Even his legs caressed her, flexing with his gyrations, brushing against her thighs and calves. His hard cock teased her, grazing her legs, her ass, making promises.
Then he pushed a pillow under her hips, and she felt him reach for the things he’d set out in readiness. Giada shifted her legs, bringing her knees up to offer her ass.
“Ah, è bellissima,” he murmured, and his lubed fingers slipped into her cleft, swirled around her anus, dipped in. He pushed a second finger in, spread her open, then slipped away.
Giada moaned and squirmed.
“You want me there?” he asked on a growl. She could hear his hand on his cock, making himself slick.
“Yes, yes. Please,” she moaned.
“Well, you asked so nicely ...”
He lifted her hips a bit more, and Giada took in and let out a deep breath as his cock pushed at that tighter entry. Always, when they did this, he took his time, eased in slowly, let her accommodate him, moving in and out by increasing degrees until he was buried deep.
When he was, her whole body contracted around him, pulling him deeper, never wanting to let him go. The sensation of him filling her this way was intensely intimate, and utterly overpowering. It was also liberating. This was undiluted pleasure, without any stigma of the past. Angie wasn’t the first man who’d taken her up the ass, but he was the first she hadn’t paid to do it.
The first man she’d trusted solely for his care of her.
Her brother had never done this. This was entirely hers. And, now, Angie’s.
“Jesus, G!” he muttered when she flexed and writhed under him, drawing him deeper, holding him there. “You feel so fucking good.”
The only answer she could muster was a moan.
Before he began to build a rhythm, he slipped the Rabbit into her pussy and switched it on.
Giada cried out, slamming her hands onto her head as her nerves caught fire.
“Fuck, that’s ... fuck!” Angie gritted above her. “The way that feels ...” Then he began to thrust, slipping easily in and out while he held the Rabbit humming inside her and on her clit.
Like the first time they’d done this, her climax was on her within a minute of this magnificent multiple stimulation, and she started to rock with him, getting hold of that release and forcing it as high as it would go. When she was screaming, Angie hooked his one free arm across her chest and dragged her to her knees. She was lost in maddening ecstasy, and he kept going, thrusting into her, working the vibrator, and now he had her breast, too, and his mouth was on her shoulder, biting down at the join with her neck.
She came twice in quick succession, orgasms like shotgun blasts, bursting white hot pleasure so intense her muscles turned to steel.
With one final, violent thrust, Angie shouted and went just as rigid as she.
They came back to earth together, and he brought them to the bed, easing the vibrator out before slipping slowly, tenderly from her himself. For a long time, they lay together in a jumble, panting and dazed.
All her life she’d denied herself the connection of love, because in her family, if she’d had this, she couldn’t have had anything else. Though she had wanted love, the sacrifice demanded of her had been too great. She hadn’t wanted to give up who she was as a person to be sublimated into the single role of wife and mother. Now, when she’d made herself powerful enough to tear down such silly traditions, she could realize—admit—that she hadn’t been everything she could be as a person until she’d also had this. Because she had also wanted this.
“I love you, Angelo Corti,” Giada said when she could.
“Ti amo, Giada Sacco,” he replied.
~oOo~
“What do you think?”
Angie walked through his roomy new office—still a bit bare, but nicely furnished with the basics, and with a beautiful view.
Finally, he stood at the glass wall overlooking the city. “It’s beautiful. Keeps me conveniently close to my sugar mama. I can be on call for nooners.”
Stung, Giada gave the door a hard kick, and it slammed closed. She stalked to the window and grabbed his arm. He turned.
“Stop that,” she said, daring him with her eyes to make another nasty crack.
“Sorry. I just ... you invented a position for me, G. A C-level position. That’s gonna look like exactly what it is. Me fucking my way to the top.”
He was struggling, she knew, feeling lost and insecure, so he must not have been able to hear what he was saying about her, too, when he made ugly comments like that.
