25. Chapter 19
Lorenzo
That night
Fucking hell. He’s wearing a thong. A little black lace thong, utterly perfect.
Even though I’m already fully dressed in my suit, I shut myself in my bedroom, frantically unzip my fly, and stare hungrily at the picture of his firm little ass in that beautiful thong while pumping my cock until I cum.
Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, I wonder what the hell I’m doing here.
I can’t deny the fact that I’m attracted to Dashiell. Hell, I’ve known it since that moment he pulled me out of the fire.
Speaking of fire—I’m playing with it by having him here at my place.
It’s obvious, to me and surely to him, that I’m interested in him, and he’s directly said that he’s interested in me. That should make things simple, right? But my own brain is getting in the way.
Maybe it’s an honor thing, I don’t know, but as much as I want him, I can’t believe that he knows what we’d be getting into. What he’d be signing up for.
I’ve had many men before—even a few women, before I really settled on what I liked.
And I know what I like, and I know how far I like to take things.
Dash doesn’t. He might think he does, but there’s a difference between wanting to be used in theory, and actually being willing to surrender in that way.
I’m just not convinced he’s found that line yet.
He doesn’t know the darkness inside me.
I clean myself up, put my cock away, straighten my tie in the mirror and barely recognize the man looking back at me. Something has shifted this week, something I don’t have a word for yet.
My phone buzzes—Mother.
Paloma D: Seven o’clock. Don’t be late. I’m excited to meet the boy (officially!)
I told my family that I wanted to bring Dash around for dinner. Mother and Giovanni both know that he’s the firefighter who rescued me. Neither of them knows everything else.
My instincts are to correct Mother, to say that Dash isn’t a boy. But, he is, isn’t he? He’s twenty-two, fifteen years younger than me.
And that, I think, is just one of the many, many reasons you can’t be interested in him.
My mother’s house sits on a quiet street in Pacific Heights.
It is narrow and tall, and doesn’t look like anything too special from the outside.
She bought it herself, years ago, with money that had nothing to do with Father’s empire.
My mother was born into one of the greatest families of the Sicilian Mafia before she met and fell in love with Massimo Diamante. She has a fortune all her own.
Wolfe drives us there. The entire time, I can hardly look at Dash, knowing that beneath that frumpy suit, he’s wearing a delicate lace thong, which I would love to rip off with my teeth.
Stop it, Lorenzo, I think as we pull up to my mother’s house. Stop thinking like that. Get it together.
“We’ll be done by ten,” I tell Wolfe, and he nods.
“I want you to wait here,” I add. Normally, he’d be free to do what he likes until it’s time to pick me up.
Mother’s house is very secure, so I wouldn’t normally think about needing my own security outside, but in the event that Giovanni is guilty, I don’t want Wolfe far away.
“How many pieces of property does your family own?” Dash asks as we walk up to my mother’s house.
“Several.”
“Damn. This is nice.”
I have to agree. Mother’s butler, Stefano, greets us at the door and ushers us inside. It’s like stepping through a portal from San Francisco to Sicily.
The walls are the color of sun-baked clay, ochre and rust, rough plaster that catches the lamplight unlike any American drywall I’ve ever seen.
There’s wrought iron everywhere—the chandelier, the stair rail, a small balcony grill visible through the plate glass windows.
The floors are terracotta instead of hardwood.
A ceramic bowl by the door holds lemons, real lemons, bright yellow against the dark wood of the table.
The foyer smells of rosemary and woodsmoke.
This is home. Sicily, or my mother’s memories of it, redesigned room by room, thousands of miles from the island where she grew up.
“This is beautiful,” Dash murmurs, turning slowly to take it all in.
I like that he appreciates my mother’s tastes. “Thank you. My mother designed it herself to remind her of her home in Sicily.”
“Does she still have family there?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Yes. The Bonnaccorso Family. One of the oldest and most dangerous branches of the Cosa Nostra.”
