His eyes narrowed on my face and I watched them take in what was there and process it. I knew it when his entire face gentled.

Oh yes. I wanted a shot at that.

“Baby—” he started.

“Now,” I cut him off.

He studied me for long seconds before he nodded, moved to the door, and threw it open for me.

I walked in, went directly to the living room, and tossed my purse on the couch.

As I was doing that, I heard the door closing, and when I looked that way, Ben was in the room with me.

I had to do this now. I had to get this out.

Then I had to get gone.

“I loved your brother,” I declared, and his body jerked to a halt, his eyes leveling on me, his sudden intensity filling the room.

“I know that,” he said slowly.

“No, Ben, I loved your brother,” I stressed.

“I know that, Frankie,” he replied.

“When I was with him, I did not think of you this way,” I shared, lifting a hand and waving it between him and me. “Not ever.”

“Okay,” he said as a prompt when I quit talking.

“When he died, it broke me.”

He closed his eyes on a wince, opened them, and focused on me again.

“I know, baby,” he said quietly.

“It broke me because I loved him. It broke me because I missed him. It broke me because I wasn’t the kind of woman who was strong enough to stop him from throwing his life away.”

Ben’s voice was still quiet but firm when he stated, “You are not responsible for Vinnie’s death.”

“No?” I asked.

“No,” he answered.

“You sure you don’t think that?” I pushed.

Understanding flowed through his face. He took a step toward me but stopped and said, “I deserved that.”

I shook my head. “I’m not punishing you, Ben, honestly. I believe you when you say you don’t think that anymore. But, just to say, I still do.”

“Frankie, Vinnie bought what happened to him.”

“A woman is supposed to have her man’s back,” I retorted.

“Not when her man turns his back on his woman,” he returned.

His words hit me like a bullet (and I knew that feeling) and I clamped my mouth shut.

“He did that shit to you and you know it,” Benny stated.

I looked to the side.

“He did that shit to you, you knew it, and you were done with it,” Benny went on.

I looked to him.

“Weren’t you?” he pushed.

“Yes,” I whispered, then admitted my horrible secret, “I was giving up on him.”

This time Ben shook his head. “Cara, he took away everything so there wasn’t anything to give up.”

His words hit me again, hard, and I drew in a sharp breath like I’d sustained a blow.

“You got a point with this talk?” he asked.

“This is between us,” I explained. “It always will be.”

“How?” Benny asked before he reminded me, “He’s dead.”

“I loved your brother, Benny,” I repeated.

“Yeah. You did. He was lovable. He was a good guy. He loved you too. Fuckin’ besotted. I was glad my brother had that. Then I was fuckin’ pissed he shit all over it.”

And still more goodness from Benny.

I couldn’t take it.

“This can never work between us,” I declared.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because people will see us at Giuseppe’s and they’ll think, ‘There she is, Frankie Concetti. Dating her dead boyfriend’s brother. Latching onto another Bianchi.’”

“Anyone thinks that shit can kiss your ass, and while they’re at it, they can kiss mine.”

He had an answer for everything, but I was losing it, so I leaned in and shouted, “It isn’t right!”

He leaned forward to, his voice rising, and threw out both arms as he asked, “What about the last four days hasn’t been right, Frankie? Tell me. What hasn’t been right? You gigglin’ at Pop bein’ Pop and me bein’ me? You sharin’ words of wisdom with one of Cal’s girls? You in my bed handin’ me shit I like, then cuddlin’ up to me to watch TV? You eatin’ my pie and lovin’ every fuckin’ bite? You sittin’ at the kitchen table havin’ lunch with my ma? Pop havin’ your back when your bitch of a sister comes callin’? What about any of that isn’t right?”

That was when I lost it.

“I don’t want you to ever think I’m with you for any reason other than you’re Benny!” I yelled. “Not ever, Ben. Not ever. You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve ever to think something like that!”

As I was yelling, his torso jerked back, even as his chin did it into his neck.

When I was done yelling, he whispered, “What the fuck?”

“You’re right,” I snapped, throwing out a hand. “I came onto you after Vinnie died. You kissed me, but I made the first move.”

“I know that, baby,” he replied, still whispering.

“It was a slutty thing to do.”

“You were drunk.”

“It was slutty.”

“Francesca, you were plastered, outta your mind, totally blotto. So was I. You lost your man, I lost my brother, you’re a woman, I’m a guy, and shit happened seven years ago. It wasn’t right. We both fucked up. We both knew it. And now it’s over.”

“That’s it?” I clipped.

“That’s it,” he returned immediately.

“And you don’t think I’m a slut.”

His body went solid and my heart squeezed hard.

“You think I’m a slut,” I whispered.

“No,” he bit out.

“You do. I can read it, Benny Bianchi. It’s written all over you.”

“Babe—”

I shook my head, looking toward the door, demanding, “Take me home.”

“Babe—”

I looked to him and shrieked, “Take me home, Benny!”

“Frankie, baby. Fuck. I know Vinnie took your virginity.”

I took two steps back and stared.

He watched my feet move and his eyes cut to my face. “Yeah. This would be the awkward, uncomfortable shit we’ll be needin’ to get through.” He lifted a hand, tore it through his fabulous hair, looking to the side and finishing on a mutter, “All a’ this shit.”

“Vinnie told you that?” I whispered, and Benny looked back to me.

“Yeah,” he ground out.

“Oh my God,” I breathed.

“Loved him. He was a good guy until he turned bad. But he had a big fuckin’ mouth.”

