Alessio (The Guzzi Legacy Book 2)

by Bethany-Kris

  Right, right.

  When had Alessio become the voice of reason?

  It didn’t matter.

  “Just …” Corrado cleared his throat and pinched the bridge of his nose to settle the fury swimming in his bloodstream. Some people just had that effect on others. Like instant anger right to the fucking vein. Andino was one of those. “How much longer before she might come home?”

  Although that thought alone was enough to make Corrado want to rage all over again, but for different reasons. Ginevra had a life away from here … people to take care of. And God knew he would never deny her those things, even if he had fallen entirely in love with the woman amidst this mess with him, the favor to Andino, and Alessio.

  Still, he loved her.

  At some point, she would go back.

  Corrado didn’t like it, but that didn’t make it any less true. He figured, when the time came, then they would all handle it together. Him, Les, and her. However they wanted to work that out, then they would.

  “When?” he asked again, firmer the second time when Andino said nothing.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Jesus Christ. And they want you to be the next boss of that organization there?”

  “Out of line,” Andino murmured, “and now you’re pissing me off.”

  Oh, really?

  That was nice.

  So fucking nice.

  And Corrado didn’t give a shit.

  “You’ve been pissing me off since—”

  Alessio pivoted and snatched the phone right out of Corrado’s hand. He put the device to his ear at the same time his palm came to rest flat against Corrado’s chest, a silent order for him to stay. He wasn’t even pressing down to keep him from moving, and Corrado’s blazing gaze didn’t seem to bother him in the least.

  “Andino,” Alessio said into the phone, never looking away from Corrado’s severe expression as he did so, “it’s Alessio—yeah, you remember, right? Say hello to Pink for me, I’m sure he needs the reminder, too.”

  A beat of silence passed.

  Alessio grinned. “And your point is? Because here’s our fucking point—we need a timeline, something to give this woman here who did everything you asked of her even when you gave her fuck all in return. She followed your rules. She did what you wanted. Not once has she stepped out of line, and every single day, she continues to do these things hoping that back there, the people she loves—who no worries, we know you don’t give a shit about—are still okay. And so, if you can’t tell me things I need to know here, I will come find it.”

  A hum sounded from the speaker.

  Loud and dark.

  Alessio seemed unaffected. “That’s nice, and I also don’t care. Because while we’re aware that to you, Ginevra is a means to an end, here … here she means something. So, you give me something to tell her, or I will come cut it out of your fucking mouth. You hear me?”

  Corrado grinned, glancing away because right, he was the one who needed to keep himself in check. Not at all Alessio.

  No.

  Alessio’s fingers tapped against Corrado’s chest, drawing his attention back to the man as he nodded. “Within a couple of months? Not firm, but likely. Got it.”

  He hung up the phone without a proper goodbye and handed it out to Corrado accompanied by a pointed look. Corrado took the device, shaking his head at the same time.

  “He’s hoping to have everything finished within a couple of months,” Alessio said like Corrado hadn’t heard the conversation already. “We’ll see how that works out.”

  “Still nothing for her to have about her sisters, though.”

  Alessio shrugged. “They’re alive, Corrado. You can tell her they are still alive.”

  Yeah.

  What good would that do, though?

  “It’s the best we can do.”

  “Right,” Corrado agreed.

  Not that it made him feel better.

  Alessio turned back to the stove, his pancake bubbled in the center to say it was ready to flip.

  “Turn it over,” Corrado said. “And try not to make a mess.”

  “I am doing fine.”

  “I didn’t say you weren’t.”

  Alessio made a noise under his breath but did flip the pancake. Corrado wasn’t sure how long the two of them stayed like that, close together against the stove as Alessio made an entire stack worth of pancakes that were decent, and not at all burned, but the minutes ticked by.

  In their closeness, he found home.

  In their silence, comfort.

  A part of Corrado hoped the two of them were getting back to what they had been before this whole thing happened. Oh, he wasn’t stupid enough to think it would be the same, but it could be better.

  He wanted that just as badly.

  Corrado pressed a quick kiss to the top of Alessio’s wide shoulder. His head turned, his gaze finding Corrado, but he said nothing. Not that he needed Alessio to say anything—all he ever needed was the man to be there.

  In Alessio’s stare, he found familiarity.

  Understanding.

  Corrado figured Alessio still had shit he needed to work through here, and he was more than willing to allow him whatever he needed to do it. Now, at least, they could get back to them while he did it, and that made all the difference.

  It always had.

  Alessio turned his attention back to the last pancake on the frying pan, saying, “Someone should go wake Ginevra up. She’ll want to eat, too.”

  “She’s up.”

  Corrado glanced to the side, and sure enough, found Ginevra standing in the kitchen’s entryway watching them. He’d sensed her presence from damn near the moment she came to stand there, even though she hadn’t made a single noise the entire time. She hadn’t been there long enough to overhear the phone conversation with Andino, but she had been watching Corrado and Alessio interact together for quite a while.

  Alessio looked her way, too.

