front of her, his hands sliding up her thighs while his dark eyes drank her in, and he grinned in that wicked way of his ... Jesus, it was more than enough to promise she was good and wet when he spread her thighs wide.
“Sit.” He flashed her a wink. “And give me this pussy.”
He didn’t need to say it twice.
Vanna dropped her ass to the leather bench.
The coolness of the supple material soothed her overheated body for a split second. Just that second, though, because in the next, Bene was between her thighs. He licked her from her slit to her clit, and back down again. He took his time enjoying her. Making her squirm with the way he’d flick his tongue along her slit, while his hands kept her thighs pried open even when her hips jerked forward against his mouth to get more.
“You wanna come?”
“So bad,” she breathed, “please.”
“Please, what?”
He teased her further, grinning salaciously as his mouth grazed over her inner thigh, moving higher along the edge of her pussy, but not quite giving her exactly what she wanted. And his hands moved inward, the sides of his thumbs stroking along the sides of her pussy just enough to make her tremble.
“Please, Bene, please eat me until I come.”
“That’s what I wanted.”
Of course.
Her words.
Her sounds.
It all got him off.
And she loved that.
His gaze met hers for a brief second as his tongue finally found her clit with fast, hard strokes that hit her in just the right way. Her head fell back, and the sounds that came out of her didn’t feel real.
Just like the way she felt.
How he ate her.
It all mixed together in a tornado of sensation and pleasure. Until she felt his teeth scrape along the sensitive bud of her clit before he sucked it into his mouth with enough force to send her flying over the edge.
Vanna was sure she scratched the leather bench to hell.
Ruined it.
Bene didn’t seem to care.
“Holy fucking shit,” she breathed. “Love the way you eat my pussy.”
His deep chuckle rocked her to the core as he kissed a wet path up her still clenching stomach. Those kisses found her heaving breasts, his attention on her nipples enough to get her thighs shaking again as he shuffled down his pants and the boxer-briefs underneath. She was already reaching for his shirt—he’d discarded his jacket somewhere.
Once she had the fabric separating them gone, and his thick cock jutted out between them, Vanna leaned forward and took him into her mouth. There was something about the image of him losing control—he always did whenever she sucked him off, and it didn’t take her any time at all to get him that way, either—that made her hotter than ever.
“You’re gonna make me come doing that, Vanna.”
Maybe that’s what she wanted.
He must have saw that sly twinkle in her eyes when she dragged her teeth along the silky length of his erection. A burst of salt hit her tongue—his precum. And that was all he gave her before he pulled away, leaned in to wrap his arms around her waist, and pulled her to the bed.
Vanna’s knees hit the bed, and Bene pushed in behind her, his feet still rooted to the floor. That first thrust of his cock ached in the best possible way. Spreading her open, and filling her full, getting his dick soaked with her slickness with fast, deep strokes that had his groin beating against her ass.
His hand smacked down, too.
Reddening her skin.
Making her hot.
Sending her higher.
“Fuck that dick, baby,” he murmured.
God, she did.
Bouncing back on him.
Taking him deeper.
Moaning into the sheets.
“Look at this pussy.” His hand grabbed her ass on the next slap. “So wet and greedy—shit, I wish you could see what I see right now. You look so good like this, huh?”
Vanna whined a response through clenched teeth.
Because soon, she was coming again.
High again.
Wishing she could change everything again.
Because soon the bliss would leave.
She knew it as he pulled out of her, rolled her over, spread her wide, and came right back to fuck her again. As she stared up at Bene while he held her thighs opened, and watched, enraptured, by the way his cock filled her full ...
Soon, this would end.
She’d be good for a moment.
Then, she wouldn’t.
Because she’d have to face what she’d done here.
That she fell in love with a man she was supposed to hate.
That her misdeeds would hurt a man she loved.
She’d done this.
It couldn’t be fixed.
• • •
Vanna blinked awake in the bedroom, the vaulted, gray ceiling staring back at her from her position on the bed. On her back, with sheets tangled around her legs, and Bene’s arm tight around her middle, the room still smelling like their sex, and her body warm from his close proximity ... well, it was the best way to wake up.
And on another night, if everything was different, it would have been the perfect way for her to wake up. She would have rolled over, tucked her face into Bene’s chest, pretended like morning was never going to come, and went back to sleep.
But she couldn’t do that.
Not when her mind ran a million miles a minute, bouncing from one thing to the next, all her mistakes and misdeeds warring with one another while her guilt climbed on top of all of it to roar and make itself known, too.
Who knew what it was?
