Kristen Ashley - The Promise

“Any day now,” Ben affirmed.

“Shit,” she muttered.

“You’re gettin’ a sister,” he told her.

She kept muttering. “Jesus.”

“I’m not Enzo Senior’s biggest fan, Cat, but his woman seems solid.”

“They always are,” she said to the table, and Ben didn’t doubt that.

Another question that would go unanswered in his lifetime was how good women got hooked up with dicks all the time.

He decided not to reply and looked back at the table to see old lady Zambino sitting in his chair, leaned into Frankie’s space, and Benny couldn’t tell by his woman’s expression if she was about to laugh, cry, or shout.

“Thinkin’ I should get back,” he said.

“Yeah,” Cat replied.

Ben made a move, but stopped and turned back when she called his name.

“Thanks for havin’ the balls to come and get in my face,” she said.

“You still got her love, and you’ll always have her love. You fuck up again, I’ll do it again.”

For the first time that night, he saw her smile. “I’m thinkin’ I’ll do my best to avoid that.”

“That’d be my call.”

She rolled her eyes.

He heard Frankie burst out laughing and turned back to the table to see she had her hand wrapped around the back of Mrs. Zambino’s head, she’d pressed their foreheads together, and she was giggling herself sick, her entire body shaking with it.

Mrs. Zambino wasn’t giggling.

She was yelling. “Francesca Concetti, you’re ruining my hair!”

Frankie did not let go.

She just kept giggling.

Ben left her to it for three beats before he made his approach to unlatch his woman from his neighbor so Mrs. Zambino wouldn’t unsheathe the talons or take him off her Christmas gift list.

Frankie’s chocolate-filled snowballs were his favorite.

But Mrs. Zambino’s homemade cookies cut out like poinsettia leaves and filled with green-colored creamy frosting were a close second.

***

Ben laid in his bed, back to the headboard, sheet to his waist, and just managed to avoid a traumatic injury when Gus made to jump right on his dick. Frankie had scooped him up and put him on the bed before she skipped to the bathroom to clean up after he’d fucked her. And Benny was making a mental note to see to it that she did not do that again.

He pulled the dog up his chest and got a wet jaw for his effort. Still, he kept the dog where he was and scratched his head. This got him puppy breath right in the face because Gus started panting happily.

Ben continued to keep him where he was and give him scratches as Frankie, now in a sweet, short nightie, skipped out of the bathroom, made a beeline to the bed, and hopped in, landing on her knees. She bounced across the bed to him and tossed out a thigh, ending up straddling him.

Once positioned, she pulled Gus right out of his arms, lifted him up in front of her face, and cooed, “Who’s Mommy’s special little boy?”

She was being cute and dorky, which was also cute, but Ben had frozen.

This was because Frankie had skipped out of the bathroom, hopped into bed, and bounced across it.

Frankie, after hours with family, friends, food, presents, and unlimited wine. After digging her heels in his back hard and riding his cock harder.

And there she was.

Electric.

“Is Gus Mommy’s special little boy?” she asked, and he had to jerk himself out of his freeze to lift his hands and rest them on her hips.

“Babe, don’t talk to him like that,” he ordered, trying to ignore the warmth in his gut at the happiness written all over the woman astride his hips.

She looked down at him and curled Gus into her chest. “Why?”

“’Cause he’s an English bulldog,” Ben explained.

“And?” she prompted as Gus made a successful escape attempt, which meant he successfully landed dead weight on Ben’s chest, something that made Benny grunt.

Frankie scooted the puppy to Ben’s gut and gave him scratches there, her eyes on Ben, waiting for an answer.

Benny got his breath back and continued to explain.

“He’s a male English bulldog. In other words, he’s a badass breed. A chick baby talks him, his ears might start bleedin’.”

She grinned. “His ears won’t start bleedin’.”

“Don’t look at me when you coo at him and that shit happens.”

She rolled her eyes, rolled them back, and declared, “Just so you know, you being annoying is not gonna kill my buzz. I mean, you got Cat there, and Art, and old lady Zambino, who was still so pissed I bailed on you, she hadn’t talked to me in months, but she showed too.”

He tipped his head to the side and asked, “You work that out with Mrs. Zambino?”

She nodded but said, “She busted my chops about how I went off half-cocked and didn’t walk across the street to” —she lifted her hands and did air quotation marks— “‘get some wisdom.’ But I had your pie and a ton of wine in me, so she couldn’t kill my buzz either.”

He took in her shining eyes, squeezed her hips with his hands, and asked quietly, “Happy?”

“Yes and no,” she answered.

He felt his head jerk with surprise. “What’s the no part?”

“You kicked this birthday’s ass. I mean, Ben…” She scooped up Gus and cuddled him to her chest again. “You closed the entire restaurant. Cake. Flowers. Balloons. A surprise party. A sisterly reunion.” She cuddled Gus closer, finishing, “And a freakin’ puppy.”

“And there’s a part of that that doesn’t make you happy?” he pushed when she explained no further.

“Yeah, seein’ as it’s gonna be practically impossible to one-up you on your birthday and I have barely a month to plan.”

At that, Benny burst out laughing, did an ab crunch, and confiscated the dog. He also put an arm around his woman, twisted, leaned to the side, and put the dog on the floor. Then he lay back, taking Frankie with him the way he wanted her, with one arm still around her, the other hand in her hair, holding her close.

