The Promise (The 'Burg #5)(88)

He got me.

I lost his smile when he dropped his head so his lips could hit my neck, where he murmured, “Sounds promising.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly, deciding I didn’t like my hands resting on his back over his tee.

I dipped them low, then up and got skin.

Better.

“What’s on for tomorrow?” he asked my neck.

“Two meetings,” I told his ear. “Then I was supposed to fly back. But my secretary already got me on a Sunday flight.”

“Excellent,” he muttered.

I stopped talking when his roaming hand roamed over my ass.

But my mind froze when he whispered against my skin, “What freaked you?”

I knew what he was asking and I was freaking right then because I didn’t have an answer.

He lifted his head and looked down at me. “What freaked you that day in the bathroom, baby?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

His head tipped to the side as his hand moved from my ass, up my side, and in to curl around my neck, where his thumb started stroking my jaw.

Once he had his soothing touch on me, he asked, “No clue?”

“Theresa came,” I said quietly.

His mouth went hard.

I tightened my arms around him. “Don’t blame her.”

“No way she should walk into my house like that, she knows I got a woman in it or not. That said, she knew I had a woman in it.”

“It’s not her fault,” I pushed.

“Okay, maybe not,” he gave in slightly. “But that’s not the point. I’m a thirty-five-year-old man, and my ma lets herself in, shouts up the stairs she’s climbin’, when I got my woman hot for me in my bed and the bedroom door is open? That shit’s whacked, starting at the lettin’ herself in part.”

It kind of was.

It was also not so kind of Theresa.

“She won’t do that again,” Ben declared.

“I bet not,” I muttered.

“What about her showin’ tripped you?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe it was just…just…” I searched for it and found something. The problem was, I wasn’t sure if it was the thing. “It was just that we were taking the next step, a big step. Theresa showed, reminding me what I’d lost and got back, and I freaked. As in, Frankie-style freaked, making a huge deal out of it and doin’ stupid shit that hurts people.”

His focus got weirdly acute and his voice got weirdly cautious when he asked, “When’s the last time you Frankie-style freaked like that?”

“I do it all the time,” I told him. “You know that.”

“No, babe. When’s the last time you Frankie-style freaked, doin’ it and hurting people?”

I shut my mouth and thought about it.

“When, Frankie?” he pushed.

I opened my mouth. “I…I guess I don’t know.”

“Was there ever a time?” he asked.

Was there?

I thought about that too.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Why’d you say that, then?”

Why did I?

Oh my God.

I stared into his eyes and whispered, “I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” he whispered back.

“You’re the only family I ever had, Benny,” I said, still whispering. “The only good one. The only real one. I lost you once. All of you. I just…panicked. And it was panic, honey. I wasn’t freaking. I was freaking and I was freaked.”

“Saw that,” he told me. “Even f**kin’ felt it.”

“Oh God,” I breathed. “I’m so sorry.”

“I am too, but not sorry about seein’ it or feelin’ it. Sorry that you wouldn’t even try to get a handle on it so I could see if I could get you through it.”

To that, I said nothing.

Benny did.

“That comes up again, Frankie, need you to plant it somewhere where it’ll grow, where you can get to it so you can find your way to gettin’ a handle on it, at least so I can see to you.”

“What if I can’t do that?” I asked hesitantly.

“I don’t know, cara. That’s why you gotta do what you gotta do to plant that deep.”

I decided to visualize, meditate, get crystals and talismans—whatever I had to do to plant that deep so I didn’t f**k us up again. Not to mention so I didn’t feel that panic again because it was not fun. And last, so I didn’t make Benny feel it.

His thumb gliding over my lips took me out of my thoughts, and I focused on him again just as he said gently, “You know, you’re not your ma.”

I closed my eyes.

“Babe, even before you hooked up with Vinnie, it was like you weren’t part of that family,” he continued. “Everyone said it.”

I opened my eyes.

“Enzo Junior’s the shit because the man is funny,” Ben told me. “He can hold his drink. He’s got a sixth sense when it comes to locating fine tail. And he’d drop everything if you needed him to have your back. But I know one of the things he’d drop is his woman, even if she was in the middle of her own shit, doin’ that so he could take his brother’s back. He’s a player. He’s in his late twenties and still says stupid shit when he sees a fat girl, which makes him a dick. And he’s the best of that crew you call family.”