Page 75 of Twisted Minds of Sin

“You pretend to read?” I scoff, watching him take the food to the three-seater dining by the corner close to where Benedetto is drawing.

“I read,” Orazio chuckles, “It's food for the mind.”

“In your case, you keep feeding your mind with rotten food,” Benedetto snorts, “What did she make?”

I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't exactly expecting Benedetto to want the food without an argument.

“She doesn't even know,” I chuckle, “But it has a lot of carrots in it.”

“I can never have too many carrots,” he shrugs.

“If Maria made this,” Orazio stands, “then I better go eat with her, she needs my trouble,” he chuckles, “It's been like forever.” He doesn't wait for any of us to say anything before he walks to the exit, then stops to holler over his shoulders. “Keep your hands away from each other kids,” he walks out.

I stare at Benedetto with an unusual softness in my heart that is reflected in my gaze.

“Are you good?” He cocks his brows and I close the distance to take his hand, smiling at his charcoal-painted fingers.

“I'm good,” I chuckle, “it's just… I was thinking about how I accused you of killing my father and…”

“Was?”

I shake my head, “Please don't ask me why, but I believe you now, it was never you.”

“Rosaline, I have no intentions of hurting you,” he chuckles, “not in that way at least.”

I suck my lips, “You are a despicable man.”

“Can't help it.”

“But you are also a good man,” I take my hand to his chest and place it flat against it, “Benedetto,” I inhale, feeling the last shackle that was keeping me on the side of hate come apart as I now know that he is not the bad guy in this story. He is a bad guy, no doubt, but not the one I have been making him out to be. “You deserve…” I chuckle, feeling my heart skip beats as the weight of the realization of what has become of me hits me.

I'm in love with him.

Somehow without even noticing how, I've fallen in love with him. And with the way he is staring at me, I feel he might understand my plight, so to save my face and keep him from deciphering any further, I lean forward and kiss him.

This is where I surrender.

It was futile fighting anyway.

Chapter Twenty-Three

BENEDETTO

Frozen.

In fucking time and place.

My brain, my heart, and my fucking cock. Every essential part of me is fucking frozen. The only unfrozen thing is the warm blood that is agonizingly trudging to my cock.

I hold my breath.

I have never been this nervous about having a girl kiss me before. I've never heard my heartbeat jam so hard against the tunnel of my eardrums or my pulse thrum like they'd tear open because they're too narrow for blood flow.

I saw something in her eyes, something that I didn't think I was ever hoping to find, but now that I saw it, it's like a part that completes the whole.

I place my hands on the sides of my stool and grip the edges. I suck in another breath and hold it in as she heaves a moan catching my lower lip between her teeth and nibs tenderly, then suckles on the spot, making a sound indicating she is as lost in the moment as I am.

Fuck me.

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