“Cal’s determined to do something, I figure he’ll make it work,” I told the window.

“Yeah,” Ben answered, then asked, “Fridge is full, baby. You want a drink?”

“No, I’m good.”

And I was good.

Better than I’d ever been.

Two seconds later, I got even better when Ben fitted his front to my back and slid his arms around me.

I felt his face in my neck and got even better when he whispered, “My baby’s quiet.”

“Your baby’s happy.”

His arms gave me a squeeze.

“Thank you for givin’ this to me, Benny Bianchi.”

He heard me. He got me. And he knew what it meant to me.

I knew this when he growled, “Jesus, Frankie,” into my neck, his arms going super tight.

“A while ago,” I said to the lake, “you told me you love me.”

His arms didn’t loosen, but his lips slid up to my ear. “Yeah? When was that?”

Like he didn’t remember.

Still, I told him, “The day Angie was born.”

“Well, I didn’t lie.”

He remembered.

I closed my eyes so I could fully feel the magnificence of those words sliding through me.

“You never said it again,” I noted.

“Showed it,” he replied.

He did do that. Constantly.

“Yeah,” I whispered, gliding my hands along his arms where he was holding me and settling them there. “Do I show it?”

“Tesorina.”

He said nothing more.

“I want to show it,” I said so quietly I could barely even hear myself, but I felt my words trembling with the feeling behind them. “I want to know I show it. I want to know you feel it. Even when you’re away from me. I want to know you wake up every morning knowing you have my love and you go to sleep every night knowing the same thing.”

“Never said it, Frankie.”

I opened my eyes and looked at the lake. “Well, I’m saying it now. I love you, Benny Bianchi. Even when you aren’t with me, I wake up knowing how much I love you and I go to sleep knowing the same thing.”

I just got out the word “thing” when I lost my view of the lake because Ben turned me in his arms. One hand slid up in my hair, the other arm crushed me to him, and he bent his head to me.

Then he kissed me, slowly, deeply, gorgeously.

But when he lifted his head, he simply said softly, “Let’s go to bed.”

There was no other place I’d rather be.

I didn’t tell Ben that.

I just felt him let me go, take my hand, and then he led me to bed.

* * * * *

“Babe, I gotta get to Cal!” Benny called toward the bathroom where Frankie had been for half an age, shrugging the jacket of his tuxedo on and thanking God that Cal was as Cal was. That being a man who hated ties and, therefore, a man who not only was not wearing one to his wedding, he didn’t expect the men standing up with him to wear one either.

Cal’s groomsmen were wearing tuxes with deep purple shirts, the whole getup Cal and Vi had tailored specifically for each of them, all of it, including the tuxes, they could keep.

He didn’t need a tux, though he didn’t say no. But even deep purple, the color was dark, the material was fine, so the shirt was the shit.

Cal was wearing a black shirt with his tux. Then again, except the blue of his jeans, Cal never wore anything but black.

“Go!” Frankie called back through the closed door. “I’ll take the Z up.”

“Don’t need two cars up there and the lot’s gonna be packed. By the time you get up there, you’ll have to hoof it a mile. You need to take me. You can hang with Mimi,” Ben returned.

He was walking toward the bathroom to open the door but stopped suddenly when the door opened and Frankie stood there.

Her hair was done, up in a large, messy, sexy, loose arrangement at the nape, the curls and waves leading to it. Her makeup and jewelry were one step up from yesterday but probably because it was a formal wedding. She wasn’t wearing any shoes.

He liked her heels but that dress didn’t need shoes.

Turquoise, strapless, short, tight, it had two thick strips of black lace running diagonally across the dress: one at the hip that slanted up around her ribs, one at her ribs on the other side that slanted up over a breast and ended at the line of the top of the dress, the scalloped edge protruding past the turquoise so f**king sweet, it was like another accessory.

She was always varying nuances of crazy-beautiful.

Right then, he’d never seen anyone, not in his entire life, so f**king stunning.

“I’ll just grab my shoes—” she started.

“Seriously?” he cut her off.

She ceased moving and her eyes came to him.

She read him and he knew it when she started backing away, saying, “Benny, my hair—”

“Seriously,” he said it again, a statement this time, and started stalking toward her.

“We can’t do this, Benny. You have to be up at the hotel.”

“We’ll be quick,” he replied, and she ran into the wall.

She started sliding along it, but he stopped that when he made it to her and put a hand in the wall by her side.

“Even quick—” she began.

“Pull up your skirt,” he ordered, taking his hand from the wall, the other one joining it, spanning her waist as the rest of him got in her space.

Her eyes had widened, but they also flashed and he knew what the second one meant.

Still, she declared, “We don’t have time, Benny,” but her voice was wispy.

“Skirt up, babe.”

“Ben—”

He dropped his mouth to hers. “Now.”

Her lids fell and her hands went to her skirt to yank it up.

When she had it up, his hands went to her panties to yank them down.

Then he lifted her and pressed her against the wall.

Hands on her bare ass, mouth touching hers, he told her, “Need your hands, baby.”

She knew what he needed and her fingers went to his pants. Not wasting time, she had him free and took her shot to give him a firm stroke, taking in the whole length.

Jesus, Frankie.

He clenched his teeth and through them ordered, “Guide me to you.”

She ran her teeth over her lower lip, catching his when she did, something that scored straight down to his dick, as she slid him through her wet and the tip of his c**k caught at her pu**y.

“Fuckin’ ecstasy,” he groaned and thrust in.