Maybe it was the fact that Vanna was weak. That she had a heart—emotions and real feelings. That she couldn’t be cold, and see these people, their family, and the life they made for themselves behind their closed doors the same way her father had. She didn’t see monsters. Yes, they were bad people who did bad things, and the past had been colored a bright, violent red by those same things ... but this was now.
Or maybe it was the fact that Vanna wasn’t made to fulfill a vendetta for a lot of the same reasons, and others, too.
None of it even mattered.
She couldn’t do this.
She shouldn’t be here.
What was she doing?
Tipping her head to the side on the pillow, Vanna found Bene still sleeping peacefully. Like this, the hard lines of his handsome face smoothed out, and he looked almost boyish. Still sexy, and everything bad for her heart.
Still hers.
Because that was the thing.
Somehow, this man felt like hers.
He became hers.
Sure, he hadn’t said it. Never breathed those three little words that would inevitably change everything between them, but he didn’t really have to, either. Love wasn’t words, she knew. Love was a feeling—a promise, and a loyalty to another soul. Love was so much bigger than just words, and if she continued to let this go on ... it was going to be so much worse than what it already was, and that was her fault, too.
Vanna did this.
She understood that.
A part of her still felt like she was betraying her father, his memory, and the promise she made to him. Vanna didn’t know what to do about that, or how to deal with it. So, she did the next best thing—and it was still the fucking coward’s way out of this situation.
She couldn’t tell Bene she loved him.
She also couldn’t hurt him or his family.
Instead, she slipped out from under his arm, doing her very best not to turn and look at him as she found her clothes scattered around the room. Pulling the items on as quickly as she could, with as little noise as possible, she let her heels dangle from her fingertips instead of slipping them on, too, knowing they would make too much noise as she left the room.
No doubt, she looked a mess.
Makeup ruined.
Hair all over the place.
Clothes crumpled.
The walk of shame.
Funnily enough, she felt every ounce of that shame, too, as she left the room without a look back over her shoulder. Not because of the man she’d fucked three times before they fell asleep, but the fact she was leaving him at all when her heart screamed for her to get back in that bed with him, and pretend like the rest of her life wasn’t falling apart.
Her heart kept whispering lies.
Tell him.
Tell him the truth.
He can help.
He’ll understand.
He’ll forgive you.
Maybe, maybe ... maybe ...
None of it was true, and she didn’t need to test the theory out to know it was fact. The one thing Bene loved the very most was his family—that much was clear. Just like the rest of them. Finding out she had been working to tear his family apart at the seams would only be the final nail in the coffin, and she doubted he would give a shit about what was happening to her in the clan after he knew what she did to him.
She didn’t need that pain.
Neither did he.
It wasn’t fair.
Vanna crossed the sitting room that connected the two bedrooms, noting the door on the other side had been closed. She couldn’t remember if that was open when they first came in—the door to his twin’s room—because everything happened so fast. They went from kissing against the door, to fucking like animals on the bed in a blink.
She couldn’t waste time wondering, either.
Leaving the sitting room, and coming out into the hallway, Vanna nearly ran into a form turning to come through the doorway. She almost lost the shoes in her hand as her eye
s widened, and she came face to face with Bene’s twin.
For a second, she wished she was dead.
That would have been easier.
Beni blinked, a glass of water in his grip as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing in front of him. Goddamn, she understood that feeling far too well. “You’re leaving?”
Vanna swallowed hard. “I—”
“Bene didn’t say you were leaving at ...” He checked the watch on his wrist, muttering, “Three in the morning—what?”
She struggled to come up with a lie, blurting, “Got a call, something came up, and I don’t want to wake him up. You’ll let him know in the morning that I said sorry, right?”
“Yeah, sure ... can I help with anything?”
“No, I’m good. I just have to get out of here.”
Beni nodded. “Sure, and uh, sorry we didn’t have a lot of time to chat earlier. I was worried about my brother, but he’s doing okay now, and it seems like that’s partly because of you. He does better with you, huh?”
God.
Her heart split more.
“I have to go,” Vanna muttered.
She didn’t even wait for him to respond.
She just needed to leave.
• • •
It was another two hours before Vanna finally faced the front door of her penthouse. Her hands trembled as she slid the key into the lock, seconds away from a breakdown that she had been keeping at bay lest her cab driver watch her ugly cry in the backseat while he drove her back to the city.
She wasn’t thinking about anything except getting inside, stripping off her clothes, and finding her bed for the next several hours. Maybe days, who fucking knew? As long as she could get away with it, then that’s what she planned to do.
Vanna stumbled into her penthouse, expecting a darkened hallway and the safety of silence. Instead, she was met by every single light turned on, and the loud sigh of a guest that in no way was invited to be standing at the end of the hallway like he’d been waiting there for her all night.