  Ginevra’s cheeks heated as her stare drifted between the two. He didn’t find shame there … at least, not to say she might be embarrassed despite her blush. A bright curiosity blazed in her eyes, and he bet she didn’t have the first clue what to do with that at all. And then she turned to dart out of the entryway, leaving air and shadows in her wake. Corrado let out a hard breath, a heaviness climbing up his spine.

  Her reaction was all he needed.

  The door had been open.

  He bet she knew what happened the night before and had a front-row seat for at least some of it.

  Alessio dropped the spatula to the counter. “Let me go talk to her, yeah?”

  That … wasn’t a bad idea.

  “You should.”

  Alessio sidestepped Corrado to leave the stove. “All right. Keep the food hot.”

  “Sure. And, Les?”

  “Hmm?”

  Corrado shrugged one shoulder. “Be easy. You’re a bit overwhelming at first, but especially like that.”

  A sinful smirk curved Alessio’s lips in the most wicked way. “You don’t know that’s what—”

  “Be easy.” Corrado pulled open a drawer on the island, and in a flash, tossed an item to Alessio that he caught without hesitation. He stuffed the foil packet into his back pocket. Alessio didn’t know whether he was offended or aroused that Corrado was sure enough about what would happen between him and Ginevra that he pulled out a condom from one of their many stashes, or if it should irk him. “A just in case, yeah?”

  “Right.”

  “Ginevra.”

  Oh, God.

  Alessio’s voice calling out behind Ginevra had her wishing she could crawl into a hole and disappear. She thought, surely, she could act like nothing had happened the night before. Like she hadn’t woken up in the middle of the night to the sounds of two men fucking. Like she hadn’t been able to tip her head up and see everything happening across the hall because Corrado slept with a goddamn lamp on.

  Not that it bothered her.
>
  That was a lie.

  It bothered her.

  But in strange ways she hadn’t expected. For one, because a part of her wanted to join them. For two, because she was out of her league here with these men, and their brand of love. Not only had she found that she couldn’t look away the night before, a part of her hadn’t wanted to, either.

  That wasn’t her moment.

  They weren’t fucking her.

  She had no business watching them together, and yet, she hadn’t been able to stop, either. Somehow, she’d went back to sleep … but not until they finished. And not without an ache between her thighs she was sure wouldn’t ever be satisfied.

  “Ginevra!”

  A few more steps that’s all.

  Then, she could tuck herself away in the bedroom, close the door, and pretend like this hadn’t happened at all. She wasn’t ready for what was happening here if she couldn’t stare those two men in the face the next morning without reliving every single detail of the show she got the night before.

  So, she needed to avoid it.

  Entirely.

  Right?

  “Would you stop? Christ, woman!”

  Ginevra didn’t make it to the bedroom before Alessio caught up to her in the hallway. His hand snagged her wrist and grabbed tight before she found herself spun around fast. The walls were a blur until everything stopped, her back hit the edge of the decorative table a couple of feet away from the bedroom doorway, and Alessio closed in on her.

  She felt like a caged animal.

  This man had that effect.

  When he loomed over her, when he got close, and those eyes of his were only on her. Yeah, she felt just like a caged animal, and he was the predator that found his prized prey. Not that she minded it, but right then … Ginevra wanted to hide away.

  “I want to go to my room,” she whispered.

  Alessio’s brow dipped. “Ginevra—”

  “I didn’t mean to see that last night, and I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have spied. Please, let me go.”

  He didn’t.

  In fact, he moved closer.

  Pinned her harder.

  Ginevra dragged in a ragged breath. “What are you doing?”

  “You think we’re mad at you?”

  “I—”

  “The door was open, Ginny.”

  She blinked at how he said those words. Like it just was, and she should have realized that a long time ago. She didn’t think he was talking only about the bedroom door, either. She only had to consider it, and this last month with the three of them living in the same place.

  Rarely did they close doors.

  In any room.

  Alessio and Corrado didn’t tamper their tones when they spoke, either. It didn’t matter if they were talking about the weather while running on the treadmill or shouting at one another in the office like they had when Alessio first came back.

  The doors didn’t get closed.

  They let her hear everything.

  She saw everything.

  Her gaze lifted to meet Alessio’s, and there, she found a raging blue storm staring at her, but in the middle of it all, she found truth. They’d purposely done that—never once had they hid themselves, their baggage, or the rest. To her, they stayed way open.

  Alessio, too, she now realized. Even when he had been so mad, closed off, keeping that distance, and dealing with his own mountain of problems, he’d not shut her out physically. It was disconcerting.

  Because she liked that.

  And it terrified her, too.

  “Ginevra,” he murmured.

  Still staring at him, she swallowed the nerves in her throat, saying, “I still shouldn’t have done it. I … you didn’t invite me to do that.”

  Right?

  She didn’t think so.

  It didn’t matter she liked it, or they left their door open like they had a silent understanding between the three of them that she only now realized … that was them, and their private moment together.

  “I didn’t feel like an intruder, but I still think I intruded.”

  Alessio shook his head. “Not at all, sweetheart. That’s one thing you couldn’t do with us, but especially not when we’re fucking. Do you hear me?”

