The Promise (The 'Burg #5)(36)

Hours later, when everyone was long gone, Benny rested his back against pillows shoved up on the headboard of his bed, Frankie doing the same beside him. After thirty minutes of watching television, which was after ten minutes of Frankie bickering with him about why he was stretched out beside her and not downstairs on the couch, she declared, “I need you to take me home tomorrow.”

He turned eyes from the TV to her. “Why?”

“’Cause your ma brought me loungewear. I’m meeting Vi’s girls. I need better than loungewear.”

He turned his eyes back to the TV. “I think they know you were shot so I’d guess they won’t expect you in a ball gown.”

“I don’t want a ball gown. I don’t even own a ball gown. I want a nice dress.”

“I think they know you were shot,” he repeated to the TV. “So I’d guess they won’t expect you to be in a nice dress.”

“Do you have pressing matters to attend to tomorrow before they get here?” she asked.

“Nope,” he answered, feeling her attitude beginning to fill the room and fighting back a smile.

“So you aren’t making pizza for the governor?” she went on.

“Not that I know of,” he replied.

“Then it isn’t that your schedule is full that you can’t take me to my apartment to get a nice dress.”

He didn’t turn his eyes to her on that. He turned his whole torso to her and got her gaze when he did.

“You own a dress that won’t make my dick get hard?”

Her eyes got squinty, but her mouth stayed closed.

“Can I take that as a no?” he pushed.

“FYI, women don’t like it when men talk like that, Benny Bianchi.”

“Bullshit, Francesca Concetti. They f**kin’ love that shit.”

“Wrong,” she snapped.

“After our talk on Monday, when you come to your senses, I’ll give you more of that when I’m in the position to test the results of my theory.”

She straightened on her pillows. “Seriously?”

“Absolutely.”

“When I’ve come to my senses,” she stated.

“Yep,” he replied.

“Do you try to piss me off?” she asked, and he grinned.

“You haven’t got that?”

“Why?” Her voice was pitching higher.

“You pissed is cute. It’s hot. And, just sayin’, it makes me hard.”

“Are you hard right now?”

“Be my pleasure, you wanna check.”

Abruptly, she leaned forward, pulled a pillow from behind her, swung it around, and slapped it against his chest.

Then she found it no longer in her hands and her body no longer up on pillows but on its back down the bed, her side pinned by his front and his face in hers.

“Do not move like that,” he growled, and she stared up at him, eyes wide, as he did.

“Benny.”

“I’m all for a pillow fight in three weeks when your stitches have dissolved, you don’t wake dazed and fightin’ pain, and I don’t have a heart attack every time you do somethin’ jerky or abrupt.”

“Ben—”

“You need to see to yourself, Francesca. You don’t, like I just demonstrated, I will.”

He watched it pass through her eyes. That good something he was getting meant he’d said or done something she liked, but she wasn’t going to give it to him straight out, and he felt her body relax against his.

“You got me?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she answered.

“You hurt yourself just now?” he pressed.

“No, Ben. It’s actually been a good day,” she told him.

“You woke rough,” he told her.

“I know. It was weird. But I rallied faster.”

“It worried me.”

He watched her entire face soften to a look that made beauty indescribable before she said, “Nat’s brand of good-morning notwithstanding, it’s the best day I’ve had since it happened.”

“You good with Pop?”

“Yeah, Benny.”

“Good.”

She was silent a moment before she asked, “You done being a hotheaded, protective, Italian guy?”

“I’m never done with that.”

At that, he felt her body melt against his and she whispered, “Ben,” but said no more.

He wasn’t done talking. Not with her body partly under his, her eyes on his, her hair all over his bed.

He had something to say.

So he said it.

“I wanna kiss you.”

Her body tensed, and not the bad way. The f**king good one. But she said nothing.

“You got until Monday,” he informed her.

She drew her lower lip between her teeth, and f**k, he wanted to kiss her even more.

Instead, carefully, gently, he rolled, taking her with him and pulling her up so he was, again, on his back on the pillows and she was tucked to his side, head to his chest.

Once he got her in place, it was Frankie who snaked her arm around his gut.

Progress. Fucking finally.

He aimed his eyes at the TV but said, “You wanna wear somethin’ nice for Vi and her girls, I’ll take you to your place in the morning.”