Page 93 of Beni

He didn’t even try to hide it.

August laughed.

“She is shameless.”

“She loves you,” he said softer.

August swore she could hear the lingering words that he left unspoken between them. It almost felt like he was going to say, and so do I. Except he didn’t, and so she tried not to get too caught up in the way that made her feel.

“And you know,” he added, shrugging one leather-clad shoulder, “if you decide you want to say fuck Chicago, then the ticket is changeable. It’ll take you anywhere you want to go in the states—I hear LA is nice this time of year.”

August grinned. “I got it.”

Beni’s smile dropped slightly. “I’m really going to miss you.”

She dragged in a heavy breath. “Yeah, me too.”

In a blink, he had closed the space between them. The hug came hard—his arms locking around her so tight, letting her breathe in the scent of him, and leather. She buried her face into the crook of his neck, wanting the rest of the world to just disappear for those few seconds.

All her doubts.

The worries.

Anything.

And everything.

She wanted it to go.

From the jump, things had seemed so easy with Beni. All of it, really. From leaving with him that first night, to walking through a park in heels far too high to be walking anywhere. Every single bit of it was easy.

This was the hard part, now.

“Call me,” she heard him murmur.

August nodded. “I will.”

“And let me know that you land safely, okay?”

She leaned back a bit to look up at him. Beni smiled back, but she didn’t think it reached his eyes like it usually did. Her handsome man just seemed … sad. And that broke her heart a little.

“See you soon, August.”

Tipping her head up, she pressed a kiss to his lips that quickly turned into something else entirely. Something that burned hotter, and reached parts of her soul that she hadn’t known existed until right in that moment.

Funny how that worked.

“See you soon,” she whispered against his kiss.

That was a promise.

August was not at all surprised to find her mother and father waiting to greet her when she landed in New York. They didn’t even need to wave for her gaze to find them in the crowd waiting at arrivals. There was just something about her parents—their impressive height, stunning beauty, and their matching auras—that shot out into the atmosphere around them.

They didn’t create attention.

They did, however, draw it.

She took most after her mother in features with just a dash of her father in the shape of her eyes, and the set of her lips when she smiled. And whenever she was in their presence, it always felt like coming home.