The Promise (The 'Burg #5)(21)
I felt my head jerk in surprise at his words before I asked, “What?”
“Babe, you want me to f**k you, you give me big hair, a hint of a bra I’ll wanna see covering your tits before I’ll wanna take it off, and skin.”
My stomach tightened and not in a bad way.
But…
Was he crazy?
“What?” I asked, louder this time.
“Actually, you want me to f**k you, you gotta breathe. You want me to f**k you immediately, you give me that hair, a hint of bra, and show some skin.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What is up with you?”
“You play games with all that” —he flicked a hand in my direction— “you get repercussions.”
“Benny, what…the hell…are you talkin’ about?” I demanded to know.
“Hair, bra, nightie, skin,” was his absurd (and repetitive) answer.
“Gina bought me this nightie, Ben,” I informed him. “It’s like a dress.”
“It’s clingy and shows skin,” he informed me.
“It’s one of the only choices I have, seein’ as you didn’t take me home so I’d have different choices,” I retorted.
“Then I’ll set Ma on hittin’ your house to get you different choices.”
This would be a wasted chore as the nighties I had at home were way clingier and showed a whole lot more skin.
Therefore, I advised, “Actually, if you can’t control your base instincts, you should send her to the granny section of Macy’s.”
He got my drift and I knew it when his jaw got hard. “You doin’ that shit to f**k with me?”
“Fuck with you how?”
“Bein’ a tease, babe. A tease recovering from a f**kin’ GSW, which means I can’t teach you the lesson you should get for bein’ a tease.”
I felt my blood start to get hot, and this time, it was in a bad way.
“What, in all that I’ve done and said in the last week and a half, would give you the impression I’d tease you, Benny Bianchi?” I snapped.
“You, lyin’ in my bed, dressed like that, lookin’ like that.”
“I did my hair and put on a nightgown!” Now I was shouting.
“Precisely,” he returned.
“Are we really having this conversation?” I asked sarcastically, as well as still loudly.
“You got a robe?” he asked back.
Oh shit. I did.
Since I did, I glared.
Benny read my glare, dropped his hands from his hips, stalked to my bag, and dug through it, yanking out my robe.
He then stalked to the bed and dropped it in my lap, whereupon he announced, “Ma’s on her way over.”
I closed my eyes and forgot to be pissed because panic was gathering around my heart.
“She’s gonna be cool with you, Frankie,” Benny stated.
That was what I was panicked about. She was going to be cool. Sweet. Kind. Motherly. All this while feeling badly because she’d been in the wrong and something extreme happened that brought that to light. And her feeling badly would make me feel badly. Then I’d have to accept all the goodness of her, knowing I’d have to give it up again, my choice this time.
The bed depressed and my eyes flew open to see Benny sitting on it, again, hip to hip.
“Can you give me a hint why this is so difficult for you, babe?” he asked, sounding less peeved.
“Which part?” I asked.
“Any of it,” he answered.
“No,” I finally answered his question.
“You’re not gonna let me in there, even a little bit.” He stated this as a fact, but I decided to take it as a statement that needed affirmation.
“No, I’m not,” I agreed.
“Then I’m gonna hafta dig in there.”
I drew in a breath.
Benny digging in there.
God seriously freaking hated me.
It was time to put my plan in motion so I did.
“Your family blamed me. They turned their back on me. I loved you all. That hurt. Things have changed. I get that. But they changed while I was recovering from getting shot, Ben. You need to get that. I’ll be cool with Theresa. I’ll sit down with Vinnie Senior. And after I get through that, you and me’ll talk. But you gotta cut me some slack. This isn’t easy on you. Think how it feels for me.”
He leaned closer and didn’t look or sound peeved at all when he asked, “Was that hard?”
It was.
Absolutely.
And as time went on, it would get harder until it eventually killed. But I’d lived through bad. I could live through worse.
Or, at least, I hoped so.
“Uh, yeah, Benny. That was hard. That’s the point.”
He bent in, leaning onto a hand in the bed on the opposite side of me as he took my hand in his free one, lifting it to hold it to his tight upper abs.
There it was. It happened right away. My hand on Benny’s tight abs that I’d never really get to explore. It got worse.
“You got nothin’ but good comin’ your way, Frankie, I can promise you that,” he said softly.
He was wrong. I never had nothing but good coming my way. If I got good, I lost it. That was my life. I’d learned to live with it. I didn’t like it, but I had no choice.