Dark Soul Vol. 4 (4 page)

Stefano pulled away, then lowered his hands to Silvio’s hips.

Angular, bones and structures very different from a woman. Of course, now that he was here, the cock really took center stage, fascinating him like it had when Silvio had grown hard from what he’d claimed was torture. Stefano closed his hand around the length, felt Silvio inhale and his abs tighten.

“You can slap me there if you want. There’s . . . a lot of possibilities.

Cock and ball torture. CBT for short.” Silvio pushed forward, experimentally, as if to see how Stefano would respond, and Stefano stroked him, really to get his head around touching another man like that. He reached down and rolled and squeezed Silvio’s balls to feel them move, their weight, their shape. To get used to the possibility, the idea that he could have a male body like this, too. A male lover.

“What’s your favorite? Of all things?”

Silvio didn’t answer immediately. Was that because he couldn’t decide, or because he didn’t trust enough to admit to something that might be too much, too hard, way too bizarre?

“I like being controlled. Getting off is my favorite. Right now . . .

I want you to turn me around and fuck me against the tiles.”

Stefano inhaled. He wanted the same thing, but control was important. First he wanted to explore that body at his leisure. He released Silvio’s dick and touched the round scar from Diego Carbone, so unmistakably from a bullet he couldn’t imagine Silvio’s various lovers not asking the question.

What did he tell them? He didn’t look like a veteran, or a cop, or anybody else who could catch a bullet in the service of some greater, noble good. “One day I want to know what happened with Carbone.”

Silvio swallowed and closed his eyes. “Should I turn around now?”

Evading the question. Stefano tapped his hips to make him turn.

“Hands on the tiles.”

Silvio uncrossed his wrists and placed his hands on the condensation-wet tiles, fingers splayed and under tension, as if he expected to have to claw at the wall soon. Stefano nudged his legs apart, then ran his hands down Silvio’s strong, lean back and to his ass and the pucker between his cheeks. Seeing that scar there was more of a shock now. He’d almost forgotten it, but while it had seemed mostly odd and even bizarre when he’d seen it the first time, now it was a lot more personal.

He touched the muscle there, circled the opening, and Silvio bent over more. It would be so easy to work his cock into Silvio’s ass and fuck him. He even had bath oil close.

He reached for the bottle sitting on the edge of the tub, wrestled the small cap off and poured some of it into his hand. He coated his fingers well before he returned to teasing the pucker, oiling the skin there, and then gently pushed a finger into Silvio’s body, feeling him push back, asking for more. Stefano withdrew only enough to add a second finger, then thrust back in, and curled them both until he found the spot.

Silvio moaned, his hands closing to fists, and he thrust against Stefano. Stefano wanted nothing more than to pull out and thrust his cock into that tight, slick heat, but this wasn’t about that. He needed to understand how it worked, what it did to Silvio, how he could make up for the fact that he had no fucking clue what he was doing.

“Anything I’m doing wrong?”

“No,” Silvio gasped. “Don’t . . . expect me to . . .”

Well, that was working at least. Stefano kept up what he was doing, wished he had something larger than his fingers that would allow him to learn how to do it right—like that really impressive glass dildo Silvio owned—but he’d refine the details later.

Right now, feeling Silvio so aroused and needy made his head spin with the power of it, and he reached between Silvio’s legs and squeezed and pulled on his balls. If anything, Silvio got more frantic, more needy, his dick rock hard, unlike the guys in the videos on the internet who seemed to lose their erections more often than not.

His own need was more difficult to control, and for all his curiosity, there was just no way he could calm down now. He’d explore more, but later. He pulled his fingers out, turned Silvio around and dug his hands into the hollows above Silvio’s col arbones. “Down.”

Silvio obeyed, fal ing so hard to his knees it had to hurt. Without being ordered to, he took Stefano’s dick deep, sucking on him like his life depended on it. Stefano couldn’t help himself, he took Silvio’s head and thrust well beyond what could possibly be comfortable, but Silvio accepted the face-fucking with a relish that would have freaked Stefano out if he weren’t so Goddamned needy himself.

