Chapter 33 Cesare #2
My teeth ground together before my eyes watered. I glanced away from him. If he was right, it was a reality that I couldn’t stomach or fathom.
“Trust me,” I growled out. “They hate me. And I don’t know why. I might have a sharp tongue. Maybe I was always strict. But look at them,” I said, waving a hand. “They’re doing better than their peers. Have more freedom than the average man. What the fuck did I ever do that was so wrong?”
“Oh, Cesare.”
Rafael’s hands on me with that sickeningly sweet sound to his voice made me want to shove him away.
Except I didn’t. When he sat on my lap and wrapped me in his arms, I kept him close to me.
My fingers dragged over him, my heart thudding in my chest. Coming here was a weakness, just a part of the sickness that was Rafael and it needed to be poured out.
“Talk to them,” Rafael whispered. “They’re all hurting. Something’s happening too. Benito and Harlow were worried about their daughter. Paolo nearly took my head off with a bat over his twins. There’s shit going on.”
I shoved him from my lap. “You trying to tell me you’re not the reason for that shit?” I snapped. “Because a rat always finds a way to start up trouble and it looks like that’s exactly what you did.”
Rafael blinked. “What? No!” he said as he moved back over to me. “I would never mess with someone’s kids. That’s not me.” He frowned. “You know that's not me.”
“Do I?” I asked, my voice a low scrape in the low light of his small room. “Do I know you at all?”
Rafael looked sick. “Don’t say that. Please.”
When he touched me again, I felt like I was falling in all the wrong ways. Everything in my DNA said I should be digging a hole right now, dropping him in ten feet deep so no one would ever find him. Yet there I was, holding onto him, not wanting to let him go.
We fell into his bed. I knew it was a mistake, but I also knew that tomorrow was going to be the end of everything I had already started. Rafael climbed on top of me, and I let him.
His long brown hair shrouded us in darkness, and there, I could lose what little sanity I had left. He was going to make sure of it.
“Cesare, I—”
I dragged him down, our lips locking for what felt like the first time in forever. Electricity sparked to life under my skin and it quickly shifted into an inferno.
How dare he do this to me. In the name of fucking love. I should spit in his face for the lies. My chest ached as I bit his tongue. Even the coppery tang of blood didn’t make me ease up. I lapped up every drop and swallowed every cry he let out.
“Say nothing,” I ordered. This weakness I had for him was nothing more than a sickness I wasn't strong enough to cut out yet.
Rafael’s hazel eyes shimmered with unshed tears. They were more brown than green in the low light of his bedroom, and for some fucked-up reason, I was captivated by them. Blood trickled down the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t seem to care to stop it.
I swiped my thumb over it, falling further into temptation as I brought it to my mouth and sucked it clean. “I want you to suffer for what you did.”
Rafael nodded. Not denying me, not begging for forgiveness, just accepting it as if it were always going to be his fate.
Fuck. Why him?
I ripped his pants off his body and nearly saw red at the panties he wore.
“Who the fuck are you wearing these for?” I twisted them around my fingers before I snatched them off. His body jerked with the motion, lifting off the bed slightly.
“You,” Rafael confessed. His legs spread wide for me.
“Lies.” I twisted him around, unable to face him any longer. “All you do is lie to me.”
He shook his head, his words breathless. “Never about this. I’ve always been yours.”
None of that should strike a chord with me, but it hit something deep in my empty soul. I closed my eyes for a second, holding onto his hips in a bruising grip. I was probably hurting him and yet Rafael didn’t beg me to stop for a second.
My head was a mess and it was all his fault. I’d never felt so lost. Confused. Unsure. Most days I rolled out of bed and I knew what was waiting for me. What was laid out to conquer, fix, or destroy. Yet here I was with Rafael, stuck.
A growl slipped from my lips. I yanked him back against me, raised my hand, and brought it down hard on his ass.
He cried out, his body rocking forward as he gripped the blanket.