  God.

  That heat climbed in her cheeks again, and shot right down to her pussy, too. It was easier to admire the grain in the wood floor than his handsome face, so she did that. His words shouldn’t have sounded as sinful and inviting as they did, and somehow … he still pulled it off.

  “You know,” she said, her nervous energy falling out in fast words, “before you two, I used to say I was open about sex, and what people liked, or … all of that. Someone else’s bedroom was theirs, and it’s fine.”

  “And now?”

  “I still think that, I just didn’t consider it would be my bedroom someday, either.”

  Alessio chuckled. “Ginevra, look at me.”

  When she didn’t do what he wanted right away, his left hand shot up to catch her under the jaw. A simple tilt of his hand, and she was staring into his eyes again, frozen in place by the intensity she found there.

  “It’s okay to be overwhelmed and confused,” he said, shrugging one bare shoulder, “but never hide when you want it, too. That’s the only way you can find out if what you want is worth it.”

  “Oh, that I don’t doubt.”

  He raised a brow. “Hmm?”

  “That this will be worth it.”

  It was the aftermath that made her wonder, but even then, she would brave it for them. She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out what life would be like after these men had come into hers to change it irrevocably.

  “Did you see me go in last night?” he asked.

  Ginevra shook her head. “I woke up during …”

  The memory flashed in her mind, thick and heady. Part of it hadn’t seemed real, and yet, every inch of her body knew it was vivid and true.

  Corrado had put Alessio on his knees, a hand tangled into his hair, and the other wrapped around his chest to keep the man suspended higher off the bed as he fucked him from behind. Their voices, their sounds, all came out husky. And even as it seemed like one had more control than the other, she found power in Alessio, too. In the way his body moved, how his hands tugging and grabbed to Corrado, seeking what he wanted.

  She’d blinked, stunned at what she was seeing, and after they had rolled over, Alessio’s back against the headboard, and Corrado was above him. They stayed close, movements frantic, and beauty covering every action between them.

  And their fucking?

  She found it familiar. Or rather, she recognized it was familiar to them. So rough, and vicious, yet she found affection in between, too. Maybe that was what had drawn her in the most …

  “There’s always affection,” Alessio said.

  Ginevra flew from her thoughts in a bang, her stare still locked on Alessio’s, although she had been seeing him differently just moments ago inside her mind. Now, she found something hotter staring back at her, not that the night before, she would have thought anything would be more wickedly tempting than seeing those two men fuck.

  Now, she’d say it was the way Alessio was looking at her. A lot similar to the way Corrado did when he had her pinned under him, making her beg and scream in all the best fucking ways.

  “Intense, and beautiful,” she said, her voice a breath, “that’s what it was.”

  Alessio’s gaze blazed with lust. “Was it?”

  “I wondered …”

  “Tell me.”

  “Does he fuck me the same way he fucks you—will you?” Ginevra dragged in a hard inhale, letting the air ache in her lungs at the thought. “Would either of you ever be able to love me the way you love each other?”

  Alessio never blinked.

  Didn’t breathe.

  “And how do we fuck—and love—each other, Ginny?”

  “Savagely,” she whispered.

  It was true.

>   They hurt each other loving. Survived from it, killed with it, or become better for it. Was that not the most primal aspects of being human? Of loving as a human? And so, it seemed appropriate to say at their most base of being, in their moments of rawest need, they savagely loved.

  “Savagely,” Alessio echoed.

  Ginevra nodded. “And I don’t know if I could ever be the same to—”

  “You only have to say yes.”

  “What?”

  “Say yes.” His hand on her thigh squeezed, making her all too aware of how close his fingers were to the tiny cotton shorts she wore to bed. The matching top rested higher above her navel, and she had on nothing underneath. There was no hiding the way her nipples had pebbled under the thin top, or the way her throat jumped when her gaze darted down to his mouth.

  Not that her staring stopped there. She had never gotten the chance to admire Alessio without a shirt. He even worked out with one on, and he didn’t leave a bathroom unless he was fully dressed after a shower, not that it mattered because he had a private bath in his room.

  But now …

  Now, she admired the strong muscles that made up the man’s chest, and the hard lines that showcased his abs, and the way his pants rested low on his defined hips. He seemed chiseled from stone, a lot like Corrado. She’d watched him and Corrado put the gym to use day after day enough, so she knew why they looked like they did, too.

  She took in his tattoos, the double sleeves, and the start of the chest tattoo that showcased a crowned heart. Corrado hadn’t been lying, either. Straight bars pierced through both his nipples. They were opposites in that way. One showcasing his calm strength in a body that was uninked and unmarked in other ways. And the other taunted the world with his wildness through colorful designs, and piercings.

  It wasn’t obvious.

  Then again, they’d been subtle from the start.

  But she saw it.

  She recognized it all.

  They were Godly.

  Both.

  Why her?

  What God had she pleased?

  “I like your staring,” he said, chuckling, “but I would love an answer more, Ginevra. A yes, or a no.”