Chapter Three
Marcello
I’ve had trouble sleeping ever since I met Elio weeks ago.
The house is dark and quiet around me. I need my sleep. I have a syndicate to run. I have a shipment due at the docks Thursday. I have a Russian boss up north making noise that needs to be silenced and a meeting with three capos in the morning that requires my full attention.
Instead, all I can think about is Elio Conti.
The contract is now signed. It’s official.
He’s going to be mine. My mind once more drifts back to our meeting two weeks ago.
His scent was intriguing. Enticing. Light and warm with something sweet underneath, something distinctly omega that hit the back of my throat and stayed there.
I haven’t been able to shake it. I don’t really want to shake it.
It’s a pleasant promise of something delicious to come.
I spent two years with Sandro, who is objectively stunning.
He knew exactly how to use his scent, his body, his mouth to keep me interested.
But Sandro’s appeal was always performance.
Calculated. Every touch, every sigh, every arch of his back was choreographed for effect.
I didn’t realize how exhausting that was until I sat across from an omega who wasn’t performing at all.
After meeting Elio, I felt my whole body wake up like it had been sleeping for years.
Elio is quick witted and a little defiant, which I’d usually hate.
But it simply felt like foreplay. I want that surly little mouth wrapped around my cock.
I want his slender body beneath me, squirming on my cock.
Fuck, he’s the reason I can’t sleep. Every night I’m too hard and aroused for sleep and it’s all Elio Conti’s fault.
I slip my hand into my pajama bottoms, in need of release.
As I’ve done every night since we met, I fantasize about having Elio with me here in my bed.
Underneath me. I can just imagine how soft his blond hair would be in my fist as I mount him.
Should I take him for the first time from behind?
Or would I prefer fucking him as I look into those startlingly green eyes? I can’t decide.
I shudder with lust because either one would be good so long as his tight heat is wrapped around my dick.
I imagine undressing him slowly. Pulling his shirt up over his head and running my hands down his chest, his ribs, the lean muscle of his stomach.
He’s slim but he’s not delicate. There’s strength in him.
In my fantasy I drag my mouth down the center of his chest, tasting the salt of his skin, and he shivers under me.
His hands come up to grip my shoulders and I feel his fingers dig in, holding on. Submitting.
Groaning, I wrap my fingers around my cock.
I imagine spreading his thighs and settling my head between them.
I imagine the sounds he’d make when I pressed my mouth to the inside of his knee and kissed my way up, slow, deliberate.
I’d take my time. Not to tease him, though the teasing would be its own reward, but because I’d want to learn him.
I’d plunder his hole with my tongue, eating him out with a ferocity that would send him screaming over the edge.
I want to know every response, every place that makes him gasp or tense or arch toward me.
I’d want to know the map of him before I ever pushed my cock inside.
He’d be wet with slick. Hot and ready. His body responding to the alpha pheromones rolling off me whether his stubborn mind cooperated or not.
I imagine dragging my fingers through that wetness and pushing two inside him and watching his face contort with lust. That composure he holds on to so tightly, I’d want to take it apart piece by piece.
I’d curl my fingers and find the spot that makes him cry out and I’d stay there, relentless, until his hips are rocking against my hand and his breathing is ragged and his eyes have gone glassy.
I stroke myself harder, my breath coming in rough pulls.
I imagine the moment I push into him. His back arching off the mattress, his mouth falling open on a moan he can’t hold back.
I’d go slow at first, letting him feel every inch, letting his body stretch around me and adjust. He’d be impossibly tight, squeezing around me, and I’d have to grit my teeth to keep from losing it immediately.
I’d hold still, fully seated inside him, and press my forehead against his, and for a second we’d just breathe together.
Then I’d move. Deep, rolling thrusts that drag moans out of him with every stroke.
I’d pin his wrists down because I’d need to see his face.
I’d need to watch what I’m doing to him.