“I did not ‘invent’ a position for you. Chief Security Officer is a legitimate position, and it fills a gap in our suite. Look, you need straight work to account for your earnings. This is the work you did before—at least part of it—and you did that beautifully. You were C-level for years with Nick. You are more than qualified for the position, and adding the title to the roster means I didn’t have to displace anyone else. I just shifted a few responsibilities around. No one’s complaining but you.”
She’d been relieved—thrilled, in fact—when she’d worked out this solution to the puzzle of finding Angie a straight position. She already had a Chief Operating Officer, a Chief Personnel Officer, and a Chief Information Officer—which covered pretty much everything Angie described as his work as COO at Pagano Brothers Shipping. Dismissing or realigning any of those executives would have caught notice, and not the good kind, in the Boston business world. And a C-level severance package that might have quieted talk would have been expensive as hell.
Security and intelligence work had been covered by her CPO and CIO, among the ranges of their responsibilities. When she’d read an article referring to another company’s CSO, a lightbulb had gone off. Adding the title to their roster had been a matter of convening the board, all of whom were a little intimidated by her and generally ready to give her what she wanted, so long as she kept profits strong. Which she did, so they had.
She’d moved security personnel and digital security, as well as research and intelligence gathering, into his portfolio. He was in charge of protection and enforcement again—work he was supremely qualified for.
And it stung like a lash to hear him call her a sugar mama.
“I’m not complaining,” he countered. “And I’m grateful. I’m just trying to get my head around ... everything. It’s not so easy needing so much help. I’ve been handling my own shit for more than thirty years, and now ...”
She reached up to cup his face in her hands. “I don’t want you to be grateful, bello. This isn’t rescue. It’s not charity. You don’t need either. This is mutual benefit. I need you. In my business and in my life. I’m not saving you, Angelo. I’m loving you.”
He smiled, seemingly convinced. “Okay. I’m an asshole.”
“You’re not. But don’t dirty up how we feel about each other with shitty cracks like ‘sugar mama.’ That hurt.”
“Perdonami,” he murmured and bent to kiss her.
“Sei perdonato,” she answered and made the kiss more.
~oOo~
A few nights later, after dinner, and with Jonathan gone for the day, Angie and Giada sprawled in comfortable companionship on the media room sofa, having a quiet night in. The Sox game was on the television, and Giada, not a sports fan, had her legs in Angie’s lap, getting an absentminded foot massage as she perused real estate reports on her tablet. The thoughts that had sprouted the week before had begun to sink roots, and she set her work aside and instead browsed a few sites on her tablet until the idea fully flowered.
She set the tablet on her belly. There was a commercial on the television, and Angie had picked up his phone. “Hey. We should move.”
He answered without looking up from his phone. “Where d’you want to go?”
“No, I don’t mean get moving, go do something. I mean I should sell this place, and we should move.”
Now she had his attention. He set his phone aside and muted the television, though the game was coming back
on. “Please?”
“I know you’re not comfortable here, Angie.”
His eyes were steady. “It’s a beautiful place, G.”
“And it’s pink in every corner. Everything here is mine. I saw your house, bello. I know this isn’t your style.”
“I don’t know what my style is. I just bought shit I thought looked comfortable.”
“So that’s your style. Which isn’t this. And this—I love it, but it’s my style because I wanted a place that was soft and soothing, where I would feel safe and comforted. I didn’t have anyone in my life to make me feel that way. Now I do.” She sat up, leaned close. “If we’re making a life together, I think we need to make it fresh together. Not what you had before or what I had before. Something that’s ours.”
For several seconds, he considered her without speaking, his eyes moving back and forth over her face. “That’s what you want? To make a whole life together?”
Her heart fluttered uncomfortably. “Don’t you?”
He patted her feet and eased them off his lap. “Hold on.” Then he got up and left the room.
