Page 64 of Beni

Someone like August.

He heard what his friend didn’t say. It wasn’t that Beni didn’t agree, but more that he wasn’t even sure what in the hell this was between him and August. Were they just having fun with one another, or was it something else?

Because he leaned toward something else, more than just fun. And that wasn’t at all his usual style. He wasn’t a hit it and quit it type, but he had never had time to fuck around with a chick more than once, either. Yet, he found he wanted to do exactly that with August Rivera, and all it took was meeting her in a club, getting her in his bed, and taking a walk around a goddamn park.

There was just something about her.

He liked it a lot.

But where was her mind?

Like his, or was she just having fun?

Beni didn’t know if he wanted the answer.

Tommaso shrugged, pulling the tape from his hands as he added, “And a little bird—my wife, you know, because she gossips all the fucking time—told me that she and August were meeting up today after her shift was over. And since Camilla is very invested in whatever this thing is between you and August, although I told her to mind her business …”

Beni chuckled. “Oh, is she? And what does she think is going to happen?”

“Listen, I’m not giving details. I’m just trying to tell you that Camilla would do anything, even give up her dinner and movie with her best friend, if it meant August was going to go out with you.”

Huh.

“And what time are they meeting up?”

Tommaso grinned. “See, that’s what you needed to be asking from the start.”

Fucker.

The Uber dropped August off at Camilla’s home a little earlier than expected. About ten minutes before she was supposed to get home from work, so it wasn’t a big deal. She used the key her friend had given her years ago to get inside, and wait.

Maybe it was the fact that during this trip to Chicago, more so than any of her previous visits, she had been reminded time and time again about the mafia side of her friend’s life. About the dangers they faced, and the risks they took to be who they were … the only thing they had ever known. August was on the outside of that bubble, just close enough to see inside—so not entirely naive—but also far enough away that she wasn’t touched by it.

Except she couldn’t ignore it this time. Not when it had been placed in front of her face time and time again. It showed her how protected and sheltered her friend’s life actually was … in a sense that she never got to feel normal.

It made her understand how much trust Camilla and Tommaso must have felt for August, to give her a key to their home. Their haven.

She was still mulling that over, and the fact that she had never realized it before, when a rumbling began outside of the house. A deep growl that had her heading to the front door to peek outside, and see what was causing the noise.

Holy sweet Jesus.

August found the source in the sight of Beni pulling a racer style motorcycle helmet from his head as he stepped off a Ducati SuperBike. The matte black of his leather jacket matched the bike’s paint job. And even the silver detailing of the bike was mirrored in the buttons and clasps of Beni’s leather jacket.

He looked like living, breathing sin. Black jeans molded to his defined thighs—and the denim looked even better on that damn fine ass of his—when he turned a bit to place the helmet to the handlebars of the bike. August liked to think of herself as a strong, smart woman—proud, but not so much that she couldn’t admit to her own faults; firm in her wants and beliefs, but still soft in her heart and soul. And yet that man right there could turn her into a blinking, breathless mess with nothing more than the sight of him shifting from foot to foot and grinning toward the house.

His fingers drifted to the hair that had fallen over his eyes, pushing it back with the rest of his high fade as his gaze drifted over the yard with a flash of familiarity. As though he had looked at the place a hundred times before. It made her realize just how long she and him might have passed each other by throughout the years.

How long had he been friends with Tom?

He had said his mother was from Chicago.

Before August even understood what she was doing, because she was still a bit stuck on the sight of him out there, she pushed the door open enough to say, “It should be illegal to look like you do right now.”

She was shameless with him.

He did that to her, too.

Beni’s laugh carried to her as he quickly crossed the paved driveway and reached for the smooth railing of the steps. “Is that so?”