Page 57 of Operation Sunshine
Instead, he lay on his side, his hand still resting on Franco like some anchor he wasn’t ready to let go of. He could still taste the sweetness of the icing, the salt of Franco’s skin, the desperate sound Franco had made when Ben finally stopped holding back. It should have been enough to scratch the itch, to burn it out of his system.
It wasn’t.
If anything, it had only sharpened the hunger, and that scared him. Ben had spent years teaching himself control. He had rules, boundaries, structures…
And Franco had blown through them all like a storm tearing down scaffolding.
The truth lodged sharp in Ben’s chest: he wasn’t afraid of wanting Franco—he was afraid of what came next. Of getting used to Franco’s reckless laughter, his relentless warmth, and then watching it vanish.
Ben flexed his fingers against Franco’s skin. He wanted to pull back, to reassert control. Instead, he whispered into the dim air, before he could stop himself:
“What if I do mean it?”
The silence that followed felt as if the whole restaurant was holding its breath.
The words hit Franco like a punch.
What if I do mean it?
Before he could stop it, Franco’s laughter burst from him, too loud, too brittle, like a champagne cork flying off under pressure. “Careful, Whitaker. Say things like that and a boy might think you’re falling for him.” He flung one arm dramatically over his forehead. “And then what? Do I finally get flowers? Candlelit dinners? Do we have coordinated Christmas sweaters?”
His chest was tight. Joking was safer than admitting he wanted to believe Ben meant it.
Ben didn’t rise to the bait, but propped himself on an elbow, his gaze steady, his expression unreadable.
“You think everything has to be a performance,” Ben said quietly. “That if you laugh first, no one notices when you’re serious.”
Franco forgot to breathe. He’d spent years dazzling, deflecting, dancing circles around anyone who got too close. And now this man—this infuriating, buttoned-up man—saw straight through him.
He smirked, because smirking was armour. “And you think if you glower hard enough, no one notices when you’re desperate.”
Ben’s eyes flashed, and Franco knew he’d scored a hit. An exhilarating thrill trickled down his spine.
Franco’s words were a tease, but the way he delivered them, low, with a tremor beneath the bravado, hit closer to truth than Ben wanted to admit. He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again.
Because Franco was right.
Except Ben couldn’t remain silent for long.
“Desperate?” he repeated, letting the word roll off his tongue as if it meant nothing. “If I were desperate, Rossi, I’d have kissed you the first night you leaned across the bar and called me a ‘tall drink of grumpy water.’”
Franco barked out a laugh and threw his head back, utterly unrepentant. But when he looked back at Ben, there was a flicker of something vulnerable.
Something that matched the ache in Ben’s own chest.
He reached over to brush a streak of flour still on Franco’s cheek with his thumb, only to drop his hand quickly and take refuge in his habitual controlled tone.
The gesture had felt way too intimate.
“This—” He gestured between them. “—isn’t sustainable.”
“Sure it is.” Franco rolled closer, their noses nearly touching. “We’ve got flour, sugar, an empty restaurant. Sounds like the perfect recipe for sustainability to me.”
“Franco—”
Franco kissed him again, messy and demanding, and Ben let himself fall for the second time that night.
The kiss started like all their others, sharp, impatient, hungry. But then something in Ben shifted. He slid his hand from Franco’s jaw to the back of his neck, steadying him, holding him there as if he was afraid Franco might disappear if he pulled away too soon.
