Mafia Desire (Erotica)

He looked at her earnest face in surprise. “Uh, no. I hadn’t considered that. I was hoping to avoid adding that complication to an already messy situation.”

“What mess, Ben?” Daniel asked as he preceded his sister into the kitchen. Miriam rolled her eyes.

“We are having some philosophical / behavioral issues with getting the new daycare open. If they don’t follow a policy I feel is safest for the children I will walk away from participating in any way.” Ben explained.

“Seems reasonable to me.” Daniel agreed and sat down to eat.

Miriam had an unsatisfied look on her face then glared at her little brothers for sucking all the juicy adult stuff out of the answer. She looked plaintively at Ben who just smiled and shrugged.

They enjoyed their breakfast together then the kids got ready and were off to school.

“I think Miriam won’t settle for the kid answers for much longer.” Ben said to Gabriella who nodded and sighed. “I have some work to do so I have to go as well.” he said.

“You found another project?” she asked.

“Yup and it’s tickling my brain so I have to go scratch it!” he smiled.

“Thank you again Ben for everything!” Gabriella hugged him tight.

“Thank you for a wonderful date and breakfast!” he grinned.

With a lingering kiss Ben stepped outside and drove his truck over to his driveway. When he got inside he heard Christopher’s excited chattering in the living room. He went in saw Tina playing with the boy on the carpet.

“Dada!” Christopher squealed reaching for Ben.

Tina’s face showed shock then nervous embarrassment.RêAd lat𝙚St chapters at Novel(D)ra/ma.Org Only

Ben sunk down to his knees and picked up the happy boy who squealed with excitement.

Ben looked at Tina who was trying not to look him in the eye.

“You’ve been teaching Christopher to call me that?” his voice trembled as he was conflicted. Half of him was horrified that she might be attempting to manipulate him while the other half wanted very much to be called Daddy. “Look at me, Tina.”

Tina brought her eyes up to his and she had tears in hers. “Christopher will not know his true father and for that I am very happy for his father was a very bad man. But to know no father is a terrible thing for a young boy. A boy learns what it is to be a man from his father. I can think of no other man who could set a better example than you. I have not taught him to call you that. I have called you that when he is in my arms so that he will grow up knowing he is loved by both a mother and a father.”

Ben looked into her eyes and saw the truth there. He nodded accepting her answer. “When he is old enough you will tell him the truth but for now Dada is fine.” Ben pretended to bite the boy’s nose and Christopher giggled.

Tina had tears pooling in her eyes as she gazed at Ben with love swelling her heart.

The three played in the living room for an hour then Ben felt the familiar pull of an unsolved puzzle tugging at him. He gave Christopher a kiss on the forehead then Tina was in his arms planting a very passionate kiss on him that left his head spinning. He smiled at her then went down to his workshop. As promised he left the door open and got back to work.

The next few days were pretty uneventful and he didn’t hear back from Daphne or the twins. He put that in the back of his mind. The challenge had been issued and if it was going to work it would work.

Tina arranged for Trish to watch Christopher for them on Friday night so Ben turned his attention back to his work.

The engineering puzzle really got his juices flowing and he tackled it with everything he had. Tina had to drag him out of his workshop to eat and to sleep.

Finally he had his eureka moment and quickly modeled a prototype on his computer and ran it through a slew of virtual stress tests. It passed these so he contacted his custom milling shop and sent them the specs file for making a physical prototype. They said they’d have it ready for him on the following Wednesday.

Feeling confident of the design, Ben submitted his documentation to the Patent Office. He’d done it so frequently he had a script prepared to collect and submit the appropriate forms automatically. They Patent Office clerks knew him well.

He sent a quick note to the requester stating he had a solution in the physical prototyping stage and asked if they had a test bed. Moments later he received an excited response indicating they had one at their factory in Austin, Texas and would love to see the prototype ASAP. They sent him their corporate info now that they had reached the stage where they were no longer working through the anonymous forum. Ben saw the company was STURN Enterprises headquartered in Austin, Texas. Ben knew they dealt with oil as that was what one of the fluids the prototype was designed to deal with. He sent a reply that he would fly down with the prototype the following week once he confirmed the milling of the piece was successful. The immediate response indicated that they would send the corporate jet to pick him up and return him home. Once he’d indicated he was on the task they’d done their research on him. They’d looked up his forum ID on the engineering boards and found case after case where he’d provided successful solutions. They were thrilled he’d taken their task as their usual avenues wanted exorbitant advances just to look into the issue.

Ben wasn’t surprised. You say ‘oil company’ you think ‘money’. The point of the engineering forum was to strip away everything but the pure engineering puzzle. Someone anonymous posts a request for a solution, providing all of the known technical specs. If you had a solution and could provide one THEN you made arrangements to meet face to face or to just send them the digital file for the solution. Ben always made his own prototypes. These filled the cases lining the wall beside him. The new one was going to be rather large. He looked over at the wall and spotted an empty spot in one case that might fit.

Ben leaned back and enjoyed that lovely feeling of anticipation he got when he reached this phase of a project.

He made sure he had a backup of his work, locked up the workshop, and headed upstairs. Tina was in the living room on her tablet while Christopher played with his activity centre in the playpen. Ben realized his back was stiff from sitting in his chair for too long. He decided to soak in the hot tub.

Tina looked up from her tablet. “Ben, are you done working on your project today? If so, Lori would like to speak with you when you have a moment.”

Ben turned back and felt his lower back muscles tweak. He grimaced and rubbed at the spot. “Uh, ok but tell her to bring a swimsuit because I’m heading for the hot tub. My back is hurting.” He’d gotten into the habit of preparing the hot tub when he did these projects as he typically spent too many hours curled over either his drafting table or his keyboard.

Tina’s eyes brightened and she tapped out a chat message on the table while Ben walked to his bedroom and put on his swimsuit. He headed outside onto the deck with his robe on over his trunks. The evening was clear and while the day had been unseasonably warm the air was now pretty cool. He lifted the lid on the hot tub and found the water temperature was perfect. He hung up his robe on the warming rack he’d built next to the tub and climbed into the steamy bubbling water. He instantly started feeling better. A few minutes later he heard a noise and opened his eyes to see Lori standing and shivering next to the tub in her robe.

“Don’t just stand there! Put your robe on the rack and get in the hot water!” he scolded the young woman.

She pulled off the robe and Ben got a look at the tiny bikini she was almost not wearing. His eyes widened and he looked away as she climbed into the tub.

“I’m decent once more.” she said with a smile once she was under the water.