Mafia Desire (Erotica)

When she answered, she saw Rochelle standing there looking a little lost.

“Rochelle? What’s wrong? Did that man come back?” she asked, looking past her down the street.

“No, I-I need to talk to you about love.”

Gabriella’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Oh! Maybe you should come in then.”

Once they were seated comfortably in the living room, Gabriella looked closely at her friend. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem a little lost.”

“Last night, I came within seconds of a severe beating. That man… how could I let myself get involved with bastards like him? I knew better, yet I was lonely, and I let him sweet-talk himself into my life and my bed. Two weeks in, and I find him hitting on one of my waitresses. In my restaurant!” she groaned as she shook her head.

“Ben. Our white knight. Busted in my door and took that bastard out in one punch. So fast, I didn’t even see it. Flattened that pretty boy’s nose and knocked his teeth out. It’s going to take surgery to give him back his looks. God, Ben got my juices flowing last night! I-I might have touched him inappropriately in the ambulance with a female paramedic while he was partially conscious.” She saw Gabriella getting angry, and she looked ashamed. “I know. Totally disrespectful. Tina just finished tearing a strip from me for that.”

“Tina?”

“Yes, I went to apologize to Ben for everything that happened last night, and Tina reacted like you did when she heard what I did in the ambulance,” Rochelle said contritely.

“You have to understand that Ben isn’t promiscuous. He gets really uncomfortable when strangers appreciate his looks. As physically affectionate as he is with people he considers his friends, he is very shy and reserved around strangers. Tina is right. You need to respect Ben’s boundaries.”

“Ben just kissed me… deeply,” Rochelle blurted to see what reaction Gabriella would have, but the woman just smiled.

“Congratulations! That proves he considers you a very good friend,” she said with a genuine smile.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Rochelle looked at her in shock. “It’s true! You aren’t jealous of him being sexually active with other women!”

“I love Ben. He loves me. I trust him not to do anything to hurt me. He knows I respect his feelings, and I know he respects mine. To be jealous, I would have to be fearful of losing Ben’s love to another. But Ben’s love is additive, not divisive. He loves me with his whole heart. He loves Catherine with his whole heart. He loves Tina with his whole heart. He has strong feelings for Trish though she drives him nuts with her insatiable appetite for sex and how she’s always pushing his boundaries, pulling him out of his comfort zone. Even with all of that, I’m not competing with anyone for Ben’s love. When he’s with me, he’s with me. When he’s with one of the others, he hasn’t stopped loving me. He’s not actively looking to score with as many women as he can. It’s just not in his nature. That said, he has a powerful sex drive,” she explained to Rochelle, who was starting to understand.

“l lead a very full life. I’m still raising two kids. My import business is really picking up now that I’m dedicating a bigger portion of my attention to it. I love knowing Ben is equally excited about how my life is going. He is very supportive and an excellent listener. I don’t need him to hold my hand 24/7 as I’m a grown-up with life skills of my own. He may not always be available to spend time with me, but I’m not always available to spend time with him. We schedule times to be together, like date nights. I have one with him tomorrow. Catherine is going out with him on Saturday night. Tina is with him in between, but once she begins university, she’ll also have less time to spend with Ben. If there was a crisis of any kind and one of us had immediate need of Ben, there would be no resentment from the others as we respect each other and wouldn’t make the request without considering the other’s feelings. There can be no hurt feelings or jealousy between us as that would just hurt Ben. He’s gone through some awful things in his past, which made him extra sensitive to his partner’s emotions. It makes him an incredible lover, but it also makes him easily hurt by negative feelings. Emotional manipulation is not something you use on Ben. Brutal honesty is his policy, and he lives by it.”

Gabriella took Rochelle’s hands in hers. “If you were considering letting Ben into your heart, you need to carefully and honestly consider your true feelings and concepts regarding love. If love for you is possessive, then you aren’t for Ben. He would return your love, but your emotional pain at seeing him express love for others would tear him apart. He’s too good a man to deserve that,” she said, looking into Rochelle’s eyes. “Take some time to think about it.”

Rochelle looked back at Gabriella with a sad expression. “I’m sorry to say I’ve never really thought of Ben as anything more than eye candy. That’s part of the reason I acted like I did in the ambulance. I’ve never really connected with men on an emotional level, but then I’ve never had a relationship with a man who was available emotionally. My choices have all been manipulative bastards. I appreciate their looks, but I’ve never experienced a deep emotional bond with a man. When Ben kissed me, he was trying to convince me that I was worthy of love from a good man. He believes it, and I need to believe it. His kiss shook me. The passion in it made my toes curl, and I almost fainted. He was there, all of him; mind, body, and soul. He held nothing back. I-I’ve never felt that.”

