I want to say something cruel. Something to put distance back between us, even though our bodies are close. Something to remind us both that this is born out of hatred. But when I open my mouth, nothing comes out except a groan of encouragement.
He’s close. I know it from the way he tightens around me, from the trembling in his thighs, from the desperate,almostsilent sounds he’s making beneath me. His cock is leaking between us and if I gave him one stroke, two, he’d come apart.
I don’t. That’s the one cruelty that will remain between us tonight.
I drive into him harder instead, and he makes a strangled sound, his hands and legs both clutching at me, his whole body begging for what I won’t give him. His hips tilt up, trying to get friction against my stomach, and I shift my weight up so he can’t.
“Dami,” he gasps. The first word he’s spoken. “Please.”
I put a hand over his mouth, keep my pace deep and steady, and when that familiar tension swells at the base of my spine, I bury my face in the crook of his neck and fuck into him faster, chasing it. He’s writhing under me now, desperate, on the edge, and I grab both his wrists in one hand this time, stretching him out under me.
It hits me hard. I bury myself in him to the hilt, every muscle in my body locked up tight.
For a few seconds, I can’t think. Can’t remember what I’m supposed to hate about him. Can’t remember why I was angry. There’s just the euphoria of release and his wrists in my hand, and my other hand…
My other hand is cradling the back of his head. I’m not gripping his hair. Not pulling. I’m just holding him.
I yank my hand away and pull out. He makes a pitiful noise at the loss. “Dami,” he says again, and the word is wrecked, full of need. “Please.”
I shove his legs away from me so I can roll onto my back, my chest heaving, and lie there staring up at the darkness.
“Go clean yourself up,” I say at last.
He’s quiet for a long time. I think maybe he’s going to argue, demand, order me to finish him off. But after a moment, he gets out of bed and heads to the bathroom.
When he slides back into the bed, all he says is, “Goodnight, Dami.”
No sarcasm, no venom this time. Just his voice in the dark, stripped of everything.
I close my eyes. I listen to his breathing slow down, bit by bit. He shifts once, pulling the sheet up. I feel his knee touch mine and I don’t move away from it.
Time passes. Could be ten minutes, could be an hour. His breathing evens out, deepens. He’s asleep.
My hand finds his hip. Just rests there. My thumb on the bone, fingers curving around it. I’m not pulling him closer. I’m not holding him.
Just touching him.
He makes a small sound in his sleep and shifts further into my palm.
I leave my hand where it is.
CHAPTER 20
DAMIANO
It’slike that for the next few nights. I try to stay away, telling myself every night that I’ll keep to the guest room, or even go to the basement.
But once that itch starts, I have to scratch it. I end up back in that bed with him every night, finding new ways to torture him, new ways to reduce him into a mewling mess just begging me to let him come.
And I never do.
It’s the only control Caligula Clemenza will allow me right now, and even the fury of knowing that doesn’t make me want to let go of it. I hate him. I want him. I take it all out on him, and he submits to it all.
Come Friday, the day we know where Tony Stuccio is going to be, he summons me to the bedroom in the early evening. I stop dead at the sight of him when I walk in.
He’s all dressed up like we’re going out to dinner.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask. “We’re going to work, not eat.”