“My birthday’s easy, baby. You, a couple sweet nighties, and a bottle of chocolate sauce.”

Her eyes got big and she asked, “Chocolate sauce?”

“Yep.”

“That’ll be sticky,” she declared, but in a tone that said it might be sticky, but it was far from out of the question.

“That’s the point, Francesca. You get sticky, I make you unsticky.”

Her hips rolled against his.

It was after two in the morning, after wine, food, cake, friends, presents, and she was ready to go again.

Electric.

He ran a hand over her ass. “I get greedy and make a mess, I got a big shower.”

“Mm,” she murmured, eyes dropping to his mouth.

“You gotta hold that thought, tesorina. I gotta put the dog in the kennel and I won’t be in the mood to leave this bed to do it after I do you.”

“Okay, honey,” she whispered, then leaned in and touched her mouth to his.

He gave her ass a squeeze before he let her go. She swung off him and he got out of bed, found the dog, scooped him up, and headed to the door.

“Ben?” she called when he was almost there.

He turned back and saw her and her hair and her body sitting on one hip, legs curled under her, eyes on him.

“Yeah, Frankie?”

“I’ll give you nighties and chocolate sauce, all you want,” she told him. “But I’m still gonna find a way to give you more so you’ll remember it forever in a way that never fails to make you smile and feel allover happy, like I’m gonna remember tonight.”

Jesus, seriously?

She was giving him that when he was a room away from her?

“Don’t be sweet when I’m naked, got a puppy in my arms, and I’m a room away from you.”

It was then she gave him all the gratitude he needed.

She smiled that smile. That smile that said she had a secret and it was a really good one.

Then she urged, “Hurry.”

Ben turned and moved into the hall knowing Frankie didn’t have any secrets. What she wanted to whisper in his ear wasn’t words.

It was moans.

And he liked hearing them.

So he didn’t waste any time.

I was there and I didn’t even know why I was there. It was the last place I should be.

I should be in my car driving home to get ready for Cal and Vi’s rehearsal dinner and the hour-long drive to get to the lakeside resort where I needed to be.

But unless I hit crazy traffic, I had time. Not much, but I had it. And I didn’t want to hit the scene while they were rehearsing. They didn’t need hangers-on for one. I wasn’t in the wedding party, though Ben was as Cal’s best man. For another, I had enough to do that I didn’t need to be hanging around waiting for them to finish.

That wasn’t true. I had everything sorted, and chilling at a lakeside resort was hardly torture.

The thing I needed to do I shouldn’t be doing.

That was why I was there, using my employee ID to get into our production facility. It was a twenty-minute drive away from our main offices, and although I’d had a tour during my employee initiation, there was absolutely no reason for me to be there.

And if Ben knew I was there, and why, he’d lose his mind. So there was not only no reason for me to be there, I shouldn’t be there.

But that morning, something happened and I just couldn’t seem to stop myself.

This something was Randy Bierman showing up in my office. No knock. No warning. No eyebrows-raised, do-you-have-a-moment, nonverbal inquiry. He just walked right in, crossed his arms on his chest, and stared down at me where I was sitting at my desk.

It was then that all that was Randy hit me.

He was tall and lanky and probably about ten years older than me. He had brown hair that wasn’t light or dark but did have a subtle cast of red to it that wasn’t unattractive. Neither were his features. He wasn’t take-your-breath-away good-looking, but if I was single and he bought me a drink at the bar, I’d have time for him.

That was, I would until it became clear two seconds later when he’d no doubt show he was a huge dick.

I’d been on the phone with my rep in Charlotte and was nowhere near finished talking to her, but I couldn’t keep talking to her with him staring at me. It was uncomfortable, he was creeping me out, and I couldn’t focus on what she was saying.

So I ended up telling her something came up and I had to go.

The instant I put my phone in the receiver¸ Randy stated, “Your rep in Chicago, his numbers are way too low. Markedly lower than the numbers of the rep who was there before you started.”

I had no idea why he barged into my office to share this with me, seeing as I already knew it. I also didn’t much like the “before you started” part, like the problem was me, not my rep. Further, I had a huge team who, besides the Chicago guy, was not only making their numbers, but exceeding them and the numbers they’d made prior to me being employed there. So his insinuation was not only not nice, it was ridiculous.

Further, he was research and development. I was sales. Why he was walking into my office to have a word with me about my Chicago rep was beyond me. It wasn’t like it was none of his business. It was like I had a boss that was on his level, so if he had concerns, he should take them to my boss, not waltz into my office, scowl me off the phone, and give me information I already had.

My only choice of reply was, “I’m aware of that.”

“You’ve been here for quite some time now, Francesca, and he’s been with us for some months, and his numbers are not improving,” he noted.

God.

What a dick.

“That hasn’t escaped my attention,” I shared.

“Is he going to be able to support Tenrix?” Randy asked immediately.

I felt a chill glide up my spine at the mention of Tenrix.

“Of course,” I answered.

“He’s not supporting our current product catalog so it stands to reason he won’t do much better with Tenrix, and Wyler has a lot riding on that product doing well.”

More information I knew.

“I’m also aware of that, Randy,” I returned.

“I prefer those under me to call me Mr. Bierman,” he shot back instantly.

I blinked, then stared, mostly because I’d been working with him for ages, and although I had the occasion to address him directly only a handful of times, I’d always called him Randy and he’d never breathed a word.