“Anything.”
Paolo took Luis’s face in his hands and took him hostage with his molten gaze. “Stop thinking you’re not worth it, because you are. You’re worth the fucking world to me, and it doesn’t matter what other people do or say, nothing about that is ever going to change.”
Epilogue
Six months later
Luis turned Paolo on his side, holding his leg up, and kept fucking him, entranced by the sounds Paolo made and the rippling tension in his beautiful back. Paolo didn’t often let him fuck him like this. He liked to be in control, and Luis was happy to let him be, but in moments like this, when he wasn’t, Luis couldn’t get enough.
Paolo came, hunching his back and groaning into a pillow. Orgasm crashed into Luis too, and he shot hard, thrusting deep into Paolo until a final shudder rocked him.
He kissed Paolo’s neck and let his dick slip free.
Paolo was wrecked. He lay boneless and still as Luis cleaned up around him, then let out a quiet laugh. “I never knew what fucked senseless meant until you. My brain is total cotton wool right now.”
“I like you like that. Makes me feel clever.”
“You are clever. I have a still-functioning dishwasher to prove it. I’d have thrown that prick out of the window without you.”
Luis didn’t doubt it. The last six months had done nothing to mellow Paolo’s fiery disposition, and even better? Luis now heard every rage-fuelled word that came out of his mouth. At least he did if he remembered to slip the tiny flesh-coloured aid into his ear canal when he woke up.
As if he’d read Luis’s mind, Paolo opened the drawer and passed Luis the box, keeping his back turned while Luis fitted the device into his ear and shuddered as new sounds filtered into his brain, loud, and not all of them pleasant.
He tilted his head sideways and shook it. “I still don’t like this thing. It feels funny.”
Paolo rolled over. “They said it would feel strange for a little while, and it’s only been two weeks.”
“Since when are you the voice of reason?”
“Since you decided you weren’t.” Paolo rose up on his knees and beckoned Luis closer. He took his face in his hands and studied the ear where Luis had placed the device. “Look, I get that it feels weird and eating crunchy shit freaks you out, but give it a chance, okay? Wear it when we fuck, then you’ll really know how loud I get when you—”
“If you’re finishing that sentence, you’re gonna be late for work.”
Paolo shrugged. “The boss likes me.”
Luis grumbled some more, and Paolo left him to it and sauntered off to the shower. Luis watched him go, caught up, as ever, in his lovely nakedness, but once the bathroom door shut, reality returned to him. He had shit to do today, and the sooner he got it done, the sooner he could go back to a world where Paolo being naked was the only thing that made his heart race.
* * *
Luis waited by the canal, watching the ducks fight over bread a toddler was throwing from the bridge. In the distance, the Moss Farm towers still blighted the horizon, but not for him. Dante had finally relinquished his penthouse lair back to the council, and a new family lived there now.
Footsteps sounded behind him. He turned sharply, still unused to hearing people coming.
Asa raised his hands. “Easy, Luis. How’s tricks?”
“Not bad. I’d ask you the same, but I don’t want to know.”
“Probably not.” Asa’s grin was easy. “I’m guessing you want to know how it went yesterday, though?”
Luis shrugged.
Asa nodded and took a seat at the other end of the bench. “He got nine years and an order to stay out of the neighbourhood for life, so even when he gets out, he can’t come back here. Community safety and all that.”
“And yet you’re still here.”
“So are you, mate.”
“What about Martell?”
