To keep him right there.
The russet stare of hers locked on his as his tongue snaked out to strike against the seam of her lips, testing and promising. Give me a little more, he wanted to say, and let’s see what might happen here, Ginevra.
Instead of talking, he let the kiss say what he needed to, and what she wanted to. God knew he found more than what he expected in the way she stood there on the sidewalk, tight to him, her tongue slashing against his as their lips worked a familiar beat together.
Somehow, the kiss seemed familiar. Like it should be, as though it had always been.
Ginevra pulled back from the kiss first, her ragged exhale whispering across his lips when she breathed, “You should do that more often.”
“I will.”
“And you know ...”
“What?”
“Those feelings, Les,” she whispered, “It’s not just about me, but Corrado, too. If being here has taught me anything ... well, loving someone is not a vulnerability—it’s courageous.”
“What makes you say so?”
“What else would you call handing over a part of yourself to someone else when it means also accepting that being alone is a possibility? And yet, you’re still willing to take the risk. Loving may make you vulnerable to being hurt, but it’s courageous to love all the same.”
“And you think that’s what I should do here?”
Ginevra smiled, her fingertips drifting over his jaw with a soft touch. “Not with me ... no one but you knows what you want with me. I meant with him—it hurts you more when you’re not doing what you want to do with Corrado, when you’re not with him.”
“How can you possibly—”
“All someone has to do is watch. I have had a lot of time to do that, haven’t I?”
Why should he argue?
Right was right.
“You realize me being with Corrado means we would be—”
“Loving again?”
Alessio wet his lower lip. “You think that man and I have love in the mess we made together?”
“You two might not love the way everyone else does, but it’s yours. That’s what matters, isn’t it?”
“I still haven’t decided if that makes it right, though.”
Or healthy.
“I think it’s where you’re meant to be,” she said, shrugging one shoulder, “together, Les. When you’re apart, even when you’re standing in the same room, everyone else senses the distance, too.”
“Or only you do.”
“Doesn’t change that it’s true.” Ginevra sighed, dropping his gaze. “I haven’t figured out yet where I fit in here.”
“I know exactly where you fit in.”
Her head snapped up, and those wide eyes of hers, always so expressive and deep, found his with a million and one questions reflecting back. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
With them.
She belonged with them.
Except this was all on her, and she had to make those choices on her own. It wasn’t something they could do for her. He only controlled what he wanted to do with Corrado, and Ginevra was right. Closer had always been better for Alessio with Corrado. Being together, despite the things separating them, would forever be right when everything else seemed wrong.
Alessio leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to Ginevra’s lips again. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Being you, Ginny.”
• • •
Alessio knew exactly how he’d found himself like this—his back straight against Corrado’s leather-wrapped headboard, a hand tight around his throat to keep him pinned in place. Corrado’s mouth worked against his, kissing him hard and deep as his cock fucked him the same way.
Strange, that.
And fucking wonderful, too.
Corrado’s kiss was the same as his beat with every thrust and pull against Alessio’s body. Brutal, and so fucking good. Each snap of his hips had the firm lines of their forms driving against one another. Alessio’s cock, painfully stiff, felt the brunt of their weight, grinding against his length in the best way possible.
It was too much.
It wasn’t fucking enough.
How long had it been since the two of them were like this? Since Alessio just woke up in the night, needing Corrado? Far too long, he realized. He’d understood that better than ever tonight when he woke up, alone again, in a bed that didn’t belong to him. Like one side was far too empty, and he needed to fix it.
Nothing was ever right like that.
He could still remember the cold floors chilling the pads of his feet as he drifted through the penthouse, needing to find that thing he’d been missing. Corrado, Corrado, Corrado. It had become a mantra in his mind, until he slipped into Corrado’s room, then his bed, and finally ... this.
“Too long,” Corrado mumbled against his mouth.
His thrusts were coming faster, now.
Harder, too.
Like the hand at Alessio’s throat, those fingers tightening and loosening almost rhythmically. His voice was fucking hoarse, so deep, full of air and lust and love. He’d realized that, too, now. He didn’t need to be told those words to know they were true.
They were words.
Not actions.
Or behavior.
Or their life.
It was just words.
Alessio had put far too much weight into words, and less trust in the man he had known from the time he was seventeen years old. So, no, he didn’t give a fuck about words.
Not tomorrow.
Not yesterday.
And not right now, either.
“Look at me.”
Alessio’s gaze snapped up, pleasure racing through his bloodstream with every pounding beat of his heart, to find Corrado’s eyes locked on his. His lips hovered above Alessio’s, ragged exhales coming out fast between them, their kiss broken.
“Fucking missed you,” Alessio said, words husky.
“God, yeah.”
He was going to come.
Soon.
The sensation teased in the tightness of his balls, and in the heat shooting up his spine. Every slam of his lover’s body into his, stretching him open in the best way as fingers dug achingly into his thighs, and he tangled his into Corrado’s hair.
He couldn’t stop it.
“Jesus Christ, Corrado.”
Alessio stiffened, a loud groan escaping from his lips before Corrado slammed his mouth against his to swallow it up. Their tongues clashed, warring like their hands pushing and grabbing far too tightly as his come spilled between them.
“Come on,” Alessio urged Corrado, his tongue snaking out to taste the salt on his lover’s jaw as those words tumbled out. “Fucking give it to me, then.”
“Fuck.”
Teeth scraped against his stubble, a sting following the same path. The ache of Corrado’s hands, one still at his throat, and the other now pushing firmly against the hard ridges of Alessio’s abdominal muscles, only want more.
“Come,” Alessio goaded. “Fucking come.”
The control Corrado always had snapped, and nothing was better than that, too. The wild darkness he found in the man’s gaze under the dim lighting of the one bedside lamp which was still on. The way he bared his teeth and met that challenge staring back.