Dash’s eyes widen. “Oh.”
I can almost see him reconciling that idea with the image of my mother he surely still has in his mind—a soot-covered woman, distressed and grieving her husband as he’s taken out of his burning home on a backboard.
“She’s waiting in the sitting room,” Stefano says, giving a shallow bow.
Dash nods at me. “All right. Shall we?”
Because we’re supposed to be dating, I take his arm. Trying not to think about what he’s wearing under his suit, I lead him to my mother’s sitting room, where she’s waiting.
Paloma Diamante stands near the lit fireplace, the flames low and orange against old bronze andirons wrought in the shape of panthers.
She is wearing all black, and her dark hair is pulled back tightly.
Her eyes find mine first, then move to Dash.
I know the assessing look she gives him, and I feel a sharp flash of protectiveness for him.
“Mother,” I say, kissing both her cheeks. “This is Dashiell.”
“Dashiell Novak.” She pronounces his name carefully and unhurriedly.
Her accent has been smoothed after more than forty years in America, but it lingers around the edge of her words.
She takes Dash’s hand in both of hers. “You’re the man who saved my son’s life.
I remember you from that terrible night. ”
“Just doing my job, ma’am,” Dash says, a blush rising in his pale cheeks.
“Even so. Thank you. I don’t forget debts like this.”
Dash glances at me, a warm and embarrassed look on his face. That look lands low in my chest, twisting inside me, reminding me again of all the things I shouldn’t feel.
“Giovanni’s not here yet,” Mother says, releasing Dash’s hand and gesturing to a comfortable couch. “Please, sit. He’s never on time anymore. He seems to take the title of Don as meaning that punctuality is beneath him.”
“Mother.”
Her look is sharp. “I’m allowed to say it. I know more than anyone in this family what makes someone a good Don. Dash, would you like a drink?”
Mother behaves while we wait for Giovanni. She serves Mandarinello Spritzes with Prosciutto e Melone and delicate green Castelvetrano olives. Her questions for Dash are easy, kind, asking him about his parents, and about his work, about what inspired him to become a firefighter.
I listen with interest. These are things I suppose I should know if I’m pretending to be his boyfriend.
He tells my mother—and by extension, me—that he chose to become a firefighter after the earthquake that devastated San Francisco almost three years ago.
Then, he was a nineteen-year-old college dropout who was working as a waiter at a diner chain.
“The fryer caught on fire during the quake,” he says softly.
“One of the cooks was sprayed with burning oil, and he was freaking out, and probably about to burn alive. And…I don’t know, something just came over me.
I remembered something I’d heard a long time ago, and I took my apron, tackled him, and smothered the flames.
After that, I knew what I wanted to do.”
Mother nods appreciatively. “And after that, you enrolled in the fire academy?”
“Not immediately. My dad—he runs a construction company. I worked with him for a bit, helping rebuild homes. He really needed all hands working for that. Once we’d put up some shelters, I did some reevaluating of my life and decided that I wanted to be a firefighter. It just felt right.”
“Ah, see?” Mother says. “You are a hero.”
Again, Dash blushes. “Thank you, ma’am.”
I can’t resist asking a question. “So, it was the earthquake that inspired you to be a firefighter?”
Dash thinks on that for a moment. “Yes and no. I’d always admired firefighters.
When I was nine years old, I was actually in a house fire.
No one died, but it was terrifying. I was at my best friend’s house when it happened.
Thankfully, we were okay. I think that’s when I first realized how terrifying fire could be, and how important it is to have people fighting it. ”
I nod thoughtfully. Dash has more layers than I expected. This entire time, I suppose, I’ve been thinking of Dash as barely an adult, but he speaks to my mother with all the poise and assurance of someone much older.
It’s…fascinating.
Before I have the chance to chase that thought, Stefano returns to the sitting room. “Signor Diamante has arrived,” he says.
Mother brushes her hands together. “Well. I suppose we should head to dinner.”