Gabriella smiled lovingly. “Ben is always 100 percent.”

“How does Trish interact with him? She’s not in love with him, is she?” Rochelle asked.

“Trish told Ben that she was still hurting from her husband’s betrayal and wasn’t looking for love. For her, she was looking to replace a major component of her relationship with John. They had a very active sex life. Trish uses sex as therapy and has used Ben on a few occasions. It always leaves Ben confused as he tries to find the emotional context behind the sex, and Trish is trying to avoid an emotional connection… for now. I’m not sure if they’ve come to some kind of agreement. You’d need to speak with Ben or Trish about that.”

Gabriella’s office phone rang, so she apologized and got up to take the call.

Rochelle sat quietly, thinking about everything Gabriella said. She knew she wanted to be loved. She wasn’t sure if she had it in her not to be jealous of others. What Ben had now was a lot like what she’d experienced with Devon, wasn’t it? Aside from the secrecy and lies, that is.

What Gabriella said about being busy and not always having time to give to the partner rang so true for herself now that she had the restaurant chain to run. To be able to call on someone who loved her. To have date nights filled with passion. Lord! That sounded good! Her upbringing was very strict. The proper plan required a man, a woman, marriage, kids, grandkids, then death. That was the way things worked. Well, that was how it was supposed to work. It hadn’t worked for her. It hadn’t worked for Ben either, and it sounded like he was also old school. This new relationship model was working for him, and by all accounts, it was working for Gabriella.

It was definitely working for Tina, but she was a special case. Rochelle agreed. Ben was perfect for her. After seeing Ben in action last night against Greg, there was no longer any doubt in her mind that Ben had the balls to be dominant.

Speaking of balls, his body was incredible. She and the paramedic had managed to get Ben erect the previous night while he was on the gurney. He was at least three times Greg’s size. While she was sorry she had done that to Ben in front of the stranger, she certainly wasn’t sorry she’d seen it herself. He was beautiful!

She put her face in her hands. What was she going to do?

“Rochelle? You okay?”

“Yes, sorry. I have a lot to think about. I know I want what you and Ben have. I’m busy too, but I want someone to love and to love me. I understand that I can’t have Ben all to myself, and I understand why. I have to think about whether or not I can see Ben’s relationships as different from what Devon had.”

“Rochelle! It’s completely different!” Gabriella gasped indignantly.

“I know, sorry. Intellectually I can see there are huge differences. I’m talking about how my heart sees it. A heart that has been hurt again and again,” Rochelle said weakly.

“What you went through was truly awful! But the most critical difference is that Ben won’t pretend to love you. He won’t lie to you. Firstly you’d have to spend some time together to see if you and he connect emotionally. You’ll have to be ready to completely open your heart and soul to him, as that’s what you’ll be getting in return. It’s what he does. If you connect, you can be assured that his love is genuine. Again I stress that before any of this happens, please be sure that you can accept his love unconditionally. It may be that you want what we have, but it doesn’t have to be Ben.”

Gabriella closed her eyes and composed herself. When she opened them, she looked straight into Rochelle’s eyes. “You’ve mentioned that you don’t see men in terms of emotional involvement. If you can’t figure out a way to do that, I ask that you don’t try to with Ben. To put it bluntly, if you just need to get a fix of sex with Ben, speak with Trish first to see if she can show you how to do it without hurting the man.”

“Tina isn’t the only one protective of him,” Rochelle said.

“He’s worth it,” Gabriella insisted firmly.

Rochelle nodded and said her goodbyes. As she walked back to her house, her mind was tossing back and forth with questions. She saw Trish walk past her office window and found her feet carrying her to Trish’s front door. She rang the bell.

Trish opened the door with a smile. “Hi, Rochelle! I don’t remember the last time I saw you at home during the day!”

“Yeah, I took a personal day,” she replied.

“Come in! Is everything okay?” she said with a concerned look. They made themselves comfortable, and Rochelle realized this was the third neighbor’s living room she’d been in today.

“Didn’t you see the police last night?” Rochelle asked.

“No! I was out at a tradeshow, and I got back after midnight! What happened?”

“I caught Greg cheating on me at my restaurant downtown last night, so I told him we were done and went home. He followed me home and got violent.”