Chapter Five #2
When it’s time for dinner, Elio and I are seated at the center of the head table, facing the ballroom.
Mama sits beside me, and my sisters beside Elio.
Beyond us the room stretches out in a shimmer of candlelight, white roses, crystal, and black tuxedos.
Now and then people will tap their forks on their glasses and Elio and I are obligated to kiss.
I can’t say I mind that little tradition.
Elio’s mouth is sweet, warm, and willing.
A delicious tease of what’s to come later tonight.
Dinner comes in careful, elegant courses: tiny pillows of ricotta gnocchi with brown butter and sage, sea bass with lemon and capers.
There’s also beef tenderloin sliced thin and served with a dark Barolo reduction, paired with jewel-colored vegetables arranged so beautifully they barely look like food.
There are salads with shaved fennel and blood orange, baskets of focaccia bread glossy with olive oil.
The food is rich and beautiful, just like the crowd.
After the plates are cleared and the servers pour coffee and more wine, the speeches begin.
Carlo speaks first. His speech is warm and he talks about knowing me since we were boys.
He speaks of loyalty, family, and the kind of man I am when no one else is watching.
By the time he lifts his glass, Noemi is crying, Ginevra is pretending she isn’t, and even Mama has her napkin pressed delicately beneath one eye.
To be honest, even I have a lump in my throat.
After Carlo, one of the older capos gives a speech so long and dry I almost doze off. When he sits down, people smile politely. Glasses are refilled. Someone at a nearby table whispers something that makes his wife elbow him hard in the ribs.
Elio and I cut the cake, and I’m grateful Elio knows better than to try to smash a piece of cake in my face.
He simply feeds me a piece, his eyes heated, and afterward he sucks the frosting off one of his fingers, still holding my gaze.
That lusty look excites me. He already knows I can’t wait for tonight, I’ve made no secret of that.
But it’s rarer for Elio to show me his hunger.
We seem to be connecting on a level I didn’t expect.
Especially after our little tiff. But Elio seems to have truly moved past that.
Hours pass but eventually, the reception winds down. Guests begin to leave. The older generation first, then the families with children. The band plays softer, and the lights dim, which is the cue for the catering staff to begin quietly clearing tables.
I say goodnight to Salvatore Marchetti and a few of the other bosses, and then find Elio on the terrace.
He’s leaning against the railing, looking out at the gardens, which are strung with lights that reflect off the water beyond the cypress trees.
He’s alone. His jacket is unbuttoned and his bow tie is crooked.
He looks younger than twenty-eight. He kind of looks like a kid who wandered into someone else’s party and is waiting for a ride home.
I move to stand beside him at the railing. We look out at the gardens together in silence. The air is cool and smells like cut grass and roses.
“We can go upstairs if we want,” I say, casually.
He turns his head to look at me. His green eyes are steady but I can see the pulse beating rapidly in his throat. “Can we?”
“Yes. We’ve done our duty.” I hold his gaze. “Let’s go say goodnight to the family.”
“All right.” He pushes off the railing and follows me.
Once we’ve said goodnight to Mama and my sisters, we head to the east wing. This side of the house is quiet, our footsteps on the hardwood the only sound. Elio walks beside me, and I feel his excitement threaded with anxiety.
He wants me. There’s no mistaking that. But he also knows I’m going to claim him tonight, and for an omega, an alpha’s bite is never a small thing.
Especially not when the union is only meant to last three years.
He’s allowing me to put my mark on him, knowing it will outlast everything else between us.
It’s a sacrifice for him, and we both know it.
We enter my room and Elio takes in the space.
My room is almost identical to his. There’s a king bed with dark silk sheets, and heavy curtains pulled closed.
A fire burns low in the grate because Ornella anticipated the evening and prepared accordingly.
The room smells like wood smoke, clean linen, and my cologne.
I close and lock the door behind us, and Elio’s nostrils flare as he slips out of his jacket.
He holds my gaze as he drapes it over the back of a chair.
His white dress shirt is fitted against his body.
I can see the lean shape of him underneath it, the narrowness of his waist, and the sinewy lines of his abs.
He pulls the bow tie free and drops it on top of the jacket, and my pulse speeds up.
