Chapter 32 Damiano
DAMIANO
I want to kiss Caligula Clemenza.
His chest heaves as he breathes beneath me, harsh and fast as though he’s excited all over again.
As for me, I might burst if he so much as lays a finger on me. God, the way he wriggled around while I enjoyed myself between his legs. Felt like wet, hot velvet. I had to exert every ounce of self-control to avoid taking the angle that would let my dick sneak into his tight little knot.
I won’t fuck him. I definitely can’t kiss him. So I do the only thing I can do.
I pull his sticky fingers up to my mouth and start sucking them clean. He tastes so good, so sweet and silky, that I almost groan. I lick right up his palm, chasing the rest.
He makes a strangled, helpless sound beneath me. I stare down at him in the utter blackness while I work my tongue over his hand. I can’t see him. But his other hand is sliding coyly up my shoulder, around the back of my neck, trying to pull me down to kiss him.
No fucking way.
I pull my mouth off of his fingers with a wet pop and roll away onto the bed, my dick slapping against my belly, complaining and angry.
I ignore it and leave the bed to go clean up in the bathroom.
I run a washcloth under water and bring it back to the bedroom for him. “Here,” I say, tossing it in the dark.
It seems to land alright, a soggy slap on skin that makes him gasp. I hear him running it over himself.
My dick has finally died down. I need to stop doing this to myself; it’s torturing me more than it’s humiliating him. Everything I said tonight, he just took as dirty talk, got off on it as much as…
Well. As much as I did.
“What do you want me to do with—” he begins.
“Just throw it on the floor, for Christ’s sake. And then move over.”
A second later, I feel a breeze past my arm and hear a damp splat against the wall behind. That little fucker balled up the cloth and threw it at me.
But I guess I can’t blame him. And I can’t prove it, either. There are no cameras in my bedroom that I could review, even if I wanted to.
So I just get back into bed and put my arm back around him.
“Are you going to crush me in your sleep again, Dami?” he needles. “Because if so—”
“Shut up and go to sleep,” I mutter, holding him tighter.
I don’t plan to give him any chance to get out of bed without me knowing. If that means I have to hold onto him all night like a prickly fucking teddy bear, then that’s what I’ll do.
I wake the next morning to find the Clemenza gone from my bed.
I sit up, alert and on edge, but I hear the water running in the bathroom. How the hell does he keep sneaking out of bed without me noticing? I’ve never been a deep sleeper. I usually wake at the slightest sound. But with my greatest enemy in my bed, I’m dead to the world.
I wonder if he drugged me somehow, but then I remember the nightmare, the same one as always, watching my father die. Cesario Clemenza turning on me as well—
And the sex.
I remember the sex, too. The feel of him. The taste of him…
And the aftermath. I look around the room, and yep, there it is. That washcloth, balled up and dry now, lying next to the wall.
Trying to outrun memories before they can take hold, I get up and open the bathroom door. He’s there in the shower, just finishing up as I come in, since he turns off the water a second later and opens the door to look at me, slicking back the wet hair from his face. “All yours,” he says.
I can’t pick the tone. He doesn’t sound as cold as he sometimes does, but he sure as hell doesn’t sound as open and vulnerable as he did last night when I was—
“Thanks,” I say gruffly. “I’ll just be a minute.”
He slides past me, but his arm brushes mine, and I’m very, very aware that we’re both naked. So is my dick, which starts to perk up hopefully, so I lean into the shower and start the cold tap. I find myself trying not to watch him dry off, but why shouldn’t I watch? It’s my bathroom.
And he’s my property.
He feels a little less mine than he did yesterday, somehow. And a whole lot less than when I hauled him down to the basement to punish him.
Once he’s back down there, everything will go back to how it should be.
I step into the cold water and try not to gasp too obviously at the shock of it, then lean out to close the glass door behind me, but he catches it with a foot.
“We should call Lorenzo,” he says, tucking the towel around his waist.
I’m too busy worrying that he’s going to see my hard-on and get the wrong idea to argue about it now. “Sure. Fine. Whatever.”
When I get out of the shower, he’s bundled up in my robe again, and now I know he’s doing it on purpose. “Take it off,” I order. His eyebrows go up, but he shrugs it off. And then he just stands there buck naked. “What are you waiting for? Get dressed.”
“I have no clean clothes in here,” he says patiently. “Which is why I took the robe.”
I’m tempted to tell him he can strut around naked in front of his precious Lorenzo. But then I find my sense. “Whatever.” I ball up the robe and throw it into his chest. He catches it, swaying slightly on his feet. “I’ll get Rosa to run some laundry later.”
He puts it back on without comment. I head into my walk-in closet, where I catch sight of one of my old suits.
Okay, I see his point. That suit is not the kind of thing I’d wear these days. I got it back before I was really making any money. “I’ll get Rosa to call Benedetti over,” I say loudly so he can hear.
“I’m sure he’ll be intrigued,” says a voice from much closer than I expected. I don’t jump, but I turn fast. He’s leaning up against the door frame, my robe slipping down one shoulder, and he has a slight smile. “Another emergency call-out so soon.”
I’m standing there with one hand on my cheap suit. I have to force myself to keep moving, keep sorting through the clothes, instead of going over to him and yanking the robe right off him.
“I bet he’ll be happy to see you again,” I grunt as I slide a hand through my shirts. “And for Christ’s sake, restrain yourself from ordering the most expensive fucking fabric he has this time.”
“Why? It’s not like you can’t afford it.” When I glance his way, he’s smiling a little more. “You need to learn to dress for the man you are, Dami, not the man you once were.”
I shake my head. “I got no time to worry about fashion. I’ve got a job to do, and I do it well.”