“Oh my God,” I repeated.

I wanted to die. I wanted to rewind to the forest and not make it out.

Vinnie talked about me, as in about me.

To Benny!

“Frankie—”

“How much do you know?” I asked.

“Babe—”

I leaned toward him. “How much do you know, Benny Bianchi?”

He answered in a way that seemed he was forcing the words to come out, “I know I got some work to do to get you to enjoy goin’ down on me.”

I looked to the ceiling and cried, “Oh my God!”

“Babe, come here.”

I looked to him and shook my head. “No. Take me home.”

“Frankie, come here.”

“This is humiliating,” I hissed.

“What this is, is me tellin’ you I know you’re not a slut. You weren’t then, you could never be. It isn’t in you, babe. Fuck, you were twenty-one when you gave it up the first time and you haven’t had a man since.”

“How do you know that?” I snapped.

“Babe, I was into you. I’m still into you. I never stopped bein’ into you. I paid attention.”

Even though I liked that, a whole lot, I was too mortified to allow that good feeling to penetrate so I just glared at him.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” he pushed.

I just kept glaring at him.

“I’m right,” he muttered.

“Take me home,” I demanded.

“Frankie—”

“Honestly,” I bit out. “Do you think we can get beyond this? You knowin’ your brother was the only one?”

“It didn’t even occur to me when I had my hand on your ass and my tongue in your mouth yesterday. And do not go where you’re goin’, Frankie, because Vinnie didn’t cross your mind either.”

I shut my mouth that I’d opened in order to retort in precisely the way Benny knew I would because Vinnie didn’t. He didn’t cross my mind. Not until Benny started talking about him.

That was all about Benny and what Benny was doing to me.

“All right then, how about this?” I threw out. “I’m not a big fan of blowjobs.”

“Then, no offense to my dead brother, he didn’t teach you right.”

I threw up my hands. “Do you not find this entire conversation bizarre?”

“Babe, seriously, I get you naked, I’ll get you to the point where you latch on and be so into what you’re doin’, you’ll come before I can pull you off and bury myself inside you.”

“Arrrrrr!” I screamed, mostly because, all of sudden, I had an overwhelming desire to give Benny a blowjob.

Crazy!

Just as suddenly, I was in his arms.

I jerked my body, but his arms went tight.

“Calm,” he growled.

I went still and glared up at him.

“You are not a slut.” He kept growling.

I kept glaring up at him.

“And I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about us if they see us together. They judge, they gotta answer to God for that, not me or you.”

I just kept glaring at him.

Benny withstood it for some time before he asked, “You have lunch?”

“Old lady Zambino treated her entire crew to Coney dogs from the concession stand in celebration of their resounding win.”

“Too bad. I was gonna haul our asses to Lincoln’s for a sub.”

At this offer, my shoulders went straight and I shared, “I’m still peckish.”

“A sub on top of a Coney dog is gonna fuck with your Giuseppe’s experience.”

“Nothing fucks with a Giuseppe’s experience.”

Benny grinned.

Then he asked, “You done freakin’ out?”

I absolutely was not.

This realization made me slump in his arms.

I aimed my eyes at his shoulder, saying, “All of this is weird.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, and I looked back to him. “It’s weird. It’s awkward. It sucks. It reminds me I shoulda asked you out when I wanted to ask you out my senior year but didn’t because it was known wide you didn’t put out. But now we’re here. We’ll get past it. And at least it’s at a time when I’m sure I can convince you to put out and give you a whole lot better than I could have when I was seventeen.”

I blinked at him.

Then I asked breathily, “You wanted to ask me out when we were in high school?”

“Babe, you’re crazy-beautiful and got great tits, great legs, a great ass, and an unbelievable smile, and you had all a’ that back then too. So yeah. Fuck yeah. Every guy in high school wanted a piece of you.”

Oh my God.

I’d had three dates in high school.

Three!

And none of them good.

I felt my brows draw together. “Then why didn’t they ask me?”

“Because, Frankie, baby, you didn’t put out.”

It was then I felt my blood start to get hot.

“Was that the only prerequisite for a girl to get a date?”

“Pretty much. Outside of her needin’ to be hot. But you had that.”

“That’s disgusting,” I hissed.

“Frankie,” he said, and my name rumbled with the laughter that was shaking his body against mine. “That was eighteen years ago, in a time when I thought with my dick.”

My brows shot up. “You don’t anymore?”

“Okay, it was in a time when I thought with my dick ninety-nine percent of the time, rather than now, when I think with my dick only fifty percent of the time, or anytime I’m around you.”

“That’s disgusting too.”

“It was meant to be a compliment.”

“It failed.”

“Babe,” he said, his arms giving me a squeeze. “You are not shitting me that you don’t like the idea of me bein’ all about my dick and where I wanna put it when I’m with you.”

I was looking forward to a time when I could throw something at him without tearing open my wound when he pissed me off.

Like when he was right and he went about being right in a crude way that I found annoyingly arousing.

“I think I need a nap,” I declared.

His arms got super tight when he burst out laughing.

I watched, up close and personal, and hated myself for enjoying every second.

His laughter died down to chuckles, his hand at my side moved to stroke me there, and he again focused on me to ask, “Right. Now, are you done freakin’ out?”

I stopped being pissed. I stopped being anything.

But one thing.

And I shared with Benny what that was.

“This scares me, Ben.”

He dipped his head so his face was an inch from mine and replied, “I get that, honey.”