Chapter 29 Alessio
ALESSIO
IWASN’T SURE how long we lay there in the silent aftermath, tangled together beneath the sheets, the passionate onslaught abating as the night surrounded us and cocooned us in darkness.
Tonight had been perfect, from the moment Rafael came to me through the tunnels, to the moment we came together, fused as one. But as I lay there looking at the ceiling, reality crashed back in, invading our space. No matter how good it felt, how right, the fear crept into the back of my mind.
How long did we have? Would this be the last time I had him this way? When would he tell me this was enough, that he’d gotten caught up in the moment and it was a mistake?
When would God take him away again?
I tried to turn off all the outside noise, to focus on our breaths slowing and syncing. The rise and fall of his chest beneath my palm. The warm scent of him I wanted to bathe myself in.
His fingers were in my hair as I traced idle patterns over his skin.
How many years had I waited to have him like this again, knowing it might never happen and resigning myself to that fact?
Being bitter and angry every time one of my brothers was able to love so freely and then feeling guilty about their happiness?
“I’m not letting you go,” I said, voicing it out loud even though I was terrified I might have to.
Rafael’s fingers stilled in my hair.
A long silence followed, my heartbeat ticking away the seconds before he spoke again.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted.
“You know what you feel.”
“Yes.”
I lifted my head from his shoulder and propped myself on my elbow so I could look at him. His brow was creased, but there wasn’t the usual conflict in his eyes, and something about that eased the tightness in my chest a bit.
“I can’t be near you without wanting you.” He gently brushed his knuckles along my jaw. “And I don’t know how to reconcile that with everything else I’ve built.”
I turned my head, pressing a kiss to his hand. “You don’t have to figure it out tonight.”
“But I will. I have to.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, how I could help him and make it easier, what solution I could find. I was a fixer—that was what I did. Find the problem, make it go away.
But here I was powerless, and that was what scared me more than anything.
Rafael’s gaze shifted, drifting past me like he was lost in thought.
“When my parents died…everything collapsed. All of a sudden, I had no family. The house was empty. When I wasn’t with you, the silence was unbearable.
I clung to my faith. It felt like the only stable force in my life, the only thing that didn’t shift beneath me. ”
I opened my mouth to refute that, because I had been there, but he wasn’t finished, so I snapped it shut and listened, needing to finally understand why he’d felt like he had to run away.
“The pain was too much.” He closed his eyes like he could shield himself from reliving his nightmare again.
“I threw myself into the church because it gave me something to hold on to. It gave me structure, rules, a purpose for my life—something bigger than all the grief I carried. It gave me peace, or as close to it as I could get.”
“And I couldn’t do that for you?”
Rafael’s eyes opened, haunted and laced with regret. “You made everything so much bigger. The grief. The doubt. The joy—which felt wrong to even have, considering. My life suddenly tipped out of control.”
“You don’t like not being in control,” I teased softly, and he almost smiled.
“It scared me. Because loving you felt…overwhelming. And I thought if I chose you, I would lose the only thing that was holding me together. And then what if I lost you too?”
“So you chose the thing that didn’t move.” That I understood. God was steadfast, would never leave you or forsake you—that was what we’d been taught our whole lives, and Rafael leaning on that promise wasn’t something I could fault him for. I wasn’t the one who’d lost my entire family.
But I wouldn’t have left him either.
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
“And now?”
“Now I realize you never left me either. Even when I told you to go.”
I felt the sting behind my eyes, the way my heart clenched. I laced our fingers between us and brought them up to my lips, unable to voice anything in that moment, grateful he finally understood the depths of my devotion.
“Archbishop De Vecchi is coming in town this week,” he said. “I’ve requested a meeting.”
My eyes shot up to his. “Uh, last time you spoke to him, it didn’t end so well for me.”
“This time will be different.”
“How? Father Dickhead hates me.”
A faint smile tipped one side of his mouth. “He does not.”
“He absolutely does. And maybe I shouldn’t admit this, and no way in hell does he know, but one time I redirected the review section of the Adam and Eve sex toys website to his personal email for approval.”
“You did what?”
