Ihadlet them get to me, both Julian and Alessandro, but only because I was already anxious. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately,” I said slowly. “Thinking about what happensafter, I mean. What would being together in New York look like to you?”
“Who said anything about New York?” Angelo countered, and smiled as my mouth dropped open. “Listen, I know you love New York, but you’re not the only one who’s been thinking things over recently.I’vebeen thinking about how difficult it’d be to live in the City without getting pulled into things again. Luca gave me his blessing to go, to find Greco—and afterward, to choose my own life. And I told you at the time that I wanted to get out of New York.”
“I know. I know you did. I guess I just…” I didn’tbelieveit. I didn’t believe that D’Amato really meant it, or if he did, that he wouldn’t go back on his promise.
Angelo had first raised the idea of leaving New York on the night he told me that Donnie Greco was alive, and had information that might clear us.I think it’s time I left New York behind me, he’d said. But then he’d followed it up with caveats.
I’ll always be a Morelli, no matter what.
One day, maybe, we’ll be able to come back here and live out in the open.
So I’d always assumed Angelo would want to go back to his Family. Back to New York. He might have been born in Sicily, might have enjoyed Vegas and LA, but he was New York City from his nose to his toes.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Once Greco’s talked,” Angelo said, taking my hand, “and once the task force clears us—because they’ll have a hard time burying Greco’s testimony with Carlo Bianchi pushing the matter, let me tell you—after that, we can do whatever we want.Gowherever we want. We won’t have to run and hide. We can fly first class to the French Riviera, maybe. Or Iceland. I’ve always wanted to see Iceland.”
The constricted feeling around my heart was beginning to give. “Iceland?” I said. “Really?”
Angelo gave a shrug and a smile. “Why not?”
I was grinning so hard I thought my cheeks would split. “Yeah,” I said. “Why the hell not?”
* * *
We tookour time loving each other that night. Angelo usually topped, but now and then he liked to, as he described it, “live a little,” and switch.
It wasn’t like I was going to argue when he suggested it. I just obeyed his silent gesture when he emerged from the bathroom, a crooked finger telling me to sit up on the bed. I settled my back against the headboard and he straddled my lap, leaning back against my propped-up thighs, and guided my fingers to his ass so I could open him up.
We didn’t do this often, but I loved it when we did. Loved the way his lips parted at the first cool touch of lube, the flash of pleasure in his eyes when I first slipped a finger into him, and the way his cheeks flushed with desire the more I worked him.
“Enough,” he said roughly, just when my own need to be in him was peaking. I let him guide my cock into him, let him push down on me as slowly as he wanted, while I watched him between half-lidded eyes, marveling at how lucky I was to have him.
I was less angry, having him. Less anguished. In fact, life was immeasurably better, despite the fugitive lifestyle we were living. And when he sank down onto me and we became one, writhing together, working toward a shared goal of ecstasy, I even feltblessed.
He rode me with the same finesse he did everything else, rode me until I was gasping, my hands clenching on him as I held him close, fighting the urge to just grab him, throw him down and fuck himhard, as hard as I could, to spill into him and mark my territory. When we were like this, he was mine,onlymine, and nothing and no one else could have him—not the Feds, not his Family, not his past.
He palmed my face and kissed me breathlessly. “Do to me what you’re thinking right now, kid,” he panted into my ear. “Whatever it is in that head of yours, I want you to do it.”
Primal instinct took over as soon as he’d granted permission. I wrapped him up in my arms and pushed off the bed, thrusting deep into him as I lifted him. He gave a laugh as I let gravity tumble him down to the bed, and he landed on his back with my cock still inside him. I threw myself down on him, desperate to feel his skin on mine, and rutted into him in a frantic, coarse rhythm until I came hard, silent, trembling.
Angelo let me shudder through the aftershocks for a moment, and then, in an expert move thathadto be martial-arts-adjacent, he flipped us over again and straddled me. My dick was still in him, and still firm, though sensitive as hell. He made me stay there, wincing, watching as he stroked himself slowly and luxuriously to orgasm.
It was an enchanting form of torture.
I was inclined to go to sleep just like that, drenched in his scent, but Angelo pushed me firmly out of bed and into the shower. “You always think it’s sexy until we wake up glued together,” he reminded me. He was right about that, so I washed down and then crawled back into the bed after, ready for sleep.
He wrapped his arm around me, holding me close, his leg tucked between mine. “I love you,” I murmured.
“Love you too, kid.”
Greco was in our hands. We had reached our goal, and this chapter of our life was coming to a close. We’d return to New York and hand him in—and then Angelo and I would get our well-deserved happy ending.
I was so in love that I’d forgotten just how naïve it was to assumeanycertainties in life.
Chapter Seventeen
We didn’t get much sleep, but when I woke the next morning, my heart still felt so unusually light that I didn’t mind the heaviness in my eyes, the dragging sensation of not-enough-sleep at the back of my brain. Angelo made me coffee in bed and we took our time, enjoying the playfulness, the peacefulness.