He came after one particularly powerful thrust, pul ing out and spraying across Silvio’s face and chest, which, God, was just another one of those images that would haunt him forever.

Silvio grinned at him, working his own dick furiously, then suddenly flushed, closed his eyes and stretched his throat. Stefano reached out and took it, squeezed as Silvio was being swept away by his own orgasm. Silvio’s semen erupted from his cock, mingling in the water around them with Stefano’s own. Stefano released Silvio’s throat then, and ran a hand down his cheek, hooked his thumb into Silvio’s mouth and bent down to kiss him. From power and savage need to tenderness and rawness in just a few moments. Had anything at all changed for Silvio? Had
Silvio
changed?

Had
he
?

“Hey.”

Silvio opened his eyes and looked at him. He flicked his tongue across Stefano’s thumb, promising
more
and
again
, then grinned. “I knew it’d be good.”

“What?”

“First time. Getting you off.” Silvio stood and opened the door to reach the towels piled up on the bathtub next to it. Stefano grabbed his shoulder—almost slipped—and pulled him back. Another kiss.

Shit, he could get used to this, exploring lips and teeth and tongue, but he broke the kiss before Silvio had a chance to break it. Small vestige of
control
.

“Now you can go,” he said.

Silvio grinned at him. “I’ll go first. You come out later.”

Ah, there he was, back to subterfuge to protect himself. Only this time messing up would have far worse consequences.

Silvio toweled himself down extremely fast and put on casual jeans and a T-shirt and not much else, no different than if he were alone in the room, absorbed in the task. Nothing had changed for him; business as usual. The indifference now would most likely save them both. Stefano dressed in a suit but no tie. He planned to visit Vince in the hospital later.

Silvio paused at the door. “When do you want to meet up again?”

Silvio seemed prepared—eager?—to play the role of the illicit lover. While Donata was in the house. The enormity of it all crushed the elation from the shower and the sex. He was the worst scumbag in the universe to not have even considered it. That he’d taken the invitation, had actually enjoyed himself like that. Had finally given in.

“I’ll let you know, Silvio.”

Silvio nodded and headed out, leaving him alone before he could explain any of this to him. Great. Seemed whatever he did, he ended up being brusque to people he cared about. All of them.

He finished dressing, combed through his hair (which would tangle anyway), and made his way into the kitchen.

Silvio was already at the table with an espresso, body slack on one of the chairs, radiating sated sexual hunger. Whereas Franco was standing to the side, that withdrawn calm in every line of his body, but also the tension of a man ready to fight. A study in contrasts, as much as they resembled each other.

Franco turned to him. “Coffee?” The man never used his name, which made him seem even more reserved. But beneath it al , things were going on; he just never showed any of it.

“Yes, please. Just espresso. No milk.”

Franco set about making two more coffees, placed one down before Stefano, hands as steady as death. He glanced up, and Stefano felt that odd twinge in his chest—and, granted, deeper—at the gaze.

Those eyes
knew
. Dark green as the jungle, or a tropical storm at sea.

“Thank you.” Stefano placed the cup in the center of a triangle he formed with thumbs and first fingers. “Right, I’ll wait until you settle.”

Franco sat down at the table. The tiny cup in his long bony fingers looked like a toy more than something containing a beverage. “Is this the debrief?”

“Well. Is there anything I need to know about the kills?”

Franco shrugged. “The less you know the better. That way they can’t catch you with insider knowledge.”

“There’s that.” Stefano shrugged. “Any loose ends that need tying off?”

“All done. Silvio even saved the priest.” Franco glanced at his brother, who shrugged.

“Killing priests is bad luck, even an Orthodox one,” Silvio murmured, clearly repeating an argument they’d had before the bomb exploded. “The cops are going to be interested in it, so we’re not doing much of anything. Hey, Franco and I did a year’s work in a month, so I think we could even take a break.”

Counting bodies in yearly averages. As sinister as it might have sounded to an outsider, with Silvio it was playful. “Sure. If you guys want to go to Hawaii to relax . . .” He left that hanging, because of course he didn’t want to see them leave again, not so soon. Not ever, if he could prevent it. But how.

