I blink at him. “Your father would hate me?” I ask him, trying my best to understand.
He shakes his head and steps closer. “No, you don’t—you don’t get it,” he tells me, and bites at his bottom lip for a moment. “My father hated that I’m…gay. He hated that all of hissons werefags. He tried not to act like it, he tried to act like he was okay with it, for Carmine’s sake. But me? He told me I was…”
I step closer to him. “Alessio,” I whisper, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I was five, maybe…no, seven. I was just a kid. He told me I needed to do better. I needed to marry a woman. In the back of my head, I always thought…I’m not going to do what he wants me to do. I spent years kissing men, fucking them behind his back. But no. Look at me; I have.” Alessio huffs and shrugs away from my hand on his shoulder.
“He’s dead,” I remind him. “Fuck what he thought.”
Alessio shakes his head again. “I can’t forget. I can’t…stop this. I can’t stop feeling…” he steps closer to me and there’s a pained expression on his face. “I can’t stop wanting you, Damian.”
My eyes widen even more, but I can’t ignore my own desire welling up inside me. Two distinct ones.
Comfort Alessio.
Fuck Alessio.
Two things that aren’t usually paired with each other—not in my life. It’s been ages since I last had sex and it wasn’t exactly a comforting time. If anything, it was just a distraction.
“You can’t,” I tell him. “Not because of your father…fuck him, but you’re a mess, Alessio.”
He cries and sits down on the couch, putting his head in his hands. “I can’t believe I married her. Rosalie,” he hisses out. “I did exactly what my father wanted me to do. And Carmine… Oh, he gets whatever he wants. Now that Father’s dead. He gets to be the head of our family, he gets the guy, he gets…everything.”
I frown and sit down next to him, scooting closer, trying to ignore the urge to reach out and touch him, but it’s damn near impossible.
I glance over at the clock nearby. Eleven forty-two.
I look toward the windows and the doors. Nothing there.
I look toward the closed bedroom door, no movement.
There’s nothing else left for me to look at, except Alessio. He’s all I can focus on.
I reach over to him and put a hand over one of his fists.
“What do you need?” I ask him. “Besides booze, pills—besides being reckless. Tell me, tell me what you need and you’ll have it.”
I’m not sure what I expect. I just watch as Alessio takes a deep breath and moves in closer to me. He leans his head on my shoulder for a moment.
I wrap my arms around him, not needing him to say it to know what he means. He wants to be held by me. I can do that.
I can do that one simple thing. Just hold him. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not breaking any rules. He’s not cheating on his wife.
I’m just holding the man while he melts down.
Alessio turns his face into my shoulder though, and I feel his tears drip down my neck and I shiver. His nose rubs up the side of my throat.
Before I know it, I’m pulling him in closer to me, until he’s practically in my lap.
“Tell me you don’t feel this?” Alessio says through his tears. His hand slides onto my chest, just over my heart. “Tell me this doesn’t make you feel…”
My body is as hot as ever. Goosebumps cover my arms and neck, and I know that the man in my lap can feel how aroused I am. My hard length is pressed against the bottom of one of his thighs.
It feels wrong though. He’s upset. He’s literally crying. Yet, he’s also clinging to me like a life raft in the ocean.
“I can’t,” I mumble.
“Why?” he asks. “Because you shouldn’t? Fuck that. Fuck this.” Alessio breathes against my throat. “My father…he can’t—he can’t be right. I can’t listen to his voice in my head; I need something else. I need what I really want. I don’t want Rosalie.”