Insecure was the feeling Giada hated above all others. She sat here now while that feeling filled her to the top. She’d known he was struggling to find his place in Boston. She’d known his sense of himself had been stripped to the tender meat since Nick had pushed him out. A man like Angie, maybe he simply couldn’t cope with a woman strong enough to stand beside him, or above him.
Maybe he wasn’t so surprising after all.
He was back within a minute or two, but by then Giada was on her feet, pacing, organizing her thoughts, preparing for a fight. Girding herself for the blow.
She spun on him at once, but he was smiling. And holding a small square box. Giada froze. “Angie?”
“You know last week, when I took my dad’s ring in to get the setting repaired?”
Giada nodded stiffly, her eyes fixed on the box in his hand. She’d sent him to the estate jeweler who took care of her grandmother’s ruby ring, which she wore daily.
“I had to wait a minute, and I was looking around. I saw this, and I thought it was almost beautiful enough to deserve being on your finger. I’ve been thinking about us, and where we’re headed, for a while—shit, maybe since we were headed anywhere. I had some things I needed to work out in my head before I asked, though, because, honest to God, G, it’s hard to figure out how to start life all over again at fifty fucking years old.”
He stepped closer. “I bought it because I didn’t think I’d ever find another ring worthy of you. I held onto it because I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t turn into an asshole if I couldn’t get my head straight, and I needed to square up with that first. The asshole in me was already starting to bleed out a little.”
He was right about that—nothing too harsh, but a few cracks like that sugar mama thing. Giada had read them not as signs he was an asshole, but that he was hurting.
“I’ve been feeling like a guest in your life,” he said, in concert with her thoughts. “I know you want me here, I feel that, too, but I’m in your house, with your things. I’m in your work, too, and your family, and it’s hard to see how to turn so I’ll fit. With Nick was the only place I’ve ever felt like I fit, and since I lost that ...”
He paused, studied the box in his hand for a second, cleared his throat. “I lost that. But now I have you. I’ve been trying to get over myself, figure out how to fit here, because yeah, I want a life with you. Loving you—sometimes I think I was missing out all this time, not feeling this, and then I think I’m glad I never felt it with anybody else. But this new-start thing, it ain’t easy. What you just said—I think that’s what I needed. For you to see it. If we make something new together, it’ll fit us both. So I agree. We should move.” He grinned suddenly. “And you should marry me.”
He opened the box. Giada’s mouth dropped open. The ring inside was an emerald-cut diamond set in platinum and surrounded by a ring of small round diamonds. The center stone had to be at least five carats, maybe as many as seven. Even by her standards, that ring had cost a fortune. It was also exactly her style and positively spectacular.
“Oh, bello! It’s gorgeous. But it’s too much!”
“If you mean it’s too expensive, no, it’s not. First, as you pointed out, I don’t need a sugar mama. I’m fuckin’ loaded. And second, the sale of my folks’ house paid out. I like the idea of using some of my share for this. It’s kinda poetic: the life I was born in paying to start the life I’m reborn in. Also, third, I need an answer, G.”
“Is it too soon, Angie? Are we rushing into a life together?”
The wedding that had started their twisty ride together had happened in February. It was now the beginning of June. Barely more than three months. In that time, both their lives had changed dramatically. Their coming together had changed a whole world, and they were still experiencing the fallout. Wouldn’t it be prudent to let the dust settle before they made another big move?
As if she’d answered his question rather than asked another, he smiled and took the ring from the box. Tossing the box aside, he lifted her hand and slid the beautiful piece of art on her finger. “I’m fifty years old, Giada. You’re almost forty-six. How much longer do you think we should wait?”
She lifted her hand and watched the ring glitter and glint in the light. It was about a half-size too big, but otherwise, oh, it was perfect.
Giada had lived her whole life without love. It had been a choice, a sacrifice.
Or maybe she’d only been waiting—for the right man, one who would support her, and love her for her strength. A man with whom she could have everything.
