“You’re notold, baby,” I point out, laughing.
“No. But in my position now…” He gives a half-shrug. “So much of it is strategy. Diplomacy. Tactics. I’d forgotten about the thrill that comes withaction. When I was younger, right around when I met you, I enjoyed the danger. I enjoyed all those near-misses, the close calls, the death threats. I was more reckless back then. It gave me a rush, knowing that I’d escaped my fate once more.” He scrunches up his nose. “I’m not sure I can explain it.”
“I get it,” I say, my sincerity making him look more closely at me. “I know what you mean. I felt—still feel, sometimes—the same way.”
The feeling of being most alive when my life is under threat. And I know, too, that sense of escape—from fate, as Luca calls it.
ButIcall it Death.
Suddenly I want nothing more than to show fate, Death, all our earthly enemies, that they can’t have us. Not yet. Not tonight.
“Come to bed,” I say. “I want you to fuck the living daylights out of me.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
LUCA
The gold of Finch’s pajamas echoes the gold of the brocade canopy over our enormous bed, and when I lay him out against the deep blue sheets, he looks exactly like a Renaissance masterpiece, a squirming feast for the eyes of sumptuous color and metallic sheen. I’d like to paint him, or at least photograph him, but I settle for letting my gaze travel over him, fixing the memory in my mind.
Finch allows it until impatience drags his fingers up to the buttons of his pajama shirt. “Come on,” he says, his voice low and needy as he undresses for me. “I want you, Luca. Come on.”
I sit next to him, sweeping aside the silk of his clothes, helping him pull them all off until I have his flesh under my hands, warm and soft, his summer tan still glowing. “Beautiful,” I tell him, caressing him in long, languid strokes. The air in our Venetian palazzo is warmed with central heating, but Finch still speckles with goosebumps in the wake of my hands, his flushed nipples standing out, his cock growing plump and damp-tipped the longer I make him wait.
He reaches out to touch me, and I let him cup my face, nuzzling my mouth into his palm. I want to tell him how precious he is to me, how much more precious than anything else I have, but words seem trite. Useless.
I pull off my own clothes hastily, then lie down with him so I can tangle his legs up in mine and kiss him. He acts coy, pulling his mouth from mine each time I try to deepen the kiss, his wet lips gliding away from mine, until I slow down and coax his cooperation. It’s not the first time he’s played the coquette with me, but tonight his fluttering lips and lashes, seductive glances, tentative touches—they all combine until I’m aching for him.
But I want to extend our bliss as long as possible. These last few days have reminded me that there are no guarantees in this world. I should never take Finch for granted, or our love, or our pleasure. So I let him tease me, let my own imagination tantalize me until I can take no more.
“I want to taste you,” I murmur as his tongue flits in and out of my mouth.
He looks down between us, drawing my attention as he strokes his cock once or twice, rolling it over his belly, wiping up the inevitable spill that’s already flowed out of him. He holds his hand up to his own lips and wipes his palm over them, then allows me to devour the flavor from his mouth with hard, feverish kisses.
“Delicious,” I say, after I’ve sucked every fragment from his mouth. “But that’s not quite what I meant. Turn over,uccellino.”
He spins so fast that the canopy shakes above us, and I grin as I slide down the bed and kneel between his legs. “Up,” I say, patting at his round little cheeks, and he obediently thrusts his ass higher. He shudders at the first delicate brush of my fingers across the small of his back, and then quivers again each time I caress him.
“Are you cold, baby bird? I’ll warm you up.”
It’s the shock of my hand slapping down on his ass rather than the pain that makes him buck. I don’t want him in pain tonight, not like in that Roman alley, where the pain was thepoint—for both of us. No, this is just to pink him up a little, to build anticipation for him, and because I think his ass looks pretty with a little color in the cheeks. I spank him lightly, all over, until he’s squirming, moaning, until his skin feels like it’s on fire, glowing hot for me.
I grab his red cheeks in each hand, spread them, and blow across his sweet little hole. I wait long enough, just watching, that his asshole starts to twitch involuntarily, and then I spit on it, watch it squeeze shut. “Come on, now,” I purr. “You can’t play bashful with me, baby bird. I know how much you love my tongue inside you.”
He arcs his hips even higher, and when I look down the bed at his face, his head is at an angle, eyes on me, glazed with longing. I let him watch me lick my thumb, but when I swipe the wet pad of it across his hole, massaging the furrows of his flesh, he buries his face back in the pillow. The shy act only makes me want him more, and I lean in to follow the path of my thumb with my tongue in a soft, slippery, succulent trail.
He pushes against my face, seeking more. I flick my tongue up and down his crack until I’m tired of teasing. When I stab the pointed tip of my tongue at his ring, he lets out a long, encouraging moan, and I drive into his hot hole, spreading his cheeks even wider as I go. I tongue-fuck him until I think my jaw might cramp, until he’s wailing, his dick dribbling a slick, gluey mess under his belly, and then I keep him on edge with wet tongue-lashes from his balls to the base of his spine.
He’s so wet, his asshole so hungry and puffy, that I almost think I could dive in without lube, but I’m not skimping on that this time. I want this ride to be smooth as silk. Finch objects when I take my tongue out of him, but I replace it almost right away with my fingers, soaked with lube, delving deeper into him. The sigh he gives almost sounds relieved, until I find his most sensitive place and graze my fingers across it. He goes rigid, as though the slightest movement would be too much for him. He’s always been sensitive inside, wildly responsive when my cock drags across his prostate. Sometimes he’ll come just from me fucking him at the right angle.
“You’ve made such a mess on these sheets,” I murmur. “All that cream churning away inside you, just dying to spill out. You’re full up with it.” He only whimpers in response, still frozen in place, but when I press down with my fingers, it forces a gasp out of him. “Let me help you, angel.”
He stammers out a few vowels, but I’ve already begun massaging him, undulating my fingers around the sides of his gland, milking him languidly, deliberately, intimately. He manages to gasp out my name, but not much more. I grab him by the hip and hike him up higher, to get a better look at the effect. His dick is still leaking, but as I work him, the thin, clear fluid turns opalescent, the drizzle becomes a stream, and on either side of me, Finch’s feet begin to curl.
I whisper endearments, half Italian, half English, and his whole body begins to shake, vibrating on my fingers. “So sweet to watch you like this,uccellino,” I murmur affectionately. “You’re mine, aren’t you?”
I get only a moan in reply.
“Body and soul?”