I’m impatient to get going. To be inside him.
My dick is hard and aching as I step forward.
I rub my thumb over the material that covers one of his nipples, and he hums. I smile, loving the lust my touch ignites in his eyes.
I begin unbuttoning his shirt. I make myself go slowly, even though my hunger is screaming at me to take him fast. One button at a time, I undo his shirt.
Seducing him. Coaxing his need. My fingers brush his skin with each button and I feel him shiver.
He’s watching my hands, his breathing unsteady.
“I’ve been looking forward to this since the first time I saw you,” I tell him, and I mean it. I’m not performing. There’s no audience here. Just us. Why pretend I haven’t been lusting for him since the moment I met him at that dingy waffle house?
I push his shirt off his shoulders and let it fall.
He’s bare from the waist up and the firelight plays across his pale skin, casting shadows along his collarbones, the outline of his ribs, the faint trail of blond hair below his navel.
He’s slim but there’s lean muscle underneath, the kind that comes from years of physical work, not a gym.
He’s not delicate. He’s strong. He’s beautiful in a way that makes my chest tight.
Unable to wait even a second longer, I cup the back of his neck and pull him to me for a kiss.
Not the restrained kiss from the ceremony.
This is the kiss I’ve been holding back all day.
Deep, thorough, claiming. I lick into his mouth and swallow the sound he makes, a small, needy moan that goes straight to my dick.
His hands come up and grip the front of my shirt, and he’s kissing me back with a hunger that tells me he wants me too.
I walk him backward toward the bed. He goes willingly, his mouth still joined with mine, his hands pulling at my shirt, tugging it free from my trousers. His fingers find bare skin and the contact sends heat flooding through me. I groan against his mouth and feel him shiver at the greedy sound.
The backs of his knees hit the mattress and he sits down, looking up at me. His lips are swollen, his hair mussed, and his green eyes dark with want. He looks wrecked and I’ve barely touched him. I can’t wait till I’m inside him, feeling him wrapped hot and tight around the shaft of my cock.
I unbutton my shirt and shrug it off. His eyes travel over my tattoo covered chest, my shoulders, my arms. I’m bigger than he is by a considerable margin, broad and heavy with muscle, and I see the flicker of something in his face as he takes that in. Not fear. Anticipation.
“Fuck, you’re sexy,” he says quietly.
“I’m glad you approve.” I smirk.
I lean down and press my mouth to his throat. I drag my lips along the column of his neck, tasting salt and inhaling his sweet omega scent. It’s strongest here, at the pulse point, where his blood runs close to the surface. He tilts his head back, giving me access, and a breathy sound escapes him.
“Marcello,” he breathes. “Are you going to claim me tonight?”
“You know I am,” I say against his skin. “Gonna bite you and breed you, omega. Hope you’re ready.”
He licks his lips. “I’m ready.”
I push him back onto the bed. He goes down easy, sprawled across my dark sheets, blond hair against dark silk.
He’s in my bed. Finally. The platinum band on his finger catches the firelight and something primal roars through me.
I don’t really understand why, but it’s a turn-on seeing my ring on his finger.
He’s mine. No more fantasies of claiming him. It’s happening tonight.
Right. Fucking. Now.
I undo his trousers and pull them down his legs along with everything underneath.
He lifts his hips to help and then he’s naked on my bed.
I have to stop and look at him because the fantasies I’ve had don’t come close.
He’s all lean lines and fair skin, flushed from his chest to his cheeks, his cock hard and leaking against his stomach.
He has a nice cock, thick and long. His thighs are muscular, tense, and slightly parted.
I can already smell his slick, sweet and fragrant, his body preparing for me.
I shed the rest of my own clothes. His eyes drop to my cock and his hunger burns in his eyes.
I’m big. I know I’m big. The flash of lust on his face makes something dark and possessive surge through me.
He’s going to take every inch of me and he’s going to love it.
I can’t wait to hear the sounds he makes when I’m balls deep inside him.
I climb onto the bed and settle between his thighs. My mouth travels down his chest, tasting him, learning him. He arches up into my mouth when I close my lips around one nipple and then the other, his hand gripping my hair, his breathing ragged.