“Only if you’re coming,” Silvio drawled, still perfectly relaxed.

Stefano almost laughed at the tone; Silvio’s more European vowels had flattened to what he probably thought sounded American. As easily as he changed to female, he was shit with accents.

Franco’s lips twitched, but his attention was on his empty cup.

“I can’t just up and go.” Not with Augusto and the
capos
playing power games, and when were they ever not? “And where I’m going, Donata’s going.” Man and wife. All the big promises from the day of the two-hundred-guests party and her wrapped in off-white silk and lace, diamonds and pearls around her throat. And him the luckiest, happiest man alive. And what had he made of it?

“There’s that,” Silvio said, matter-of-factly, and sat up. He looked undecided for a moment, then stood. “I’ll take the bike for a spin.

Missed the curvy roads through the cliffs.
That’s
driving, not the shit we had before.”

The “Be careful” died on Stefano’s lips when Silvio shot him a dark, feral glance and all but rushed out of the kitchen.

Franco looked after him, then fixed his gaze on Stefano. “Always let him go when he’s like that.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to get between him and his next adrenaline rush.”

Franco’s lips quirked. “He’s just getting rid of the energy. Racing does it. I sometimes think he’ll end up like James Dean, wrapped around a tree. I don’t think he’d mind.”

For a man of so few words, those were a lot of words. And an image Stefano really didn’t need. “So, for your help . . . Money’s really no issue. I could set you up nicely for a while, and you work out where you’re going to take your life.”

“Buying me time to think?” Franco lifted his shoulders. “I can always live off the land.” Like a hermit, out in the wilderness. As a sniper, he’d been trained to do that. Be invisible, eat whatever grubs and roots he could find. Franco, becoming one with a tree, sleeping stretched out on a branch, watchful and silent like any other predator.

They’d de-civilized him in the Legion, Stefano imagined, and Franco might have realized he liked it that way. That self-sufficiency, that wanting for nothing, that complete independence was something Stefano envied bitterly.

If he could live like that, too, what would he do with his own life?

But he couldn’t. He was tied to too many things: his family history, the
famiglia
, his duties, and of course Donata. And Silvio. Just walking away, leaving everything, had never been an option for him.

“What happened in the last few weeks? You didn’t just kill people.”

Franco lifted his hands briefly from the table, then dropped them again, straightened his fingers and looked at his nails as if inspecting them for dirt. Finally closed his hands into loose fists. “I had my assumptions challenged. About myself, mostly. Silvio can’t touch anything without changing it.”

Touch anything
. The words held too much meaning to decipher.

The dream images came back, of all three of them entwined in lust.

Stefano swallowed and shook his head. “Yeah, I’ve been there.”

“You still are.” Franco stared at his hands again. “He’s got no limits, no rules. Silvio does what he will.”

“So what did he do to you?”

“I don’t know.” Franco shrugged. “Wide-open field. I don’t know what’s in there.”

Stefano couldn’t help it, he reached across the table and touched Franco on the arm. Franco’s eyes narrowed, telling him he’d made a mistake, but then Franco just sighed and shook his head. “I’ll be soon gone.”

“Why?”

“The alternatives won’t work, whatever Silvio thinks. I’m not made to live Silvio’s life, and I’m not a lesser version of my brother— for anybody.”

Was that an accusation? Stefano lifted his hand away. “You helped me out of a pretty tight spot there, Franco. I want to make sure you’re going to be okay.”

“That’s the official version.” Franco crossed his arms in front of him. “I know what you want. And I know Silvio can give you that.

And the other way round. Nobody needs me. And I’m not good at being needed, you see.”

“You’re family.”

Franco made an odd sound. A laugh. It seemed like the saddest, bitterest thing in the world. And why did that make him feel like he’d missed at least ninety percent of the conversation?

“I just feel obliged to you now.”

“Pay it off to Silvio. I don’t need your money or your . . .” Franco’s lips tightened. “Tenderness.” He said it like another man would have said “pity,” and Stefano wondered if, to Franco, that was the same thing. God, he was beginning to see just how screwed up this man was.