Maybe she’d been waiting for her soulmate.
Maybe she’d been waiting for Angelo Corti.
She looked up and smiled at this surprising man. “Not a second longer.”
~ 21 ~
Matt came up from the cellar, carrying a dusty box. “Okay. That’s everything but the pool table and that ugly old bar.”
With a new life before him, one he felt an equal member of, Angie had finally found the motivation to pack up this house and get it on the market. It was June, so he hadn’t quite missed the peak season. On this Saturday, while Giada and his sister were doing wedding planning in Boston, Angie and his brother were working on his house in Quiet Cove. This evening, Tina would bring Giada to the Cove for a family cookout.
Wanting a fresh, new start, he was taking a few things to Boston, but not many. The piano, of course. The pool table that had been his first decadent purchase. The mementoes of his parents. Those things would be in storage for a while, until he and Giada found a house they both loved.
Otherwise, he had a whole lot to donate to the Catholic thrift shop, a fair amount to trash, and a few things to keep in the house for ‘staging’ purposes while it was on the market, and then go to the thrift shop.
Angie put down a last strip of tape to seal the box he’d packed. “When the movers come for the piano, they’ll get the pool table, too. The bar was here when I bought the place, and it’ll be here when I sell it.” He considered the box in his brother’s arms. “What the fuck is that?”
Matt grinned. “It’s marked ‘Hot Traxx.’ Two Xs. Found it at the back of the cabinet under the stairs. Is it what I think it is?”
Angie laughed. “Oh shit. I forgot about that. I’ve been movin’ it around with me?” When he was a kid, he’d wanted to be a deejay. It was the first job he could remember ever wanting—and he was pretty sure the next one was ‘Pagano man.’ That box was full of tapes he’d made with his old man’s old reel-to-reel recorder, and then his own cassette recorder, doing make-believe radio sets, playing music, doing deejay schtick, and even commercials.
He’d thought he was really something.
“I figured that got thrown out from the cellar at the house,” he said. “I don’t remember when I took it, or how long I’ve been lugging it around.” It was silly kid stuff, crucially important when he was ten,
but ridiculous now.
“You want to keep it?” his brother asked.
Angie considered that old, battered box. He felt a nostalgic tug, but it was part of a life that had died long ago. “Nah. Silly kid stuff. Trash pile.”
Matt frowned. “You sure?”
He had another think. He and Giada were building something new, something fresh, and, anyway, he didn’t need to keep dragging a box around that he’d sealed up decades ago. “I’m sure.”
“Okay. The truck’s about full. You ready for a run to the thrift shop? Maybe grab a bite, too?”
Checking his watch, Angie noted that it was past noon. He was hungry, but he hesitated. It felt odd, uncomfortable, to be in the Cove and know it was not his home anymore, and could never be. Moving through the town, even just driving to this house or his brother’s or sister’s place, and going past landmarks so familiar he’d spent his life not noticing them, seeing them now as things no longer part of his home, caused an ache in his gut—as did the strange discomfort, the wariness that he might come face to face with Nick, or Donnie, or any of the men he’d once led. He was no longer one of them. He was, in fact, persona non grata.
But the nearest St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop was outside the Cove, and Matt would be driving.
“Yeah, okay. As long as I’m back by two, when the movers are supposed to be here.”
“Cool,” Matt said with a grin. “I could use a stuffie.”
Matt went out to the truck while Angie locked the doors and went through the garage to close the overhead on his Hellcat inside. He ducked under the lowering door and stood—and then froze.
Nick’s Maserati was parked on the street, and the don himself leaned on the fender. When he saw Angie, he stood straight.
Matt stood like a statue at the driver’s door of the Corti Market van. Angie went to him, a nest of snakes writhing in his belly. It was one thing to face Nick at a business meeting—difficult but doable. This, though—Angie didn’t know what it meant, what to expect.
“I don’t know what to do,” Matt muttered.
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