Page 71 of Bene

They drove the hour in silence, but Vanna didn’t mind, and neither did he. As long as he was touching her, it didn’t seem like Bene cared about anything else. It was almost strange how she felt the same way, but for now, she refused to indulge those feelings.

Nothing good would come from it.

It was easier this way.

Bene had said Maggie’s Falls, but Vanna didn’t think anything of it. She certainly didn’t think he meant a place way out in the fucking woods. Literally, three miles into the woods, off the highway, on a dirt road that eventually ended, to where they had to get out of the Lambo, lock it up, and walk another twenty minutes before the two of them stood on a rocky ledge that overlooked a small waterfall that dropped into a swimming hole. A rope hung from a tree on the other side; one people clearly used to swing and drop into the water.

“It’s twenty feet deep, that hole,” Bene said, “so it’s safe to jump from here.”

Shit.

“We’re like … twenty feet high.”

“Yep.”

He started shrugging off his clothes.

Vanna laughed.

“How did you even find this place?”

He shot her a wink. “Bored with my twin one summer.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, kind of stumbled on it.” He looked her up and down. “Are you going to jump in with me, or …?”

Damn.

She loved the way he was looking at her.

It was also really high.

“The water is probably cold,” she said.

Bene stood straight, pushing down his pants at the same time to let her know he was wearing nothing underneath. She noticed that—sometimes he went with boxer-briefs, and sometimes he wore nothing at all. Like his moods or the weather, it changed depending on the day. He did nothing to hide the way his cock hung against his thigh, semi-hard and inviting to her.

“I’ll warm you up,” he promised.

Jesus.

Behind her, she heard the ring of her phone muffled inside her purse. A familiar ringtone. She hadn’t heard it in a while, but she knew what it meant. The detective was calling—they had another meeting coming up, and he probably wanted to make sure she still had all the details for it settled out so it was safe.

Vanna had every reason to answer that call. To ask the man for safety in exchange for her info. To take his offer of a program that would put her underground, and out of sight of the Camorra for the rest of her life. Now, she had every reason to do that.

And yet, she continued staring at Bene.

He gave her every reason to stay rooted to the spot. To wish she’d never known about the vendetta. He made her want to turn back time, so things could have been so different.

Vanna felt like a failure.

A fraud.

Traitor.

She truly was her father’s daughter. Just not the one he wanted.

Bene closed the distance between them, his kiss finding hers in the darkness, with the canopy of trees up above hiding even the stars and the moon. The sounds of the water surrounded them and took her away to a different place while the man pressed against her seemed determined to pull the soul from her body with nothing more than his kiss.