I took the call.
***
“Hey, baby.”
“Things got crazy, traffic primarily, not to mention a rental car agent who was way too freaking chatty to a woman who needed to catch a plane, and now the marshal on my flight is eyeing me like he’s gonna tackle me and force me to put my phone in flight mode. So it sucks, but I got on this plane by the seat of my pants and I gotta say ‘hey’ and ‘later.’ I’ll call you when I land,” I said to Benny after his greeting.
Over the past three weeks, this had become our gig. He worked when I was not working. I worked when he was. This meant brief snatches of conversation when I had time at work and phone calls on weekends, if we were lucky.
But Ben knew my travel schedule because he demanded to know it.
Of course, thus ensued me explaining to him that if he had email, I could easily email my schedule to him rather than reciting it over the phone while he wrote it down. He replied that he didn’t get to hear my voice through an email so he’d take the cramp in his hand so he could listen to me talk.
I quit giving him shit after that.
Now Benny expected me to phone when I boarded before takeoff and phone again when I landed. He didn’t mind me phoning again when I got home or to my hotel, but he didn’t have the schedule memorized to that point or his phone on him so he could take my call, even if he was making a pie. Which he always did when he knew I was hitting a flight and when he knew when the wheels would hit land.
I loved this.
I loved it because I loved connecting with Benny any way I could. I loved it because Benny wanted it. I loved it because when he demanded it, I knew he was demanding it because I’d opened the floodgates to him doing something like that when I told him I was glad he gave a shit that I was safe. I loved it that he had been holding it back to spring on me when we were more solid, and doing that with a mind to the woman he knew me to be.
Last, I loved the fact that I was falling in love from (mostly) afar with Benny Bianchi.
I was doing it so fast, from my previous experience after Ben took me home from the hospital, I knew if it wasn’t from afar, it would happen a lot quicker.
Maybe instantly.
“You’ve spotted the marshal?” Ben asked, taking me from my thoughts.
“Yep. He’s hot.” I felt unhappy vibes from Ben over the phone, which made me smile but they also made me say, “You’re hotter, obviously.”
“A save, but not a good one.”
“Whatever,” I muttered.
“Call me when you get home,” he ordered.
“You got it, capo.”
“And call me before you leave in the morning.”
“You’re on my speed dial.”
“And bring that nightie, the purple one with the pink at the tits. I’m feeling nostalgic.”
That order caused a lovely ripple and me to hiss into my phone, “Ben, don’t turn me on when I’m fifteen minutes away from thirty thousand feet.”
He didn’t miss a beat as he replied, “First chance we got, vacation, plane ride, mile-high club.”
God!
Benny.
“Are you listening to me?” I snapped.
His voice was nothing but sweet when he whispered, “Get home safe, Frankie.”
I huffed out a breath, not enjoying his increasingly utilized tactic of quelling my attitude by bringing out all the awesomeness of Benny. Even so, I had not yet figured out recourse other than to have my attitude quelled.
Falling in love with Benny was knocking me off my game.
Whatever.
“I will, honey,” I told him. “And I’ll call.”
“Right. Later, cara.”
“Later, Benny.”
He disconnected.
I eyed the hot guy, who perhaps only in my fertile imagination was the air marshal, and put my phone into flight mode.
***
I parked my Z in the space off the alley at the back of Benny’s place.
I grabbed my big suitcase out of the back, dropped it to its rollers, extended the handle, and barely cleared the back of my car before Ben was there.
Then I was pressed against the side of my car, Ben pressed into me, one hand at my ass, one hand curved around my side at my breast, thumb stroking this close to ground zero, tongue in my mouth.
When he lifted his head (and after my eyes fluttered open), he said, “Welcome home, Frankie.”
I pressed deeper into him and smiled.
Ben smiled back, let me go, grabbed the handle of my case in one hand, my hand in his other, and he dragged us both up and into his house.
Ben left my bag in the kitchen and kept dragging me up to his bedroom.
But not before I saw it.
Right there, out in the open, for anyone to see.
A white sheet of paper, on the top in bold script, Francesca, and on the bottom in slashed scribbles, dates and times.
My schedule.
On Ben’s fridge.
Yes.
I was falling in love with Benny.
And fast.
***
I felt Ben get close to my back.
The good part about this was that he lifted up the hem of his tee that I was wearing and cupped my ass over my panties when he did it.
The bad part was him looking over my shoulder at what I was doing at his kitchen counter and promptly asking, “Tuna casserole? Seriously?”
I twisted my neck to look up at him and pointed out, “Your cupboards were bare, Benny. I had two options. Tuna casserole or lasagna made out of chicken and cream of mushroom soup.”
He’d moved his eyes from the casserole I was assembling to me as I spoke, and when I was done, he started.
“Drawer’s full of delivery menus.”
“And my life is full of eating out, room service, getting home late and doing it with takeout in my car. I wanna cook,” I replied.
Ben’s face got soft as I spoke and he muttered on a squeeze of my ass, “Whatever you want, baby.” Then he moved away, stating, “We’ll go to the market tomorrow.”
“Works for me,” I told the casserole.
It was after spending all day in bed with Benny.
Not true. He got up and made us sandwiches while I snoozed, since I’d gotten in my car at six in the morning, hightailed my ass up to Chicago, and, upon arrival, got laid thoroughly and energetically by Benny Bianchi. He came back to his bedroom with two sandwiches filled with salami, turkey, and provolone, covered in mayo and Dijon.
He also came up with three bags of chips.
Benny and his chips.
I loved that.
Now we’d surfaced. It was the dinner hour. Ben had arranged for the night off, so it was him and me.
And I was cooking.
I quit grating cheddar cheese into a bowl and opened the tub of Pringles. Then I poured the remains of the tub into the cheese.
“Pringles?” Ben asked, and I twisted my neck to see him lounging in nothing but his jeans at his kitchen table, beer in hand, eyes on me.
Benny Bianchi, lord of the manor, watching his woman cooking.
Why was that so hot?
“Pringles,” I replied, then turned back and grabbed the metal spoon to start stirring and scrunching. “We aren’t having tuna casserole. We’re having cheesy, crunchy, Pringle-topped tuna casserole á la Frankie.”
“I’da known about the crunchy top, I wouldn’t’ve bitched.”
I looked over my shoulder to see if he was giving me shit and grinned at him when I noted he was serious.
A man who appreciated a crunchy-topped tuna casserole.
I liked that.
The insanity in that was, I was thinking about tuna casserole, which meant I had officially entered woman-falling-in-love zone, a zone that made women crazy.
Since I was already crazy, this was a dangerous place for me to be.
As if reading my thoughts about being crazy, Ben said, “Three weeks.”