“Yes,” he agrees softly. “You must do it very well to be living so large.”
I can’t read his tone, but when I look over again, he’s disappeared, back to the bedroom. I pull on my clothes, and then fish out the door key from the underwear I kicked off in the bed last night.
Neither of us has mentioned it, that fumble in the dark. It was so erotic at the time, but I can barely believe it happened now.
I pause while unlocking the door and look over my shoulder at him.
“Let’s get this straight, Clemenza. If I could keep you naked and caged, hell, plugged every day, I’d do it.
But the nurse said to keep you warm. So I’m gonna keep you warm, make sure you get real healthy again.
When we’ve sorted out this Uncle Tony shit and found whoever is hunting your line, you know what happens. ”
“Oh, yes. I know what will happen.”
He doesn’t look as worried about it as he should.
Lorenzo Benedetti arrives later that morning with the same tools and swatches that he brought before.
This time, when Rosa brings him into the great room, both the Clemenza and I are there to greet him together.
He brightens immediately on seeing Caligula.
But I step forward and put out my hand to shake, so he knows who’s really in charge.
“Another tuxedo?” he asks Caligula with a beaming smile.
“Not exactly,” I say. “I need a business suit.”
His eyes stray to me with surprise. “It’s for you, Mr. Orsini?”
Caligula steps forward before I can ask Benedetti what’s so fucking surprising about that. “I told him we simply had to call you in again. No one cuts a suit quite like you do. Not this side of the Atlantic, anyway.”
The old man practically giggles and blushes. I suppose there’s something to be learned from Caligula Clemenza, if I wanted to charm and flatter people. I don’t think I’d be as good at it as he is, though.
“We’d better take some measurements,” Benedetti says, bustling toward me with a measuring tape.
“You heard the man, Dami,” Caligula coos. “Strip.”
“I don’t need to strip—” I start.
“The cut will be much superior if I can drape it specifically to your musculature,” Benedetti says.
Maybe he just wants my dick in his face or something. But I don’t like the grin Caligula has on his face. I know this is intended as payback, but hell, at least I’m not wearing a cock cage. Besides, I’ve got no problem with nudity.
“Just sit down,” I growl at the Clemenza. “And put that damn blanket over your knees. Rosa will have my hide if she doesn’t think you’re warm enough.”
She’s already been fussing around him this morning, getting on my last nerve. Caligula takes my usual seat, pulling the blanket over his knees obediently. He gives a bright smile and says, “This time you can be my dress-up doll, Dami.”
I’m about to tell him to shut his mouth when Benedetti lets out a fatherly chuckle and shakes his head at me as though we’re sharing a joke together.
“Signor Clemenza seems much improved,” he confides to me in a low voice.
“I am glad to see someone in the city is caring for him. He does not deserve the things that have happened to him.”
I don’t want to get into a big discussion about that, so I start stripping off, because it usually shuts people up. And it works, as far as Benedetti goes—his eyes widen only slightly, but from him, that’s as good as a gasp and a pearl clutch.
The tattoos all over my arms and the scars on various parts of my body are threatening enough as they are, but my muscles are just as impressive. And they should be. I’ve been working on them since I was thirteen.
Benedetti starts measuring me, and soon he has an air of professional focus. I’m not sure if that’s any better, since he has me turning this way and that, and at one point I have to face Caligula full on, arms extended, and watch him gawk at me without shame.
“He really is a remarkable specimen,” Caligula says. “Don’t you think so, Lorenzo?”
“Oh yes,” the tailor murmurs, noting down figures with a small pencil in a tiny notebook. “It is a privilege to dress a man like this.”
It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Lorenzo Benedetti say something about me that sounded sincere.
And there’s a benefit to playing along with the Clemenza, which is that Benedetti’s respect begins to extend to me.
By the time he leaves, he’s bowed and scraped to me as much as he has to Caligula.
Of course, it shouldn’t take the golden tongue of a snake to earn me the respect of a fucking tailor, but even so…
It feels pretty good.
When we’re done, I walk the man out myself, telling Caligula to stay right there in the chair and save his strength.
“Listen,” I say to Benedetti at the door.
“I know this ain’t something you normally do, but Caligula, he needs a whole wardrobe.
Not custom,” I add hastily. “Bought stuff is fine. But he came to me with almost nothing and—”
“Signor Orsini, it would be my greatest pleasure. You are right, it is not our normal work, but my wife, Maria, is very fond of the young gentleman, and would be delighted to pick out an appropriate wardrobe for him. We have a grandson just a little older than Signor Clemenza, who shares the same taste; he will be able to advise.”
“Appreciate it,” I tell him. Except I think I’m talking more about his respect toward me than his agreement to act as a personal shopper for my captive. Either way, Benedetti takes it as another sign of my care for the Clemenza. If it lifts my cred with the guy, I guess it’ll be worth it.
When I go back to the great room, Caligula looks pleased with himself but tired. He still hasn’t fully recovered from his exhaustion, and I guess keeping him up half the night sawing my dick between his thighs didn’t help much. “You better go sleep,” I tell him.
“I’m not tired.” But his eyes are already half-closed as I put out a hand to help him from the chair. “When did Lorenzo say the suit would be ready?”
“I told him it wasn’t urgent. A few days, probably. You’re still barely able to get out of bed for a couple of hours, so there’s no point getting a rush job on the suit if we don’t need it yet.”
When we get back up to my bedroom, I usher him in, and I stay outside.
He turns to me, somehow surprised that I’m not gonna lock myself in there with him. “Where are you going?” he asks.
“You don’t ask questions,” I remind him.
He sighs. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tonight.”
I shut the door on him and lock him in.
I shouldn’t be looking forward to seeing him again as much as I am.