Chapter 33
CALIGULA
I’ve been thinking about Tiberius most of the evening. Whether he was telling the truth, whether I believe him, whether it really matters. But at last, I hear footsteps in the hallway outside, and I take a seat on the bed.
It’s time for Damiano Orsini to make someone happy instead of miserable for a change.
The door opens, and he waits in the doorway, too still, too quiet. I can’t get a read on his mood. I haven’t seen him like this before. There’s anger there, I think, but it’s buried beneath weariness.
“Hi,” I say cautiously.
He takes a step into the room, shuts the door behind him, and locks it.
“Did you know it’s Sammy’s birthday tomorrow?” I ask him.
“What?”
“It’s Sammy’s birthday tomorrow,” I repeat. “Have you bought him something? Rosa is making him a cake, and I know Sammy would appreciate it if you had a gift to give him as well.”
But Dami barely registers what I’ve said. He goes into his walk-in closet and comes back out stripped to the skin, except for his underwear.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says. And if I didn’t know Damiano Orsini was a liar before, I sure do now.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “So, what have you got Sammy for his birthday?”
“Nothing,” he says again, but this time there’s more puzzlement to the response. “I never get him anything. And it doesn’t matter to you anyway.”
“It does matter to me, actually,” I counter. “Sammy hates me, but he loves you, and if you could give him something special, it would show him that he’s still part of this household. Still important to you.”
Damiano just stares at me. I feel a rising sense of frustration at this man who seems so determined to show zero emotional intelligence, despite the fact that he cares so much for everyone under his roof.
“Look,” I try again, “he’s hurting. My being here…it’s hurt him. I bet he had more of your attention before I got here. Right?”
Still nothing. Just that stare, dark and bottomless.
“And…whatever happens between us,” I go on carefully, “he’ll be here after I’m gone.”
“After you’re gone,” he repeats. “Yes.”
“So don’t drop the ball on him while I’m here. Don’t make him feel like he’s second-best. If you give him something—even something small—it’ll show him you still care about him.”
I still can’t read his face. “You feeling guilty, Clemenza?” he asks at last. “You want to undo what your Family did?”
“I can’t,” I say bluntly. “My God, I wish I could, Dami. I really fucking do. And yes, since you ask, I do feel guilty about it, but it doesn’t change the fact that tomorrow is his birthday, and if you were slightly less of an asshole, you’d know that yourself.”
“What am I supposed to get him?” he snaps.
I smile. This idea has been marinating in my head all day in the background, behind the shadow of Tiberius. “A Lorenzo Benedetti suit.”
Damiano just blinks slowly at me.
“Sammy loves fashion,” I argue as though he’s disagreed. “He dresses in knock-off designer stuff, but I bet he’d love a Benedetti creation. And he deserves the same quality and care as…” I trail off.
Damiano stays silent.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe I do just feel shitty and guilty, and I think making Dami buy Sammy an expensive suit will somehow make up for what my people did.
It won’t. How could it?
And then I jump a little as Damiano starts laughing. He runs his hands over his face, shoulders shaking. “You want me to pay for Sammy to get a custom suit?” he says, still half-laughing, his hands still covering his face.
Sammy is the person in this house who has the most reason to hate me aside from Damiano, and the least power to do anything about it. He’s trapped here with the ghost of his trauma walking around in a Clemenza skin, and nobody is asking him how he feels about that.
I know what it’s like to be the one nobody asks.
“I want you to show him he matters,” I say quietly, but I don’t think Dami hears me. He’s too busy chuckling to himself. “Is it really such an absurd idea?” I ask sharply, because the laughter is unsettling me.
He shakes his head, still grinning. “It’s fucking crazy. But hell, why not? Why not, little prince? Let’s invite your old friend Benedetti over and dress Sammy up in a fucking penguin suit. I’m sure he’ll love it.”
There’s something dark under his laughter. Something in the way he looks at me now, with that cold fire in his eyes.
“What happened with Big Gee?” I ask cautiously.
Damiano stops laughing at once. “That’s Family business.”
“But what did you—”
“You don’t ask questions.” All his shutters have come down just like they do on his house, metal barriers against the world.
He takes a step forward. I’m already sitting on the bed, and I don’t want to seem like I’m intimidated by him, so I don’t shrink away. I just watch him come close and loom over me.
His hand comes up. Slowly. The one with the “G” tattoo that I’m starting to loathe. His fingers settle around my throat, a collar of warm flesh that reminds me, despite myself, of the metal collar he made me wear in the basement.
I know this hand. I’ve felt it do terrible things to me and tender things to me and everything in between. Right now, it’s just resting against my pulse.
“Dami, what—” I begin, but before I can say anything more, his mouth slams down onto mine, and he’s devouring my words along with my breath.