“I was pissed. But don’t worry, I cleared the history after a week when he didn’t stroke out from the content.”
Rafael laughed, his head falling back on the pillow, and it made me grin.
“Does that mean you approve?”
“Absolutely not,” he said once he’d caught his breath and wiped at his eyes. “Maybe if he knew about that, he might think differently, but he doesn’t hate you. I wouldn’t trust him for guidance if he did.”
“Well, I trust you, so…” I pressed a kiss against his ribs, then another across the bar that went through his nipple. “These are so hot.”
Rafael grunted. “Not why I got them.”
“Will you tell me why?”
Rafael reached out and tucked my hair behind my ear, then traced his fingers down to my chin to hold it steady. “You already know I got them when you came back into my life.”
“Right. But if not for pleasure…?”
He swallowed. “Seeing you again brought back to life feelings I thought I’d dealt with both physically and emotionally. But when I saw how much you hated me—”
“Not hate.”
Rafael stroked a thumb along my lower lip. “Were upset with me, then. It was too much. I deserved to be punished for doing that to you, deserved the same kind of pain I could see in your eyes every time you looked at me. Pain I’d put there.”
He sighed and let go of my face, but I quickly picked up his hand and brought it to my mouth, kissing his palm. “That’s not on you.”
“Yes, it is. You always had such a light about you. I took that away.”
“So you’d hurt yourself?”
“I’d— Yes.”
I shook my head, my eyes searching the sorrow etched into the lines on his handsome face.
“Coming to you for my brothers was only part of the reason I sought you out. The minute I heard you were back from Italy I wanted to come to you, but I was scared you wouldn’t see me.
My brothers seemed the only sure way. You were too good a soul to turn away a person—or several—in need.
But I didn’t count on how hard it would be.
Seeing you so close yet still so far away from me. It was…”
“Like heaven and hell had collided?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “But I couldn’t stay away. I tried. I’d come to church with the guys but stay out of the confessional. But then I’d go home at night and watch you from my place, greedy for any kind of connection with you, even if it was one-sided.”
Rafael sat up and cradled my face between his hands. “It wasn’t. It never was. You and I were always two parts of the same puzzle. Light and dark—”
“Good and bad?”
“A believer and a realist. But the one thing that was always clear to everyone around us was the picture we made when we came together—love.” He lowered his forehead to mine and took in a deep breath.
“And that never changed. I love you, Alessio. I know I’ve hurt you.
I’ve made choices for the both of us that had far-reaching consequences, but the one thing I never stopped doing, the one thing I will never stop doing, is loving you.
So now it’s your choice.” Rafael’s grey-blue eyes met mine.
“Can you ever forgive me for taking your choice away? For running? For robbing us of all this time?”
“Yes.” My eyes blurred as Rafael swiped a gentle thumb over my cheek, and I nodded, trying to swallow around the huge lump in the back of my throat.
“Yes?”
“A thousand times, yes. This.” I reached up to put my hands over his.
“You. I would’ve waited my whole life for you.
I love you, Rafael. I never stopped, couldn’t stop, not even when I wanted to.
You’re the other half of my heart, the other half of my soul, and I haven’t felt complete until this moment right here. ”
He smiled against my lips before taking them in a kiss that made my stomach flip. I wrapped my arms around him and felt like I was coming home.
“You’re mine,” he whispered against my lips.
“Always.”
“I’m never letting you go again.”
“Might be a little difficult to talk to De Vecchi like this?”
Rafael chuckled and fell back onto the bed, taking me with him. “You’re right. Don’t want to make him jealous.”
“Why, Father Vitale. I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
He grinned, and the sexy curve to his lips made my cock throb as he tumbled me to my back. “Then you’re really going to have a problem with what I do next.”
I wound my legs around the backs of his thighs as he settled in above me. “Eh, I have confession next week. Give me something worth confessing.”
“I love you,” Rafael said as he kissed along my jaw to my ear. “So much my heart feels like it’s going to fly out of my chest.”
“Don’t worry.” I stroked my hands up his spine and arched up into him. “I’ve got you.”
“Forever?”
“Forever.”