Alessio thought hearing Corrado say those words would have more impact when they hit him with their reality—their blinding truth. Though he had been watching this man fall in love with that woman for an entire month ... a month after Corrado had already spent time alone with Ginevra before Alessio even showed up, he still hadn’t allowed himself to think Corrado loved her.
He didn’t want to think it.
Not when he wanted to hear Corrado say it.
“I expected a different reaction when I told you that,” Corrado murmured, “something other than ... silence.”
“I already knew because I saw it coming, and I understand why.”
Corrado nodded. “And you’re not hurt or—”
“Was I the first person you told? Not her?”
“Of course, you were.”
Alessio’s brow dipped. “Why?”
“Because that’s what we do, Les. That’s what we’re supposed to do, and I didn’t do that before. I’m sorry. So yes, you were the first person I told. Anything else you want to hear me say right now? Anything else you want to ask about that conversation I had with her yesterday, or no?”
A lot.
But he was still trying to unpack all that shit he’d compartmentalized over the years. One thing at a time, and he was trying to handle this thing in the present. He couldn’t go back to the past.
“I want to talk about now, really talk,” Alessio said.
“Her, you mean?”
“Why you did this, yeah. You said when you told me, there would be no going back. That it would change everything. I want to know—so talk.”
“Koi no yokan.”
“I have no idea what that is.”
Corrado smiled, staring down the hall. “You wouldn’t unless you favored Japanese writings, and you don’t.”
“Because I can’t understand the language.”
“Anyway ... I learned what the phrase meant days before I came to The League with my father and brother; when I met you.”
“That doesn’t tell me what it means.”
“It is the knowledge upon meeting someone that, eventually, you will fall in love with them.”
“Sounds like bull—”
“Except I felt it with you,” Corrado interjected, his gaze snapping back to Alessio’s in an instant. The truth he found staring back kept Alessio from saying anything more. “And somehow, I believed you would change everything for me. You did, by the way.”
Alessio dragged in a hard breath. “And you mean to tell me ... what, you felt it with her, too?”
“Almost instantly.”
Huh.
Alessio ran his tongue along the seam of his lips, considering and unsure of what to say. Mostly because yes, he was still angry this had happened. He became so attached to this thing they had created between only them; he didn’t know what it would be like after.
Because this would change.
Corrado’s feelings, even if Alessio’s were not there yet, determined that for them. Would the rest come along, too?
That was yet to be determined.
“You get she’s not like us, right?” Alessio asked in a murmur. “She hasn’t been in this kind of relationship, Corrado. This poly—”
“Or are you scared she might be perfect for us, but then that leaves you vulnerable again, Les?”
“Unfair.”
Not everything boiled down to Alessio’s issues.
Sometimes, shit just was.
“Why, because I understand your baggage like you get mine? Is it only okay when you want to throw my baggage at my feet for us to unpack together, but not when I throw yours back at you to do the same?”
“All of this still doesn’t change you didn’t tell me from the start about her, Corrado. The one thing I asked for with us, and you abused my trust.”
“I understand. I’m trying to fix it.”
“It’s still hard for me.”
“I didn’t assume otherwise.”
“As long as you’re aware.”
Corrado laughed huskily. “And nice deflection—you still haven’t answered my question. Anything else you want to ask me about my conversation with Ginevra?”
“Good catch.”
Because the man wasn’t wrong.
Alessio just figured this was something he should work out on his own, but especially his darker urges that seemed to want to come out to play more often. It’d been too long since he’d fucked, and he sat on an edge like never before. It was strange how something like sex could drive him up the wall, becoming a focal point in his thoughts.
“I get you—you already have me. Despite all of this, that hasn’t changed. I swear, we won’t ever fucking change, Les.”
Seemed not.
“Okay,” Alessio said. “Did you mean that when you told her it didn’t bother you at all to think of me being with her—fucking her, Corrado, or having her with me?” Corrado opened his mouth to speak, but Alessio was quick to jump in with, “She’s not the same as when we shared women before. This is different. Feelings are at play here—emotions. She’s not the same to you.”
Corrado remained quiet.
Alessio continued on with, “Can you mean what you said knowing that?”
“Yes.”
There was the truth again.
Staring him right in the face.
Corrado grinned in his way—cocky and dark. The sight alone was enough to get Alessio’s cock perking to life. How long had it been since Corrado leveled the look on him, and fuck, he’d missed it.
The man inched closer to Alessio, closing the bit of small space between them until they were eye to eye, one with his hands in his pockets, and one with his arms folded across his chest. Corrado looked calm with his easy, arrogant stance, and Alessio was trying to keep a wall built up around him with his.
They were hard to let down.
“What do you want to hear, huh?” Corrado asked. “About her, Les. What she tastes like after she’s come a few times? The sound of her screams in the morning when she’s still hoarse and raw? The way she looks on her knees when she’s got you buried down her throat?”
Fuck.
“Ask,” Corrado added, his tone dropping, “and I will tell you.”
He could ask a lot.
So many fucking things.
He fantasized far more than he should. To punish himself, and because he wanted it. Wanted her, wanted her with Corrado, and wanted her between them. Everything else was hard.
That would be easy.
“Well?” Corrado asked.
“What does she look like when you’re fucking her?”
Corrado flashed a smirk. “Of course, that’s what you ask.”
“You’ve always known what I like.”
“Watching me work.”
Alessio shrugged a shoulder.
Why deny it?
“She looks like art,” Corrado said, “she always looks like art.”
A centimeter closer, and he’d be able to taste the lust right from Corrado’s mouth. He was a breath away from closing the distance, but the ringing in his pocket broke their staring contest, and the conversation.
A familiar ringtone.
Dare.
The League.