Before he could relax, I delivered another blow.
Stinging heat raced up my palm, turning it into a pink color that only darkened with every strike.
Rafael cried out. “Cesare!”
“I said be quiet,” I snapped, my hand slipping into his hair. I squeezed and shoved his face into the pillow. “If you say one more word, I’m leaving. Do you understand me, Rafael?”
He sucked in a shaky breath. Slowly, he nodded up and down. Clearly, he wasn’t even willing to risk answering me if it meant I would go. Some part of me latched on to that.
Doesn’t that mean he didn’t want to betray me? If he’s this willing to hold onto me, maybe I got something wrong. Maybe there’s more to the story.
That side of my brain that craved a connection sparked. It was a faulty part though. I knew that from past experiences. The truth was laid out before me: Rafael had been working for Benito, he’d fed him information, and he’d been a filthy rat. Each of those offenses were punishable by death.
So why the hell wasn’t I putting him down?
I reached into his nightstand and yanked out a bottle of lube.
The top cracked open in the quiet. I poured a thick stream of it between his cheeks before I stared at his wet hole.
Working my own pants open, I didn’t bother taking them off.
This was a goodbye fuck. The last one I was giving myself before I would tell him to fuck off.
“Cesare—”
I shoved my cock inside of him in one rough go. He cried out, his face falling into the pillow as he laid out flat beneath me. I grabbed one of his cheeks, my nails and fingers digging in. Holding him was fucking with my head, but I couldn’t stop.
Drawing back, I held myself before I slammed inside of him. He gasped, his body twitching. As soon as he relaxed, I smacked his ass harder. My lips pressed together, heart racing as I alternated between fucking him and spanking him.
Rafael let out a stream of words in Portuguese I couldn’t even begin to decipher.
The only thing I was focused on was the arch of his back, the curve of his ass, and the smoothness of his skin under mine.
I pressed both hands into his lower back, pinned him down, and fucked him like my life depended on it.
“I should kill you,” I growled. “Should decorate every inch of you in fucking blood.” I grunted.
“But I can’t. Not yet. Not now.” My hands tightened.
“So you’re gonna lie right there and take every single second of this, you hear me?
” One of my hands fisted into his hair as he whimpered. “Push that ass back. Open up, slut.”
Rafael reached back and did just that. He kept himself held open for me, absorbing every thrust as he cried out into the pillows. That hot, wet hole clenched around me, and I faltered. For a moment, I stayed there until I caught myself and fucked him harder.
“Please,” Rafael let out, his voice shaking hard. “Please. Feels so good. Need you. Sorry.”
I shoved his face into the pillow and held onto the back of his head. “Too late.”
Every sharp slap of skin against skin filled the air. My breath caught in my throat, my body craving more while all I wanted to do was mark up his insides until he would never be free of my smell, my cum, my very existence again.
“Fuck,” I growled. “Fuck. Fuck you!”
I slammed into him hard as Rafael cried out. His hips jerked, his cock rubbing against the bed as I stuffed him full of my cum. I slammed into him once, twice before I finally held myself there, panting and dripping sweat onto his back while he whimpered and twitched.
Slowly, I pulled out and rolled onto my back. I slung an arm over my eyes, struggling to breathe as my chest rose and fell sharply. A hand landed on my chest, combing through the hairs before I felt Rafael lay his head there.
“Don’t,” I snapped.
“I know,” he whispered. “I know, Cesare. I’m so fucking sorry.” His voice caught. “I’ll never stop being sorry.”
Part of me wanted to shove him off the bed, but I found my arm snaking around his shoulders.
I yanked him against me, and he cried against my chest. The wet, shuddering sound of his sobs filled my ears.
I couldn’t kill him. No matter how badly it hurt, I couldn’t uphold the one and only fucking code I lived by the most. Not when it was Rafael.
I closed my eyes and knew that it would be our last night one way or another. It was time to end it all. I had one more moment with him.
Because I might not live past tomorrow.