“Obviously, he likes her,” Alessio muttered before taking another drink. There was not enough alcohol in this world to deal with the darkness in his heart, he would swear on it. “Give me something I don’t know, Chris.”
“I meant,” Chris replied, giving him a look from the side, “it’s more, Les. Different. Like ... him with you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“But—”
“Don’t fucking say that.”
The level of his tone drew the attention of other patrons in the bar, but Alessio didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself right now. Hell, he’d been selfless for far too long. Time to be selfish for once.
Right?
Chris straightened on the stool but continued staring at the bar top. “Is it the fact he might care for someone else like he does for you, or that it’s you and him?”
Alessio clenched his teeth. “Leave it alone.”
Because it was both.
Except it wasn’t at the same fucking time.
He didn’t need this shit right now.
Chris nodded, adding, “I don’t think he saw it until recently ... why she made him—”
“Lie?”
Hide things from him?
Break their agreement?
Ruin them?
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but she brings out the same thing in him as you,” Chris said, turning to step off the stool at the same time. “And ... because no one else will tell you ... you should be aware. He’s a happier version of him when he’s with her, even if he doesn’t see. It’s the same thing I see when he’s with you.”
Alessio’s jaw clicked from how hard he clenched. “Except that’s not how it is for us. That’s not how we work. It’s us, not us and someone else. Not me and him, and him and someone else. This isn’t how it goes.”
“Les—”
“Just fuck off, Chris.”
Leave me alone.
He’d rather be back with his pain or numbness instead of this.
It was easier.
“You will never understand why if you don’t let him explain. And yeah, it’s fucked up ... yeah, it hurts, I bet,” Chris added quieter, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t find something right somewhere in the mess. You can’t do that here, though, not alone. Let him explain, or—”
“What is there to explain?”
It was clear to him.
“Why her?” he asked around the rim of his glass.
Chris chuckled. “You could always try to find out.”
Right.
Not a bad idea.
He didn’t think Chris meant so in the same way Alessio took it.
Yeah, he would find out.
All of it.
Whether or not Corrado liked it.
2.
Ginevra
You’re a Calabrese woman—act like you know what that means and keep your eyes on the only man who’ll ever be able to touch you.
Those words, said to her by her oldest brother when she first met the man she would be forced to marry, drifted through Ginevra’s mind as she was reminded yet again why morning sex with Corrado was the best kind of sex. He had that energy—echoing around his being when he first cracked his eyes open. Like he needed to touch, and she was the closest thing he could find in his bed to do it.
She doubted her brother would approve of this.
Of this man, the way he was touching her, never mind the way she watched him as he did it all like there was nothing else he would rather be doing.
The sharp bite from Corrado found the junction of Ginevra’s shoulder as she leaned down over his body, her hand pressing against his chest to keep her steady as she rode her way closer to heaven.
And what a beautiful heaven it would be.
“Fuck, you look good like this,” she heard him say in a moan, his fingers at her waist tightening to almost a painful point. “Love it when you ride me, Ginny.”
“I’m gonna—” Ginevra stiffened on top of Corrado, the wild rhythm of her hips moving against his stilling even as his continued driving into her. His fingers at her throat tightened, and she caught sight of his oh, so pleased sneer curving his lips as he watched her come on top of him. “Corrado.”
“Fuck, yeah, give me a taste of that, Ginny.”
He only let her stay on his cock long enough to let her get the orgasm rushing through her bloodstream before his hand let her throat go. His fingers dug into her hips, and with a firm pull, he had yanked her up his body until her thighs were sitting on either side of his face. She didn’t have time to appreciate the loss of his length stretching her out before his lips enclosed her clit, and he was sucking hard. She finished the orgasm off shaking while sitting on his face.
Crying loud.
Blinded.
And wishing the feeling would go on forever. She’d happily die like this. Almost numb all over, but with tingles racing up her spine, over her shoulders, and then danced over the rest of her body.
She couldn’t breathe.
And it was glorious.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he groaned against her sex.
So sensitive.
Still trembling.
Way too sensitive.
Still, she couldn’t move, instead rocking her hips against the lashes of his tongue taking whatever her body would give him. Fast jerks of his arm against her thigh said he was stroking his cock, and almost at his own release.
And even if she hadn’t felt him doing it, she would have known by the sounds coming out of his mouth. God knew she didn’t need to be in this man’s bed, causing more of a problem than she already had in his life, but she’d found herself in it time and time again since the first—chasing a high, wanting to have what he gave her again.
She’d not been much for sex before—not an angel, sure, but she didn’t have sex just to have sex. And yet, that’s why she wanted to be here with Corrado doing this. Because this was so fucking good, and he kept drawing her in for more. Sex is sex, he’d say, and he wasn’t wrong. Sex was physical, a release. It only had emotional weights when someone brought them along.
Was this emotional?
Right then?
God, yeah.
The problems those emotions might cause?
Well ...
Fuck it.
Selfish?
Yes.
But why didn’t she care again?
Oh, yeah, because of the man with his face currently buried between her thighs. Guilt was hard to comprehend when you still had the tendrils of an orgasm sliding through your veins. Or easier to fucking swallow.
“You want this?”
The gruffness of his tone dragged her back into the present with a shudder. Something about his voice changed during sex. But in a really good way. She loved the sound of his voice anytime, but it ramped up like this.
“Ginevra, do you want it?”
“Yeah,” she mumbled.
She understood what he asked.
What he wanted.
“Now, kitten.”
She slipped down his body, her hands steady against the sheets as she moved. Still spinning high, and loving the way he watched her as she took over at his cock once he’d pulled the condom off, she took him in her mouth and hands. She sucked and worked him as his fingers threaded in her hair to pull tight, and his hips flexed upward against her rhythm. Satiny and hot against her tongue, the hint of salt said he would blow soon.