He’s kissing me.
The last time our mouths touched, I was performing for an audience. I kissed him in front of Big Gee and the D’Amatos to sell a lie, and his lips were stiff with shock, and it meant nothing.
This kiss…
This kiss means everything.
His hands are everywhere—my hair, my face, my shoulders, pulling my shirt over my head, pulling me up onto my knees on the bed so our faces are level. He kisses me like he’s trying to consume me. Like he wants to climb inside me.
“Dami.” I try to pull back, to look at him, to understand what’s happening.
“Don’t talk,” he says against my mouth. “Please. Just—don’t.”
The please is what undoes me.
Damiano Orsini doesn’t say please. Not to anyone, and certainly not to me. So I just give in to the tidal wave of him. His tongue is in my mouth, hungry and possessive, and my hands are on his chest, feeling the heavy thud of his heart under muscle and bone.
We’re wrestling now, a clumsy, desperate struggle to get naked, to have nothing between us. He yanks at my pants and I kick them off at last, my dick already hard and leaking against my stomach. He shoves me back onto the bed, climbs over me—
And he stops. Looks down at me with an expression that just about breaks my heart, because it’s sorrow and regret and pity all wrapped up together. I want to ask again what’s wrong, but before I can, he’s bending my knees, pushing them back toward my chest so that I’m fully exposed and vulnerable.
And I just lie there and let Damiano Orsini do whatever the hell he wants to me.
He grabs the lube from the nightstand and then kisses me while he plays with my ass, working me open while his tongue continues its relentless assault on my mouth. And when he stops, when his mouth pulls away from mine and his fingers leave my ass, I reach for him, trying to pull him back.
But he’s not going anywhere. He’s just repositioning himself, settling between my thighs, slicking up his thick shaft. He’s looking down at me, that same confounding look in his eyes. A desperate, beautiful pain.
“You have no idea,” he says, his voice rough. “You have no fucking idea what you do to me.”
And then he’s pushing in, slow and steady, stretching me wide. My body welcomes him, muscles relaxing to take him in, and there’s that familiar, exquisite burn that lights me up.
He starts to move, deep, rolling thrusts that hit just right. His hands are on my hips, holding me in place, and he’s watching me, really watching me, his dark eyes burning into mine.
I’ve never been seen like this before. Not by anyone. Stripped bare, not just of clothes but of defenses, laid open under his gaze. And just like with everything he does to me, I want it.
I want it more than I should.
And I feel every damn inch of him, every drag of his cock against my sensitive insides. He leans down, bracing himself on one arm, and kisses me again. It’s a messy, sloppy kiss, and I give as good as I get, my hands on his back, urging him on.
“Take it,” he grits out, his forehead pressed against mine. “Take all of it from me.”
I want it. Everything he has. His anger, his protection, his hatred, and now this fierce, possessive tenderness that scares me more than any of the rest of it.
I’ll take everything he has to give. That’s what I’m thinking when he starts to come, when he gasps against my neck and spills deep inside me, filling me to the brim.
He stays like that for a moment, his weight heavy on me, his breath hot against my skin.
Then he lifts up on his arms, his cock still inside me, and looks down at me.
His expression is unreadable. He pulls out despite my protests, and kisses his way down my body, pausing to suck at my nipples, to bite gently at my hip bones.
And then he’s burying his face between my cheeks, his tongue finding my hole, still slick with lube and cum.
I cry out, my hands flying to his hair, holding him there.
He gets me writhing on the bed, pushing back against his face. His tongue presses inside me, a wicked invasion, and he grabs my hips to force me to stay still. He takes his time, lapping at my fucked-out hole, until he finally lifts his head.
“You taste like me,” he says, his voice rough. “But I wanna taste you.” And then he takes up my cock and strokes it—once, twice—and says, “Come on, golden boy. Give it to me.”
And with that, he closes his lips over the head of my dick and sucks, hard. I come for him at once, curling into him as my orgasm surges through me. He swallows every last drop of it, his tongue still working me as the pleasure fades, sucking me even as sensitivity takes hold.
At last, he lets me go, and I collapse back onto the bed, hear him go into the bathroom, hear water running. Almost before I can start missing him, he slides back into bed next to me and cleans me down with a warm washcloth.
“What’s going on?” I mumble. “Something happened.”
“Nothing,” he says, evasive again.
He pushes me onto my side and curls himself around me, tucking my head under his chin and pulling the covers over us. His arm is heavy across my ribs. His heartbeat is still too fast against my back.
It reminds me of how things used to be, before I stopped trusting him. Before I left him.
“Dami,” I murmur. “Whatever happened tonight...you can tell me.”
His arm tightens. “Go to sleep, Caligula.”
It sounds like a goodbye.
I don’t sleep for a long time, and neither does he.