His legs would wrap around my waist, pulling me deeper, and I’d feel his cock hard and leaking between us, trapped against my stomach as I drive into him.
I’d change the angle and find that spot again from the inside and his whole body would jolt, a sound tearing out of him that’s half my name and half something wordless and primal.
Maybe I’d flip him onto his stomach and have the best of both worlds.
My hand on the back of his neck, pressing him into the mattress.
I’d pull his hips up and push back into him from behind, deeper at this angle, and the noise he’d make would be obscene.
I’d fuck him hard then. No more patience, no more restraint.
Just the raw, driving need to claim, to fill, to mark.
I’d lean down over his back and drag my teeth across the nape of his neck, right where the bonding bite would go, and he’d shudder so hard I’d feel it through my whole body.
I’d reach around and take his cock in my hand and stroke him fast and tight while I bury myself in him over and over, and he’d come with a strangled cry, clenching around me so hard that I’d follow him seconds later, spilling deep inside him, my teeth against his neck, my hand gripping his hip hard enough to leave marks.
I come with a groan, my whole body locking up.
My release tears through me in waves, powerful enough that my vision whites out at the edges.
Once I’m satiated, I lie there panting, heart pounding, hand wet, staring at the ceiling.
I always come harder from my fantasies of Elio than I did after two years with Sandro actually in my bed.
I can’t wait to experience real sex with Elio.
After a bit, I clean myself up and crawl back under the covers. With my body warm and relaxed, sleep claims me within seconds.
The week that follows is all logistics.
Kessler is efficient. The contract is drawn up, reviewed by my lawyers, adjusted twice at Elio’s request, which surprises me.
I expected him to sign whatever was put in front of him.
Instead he pushed back on the visitation terms for the child we might have, and on the language around medical decisions during the pregnancy.
Kessler relayed the changes without commentary, but I could hear the approval in what he didn’t say.
This omega has a spine. Good. Spineless people bore me.
Fabio Conti is transferred to Harbor View Medical, twenty minutes from my estate.
I made three phone calls. The first was to David Ashworth, who is the best cardiac surgeon on the East Coast and who does not typically take patients on short notice.
The second was to the chief of medicine at Harbor View Medical, who owes the Foschini family a favor.
Several actually. The third call was to Kessler, to inform him that the brother’s surgical arrangements were finalized and that pre-operative testing would begin immediately.
It wasn’t generosity. It was strategy. Elio’s brother is the lever that holds this entire arrangement in place. If the surgery falls apart, the contract falls apart. Keeping Fabio close, keeping him in the best hands available, ensures that Elio stays focused and cooperative. That’s all this is.
The wedding is set for Saturday. Mama has been busy making preparations.
It won’t be easy to pull a wedding this big together so quickly, but there was no way we could simply have some rushed affair at a courthouse.
This is the Foschini family. When the head of the syndicate takes an omega, it’s an event.
Mama already has our favorite caterer lined up to prepare the meal.
The cake is being made by Bellafiore’s, a third-generation Italian bakery in Sorrento Bay.
They’ve made every important cake my family has eaten for nearly fifty years.
Baptisms, confirmations, weddings, funerals.
Mama put Ornella in charge of other preparations like flowers and decor.
Despite what Ornella might feel about my arranged marriage to Elio, she’s thrown herself into the work with the grim efficiency of a general planning a campaign.
Invitations went out last week to the important families, the capos, the business associates.
Three hundred guests invited and three hundred guests have confirmed.
The ceremony will take place in the formal gardens at our family estate.
A reception will then be held in the adjacent grand hall.
No expense has been spared. The whole thing is designed to send a message: Marcello Foschini is settled, not wobbly.
Marcello Foschini has an omega. Marcello Foschini has a future.
Marcello Foschini isn’t going anywhere.
I have one missed call from Sandro. I’m sure he’s heard the news and he’s livid. Hurt. But I don’t call him back. He did this to himself. I’ve moved on and he should too. I have more important things to think about. Like the survival of the Foschini family.