by Reed, Sophia
“Look all you want, baby,” he goaded, leaning back on his hands and giving me the full view.
I took my bottom lip beneath my teeth. “That’s good stuff.”
He started striking a bunch of different, silly poses, some flexing his muscles, some not. The fire was crackling behind him, flashing reds and oranges across his bronzed skin. It was art.
Alessandro was a man who could best be described as attractive without trying. He didn’t often do his hair, but the way his curls sat as a mess atop his head was oddly fashionable. He almost exclusively wore suits, but not because there was an allure to them, simply because that’s what his dad always told him to do. People reacted best to him when he was in his suits, so they made up about eighty percent of his wardrobe, with the other twenty being comprised of suit adjacent fashions like button-ups and long-sleeved polos. Even in high school, he was typically the nicest dressed kid walking around. If he owned t-shirts, I never saw them, and his pairs of jeans were used as grunt work clothing alone.
I let my fingers walk across his abs, admiring them up close. He smiled down at me and tossed me a cheeky wink, so I playfully jabbed at his stomach. He crawled forward, making his way up my body, leading with hands to settle on my breasts. He squeezed as he kissed them before dropping down to hook his fingers in the edges of my pants. He peeled them down, pecking along my thighs as he went, and stretched them to get them over my heels and off.
“These are staying on.” He licked my shin and kissed it as he crooked my leg over his shoulder.
His free hand dropped to his large and leaking shaft to pull at it while looking me over. He licked his lips like a wolf about to feast, and he guided himself down to my eager entrance. He perched himself there, tapping the sensitive bundle of nerves that sent me spiraling. I let out a moan, loving the feeling of the heated head teasing me. Alessandro knew exactly what to do and when to do it. He was a god among men.
“Please baby,” I simpered at him. “I need you inside me.”
Alessandro shook his head. “Well, shit, when you ask so nicely, how can I refuse?” He dipped into me without hesitation, quickly filling me up with all of him. He let out a deep breath. “Fuck.” He shuddered, drawing out the word. “Why do you always have to feel so good? I can’t last.”
I took the leg he didn’t have fastened over his shoulder and poked the toe of my heels at his arm. “But I want so much of you, baby. You have to last.”
He growled. “I’ll never make it with you talking like that.” He pushed even further into me, despite my believing he was as deep as he could go. The heavens sang when I clamped around him, feeling overstimulation as I came without warning.
“God, dammit. What are you doing to me?” he moaned.
He started to move in and out, in a hungry, rhythmic pattern. I wiggled my hips as he moved, wanting to feel as much of him moving around inside of me as I could. He picked up his pace until the sound of skin meeting skin was a lewd soundtrack to our dalliances, with vocals of my moans and his guttural grunts.
He was a maze I was happily lost in. Each new row of hedges was Alessandro turning me into a new position as the firelight flickered over us. He turned me around to where I was on all fours, wrapping his arm around me to massage my raised buds while he worked himself in and out of me at a wild, animal pace. He ventured into being a little rough, raising his hand above my ass and bringing it down in a pain-meets-pleasure slap that had me shaking with excitement.
He blanketed himself over me so he could take his time gathering each of my breasts into his mouth to enjoy. My nipples stood, excited to be rubbed between gentle teeth before being suckled with passion. He kept one leg hooked over his arm, stretching me wide, and making it easier for him to reach deep inside of me and play with spots that had me orgasming over and over without ceasing. His hands splayed across my skin, searching for any spot to grip as he dove into me.
Finally, he sat cross-legged and seated me in his lap. I wrapped my legs around to lock behind his back, while my arms circled his shoulders to hold on there. The closeness elevated the intimacy to new heights, our breaths landing in moans against each other’s clammy flesh. I rocked against him, pistoning him in and out of me at whatever speed I wanted. I edged him a little, going at a quicker pace until his hips were shaking, and then slowing down in legato movements, making him groan in my ear.
“Baby, I’m gonna come.” He bit down on my ear lobe.
I could feel it too. I’d lost track of how many times I’d struck gold, but there I was again, screaming out in unison with Alessandro, him emptying into me in the process.
I only barely recalled Alessandro carrying me up to my bed after our storm had died down. In the morning, light spilled in through my window, hazy and gray. A storm was developing outside. I looked over Alessandro’s face, calm and quietly snoozing next to me. I rubbed his bare chin and cheeks, realizing that I’d never seen him with facial hair. The Varassos weren’t facial hair people. On occasion, I’d see one of the older boys grow beards out, but Angelo was strict about not having facial hair and typically didn’t allow it. They’d all gone through stages of defying their father’s wishes—facial hair was a sign of becoming a man—but Alessandro never went through that. He hung on every word his dad said, never questioning or doubting him for a moment. He took what his dad said stone seriously, so I imagined that when tiny whiskers started to appear on his face, he eradicated them post-haste and never allowed them to return.
Angelo had had a weird effect on his third son. It seemed like his eldest two were far from being his number one fan, but his youngest, though always trying to impress him, seemed more afraid of him than respectful toward him. With Alessandro, however, somewhere something stuck. Alessandro held high regard for his father, which was why I was somewhat surprised to hear that Luca had taken their late father’s seat and not Alessandro. He’d left his third eldest his entire set of rings, what I believed to be his most notable symbol of lordship over his family. Had Angelo intended for Alessandro to take over, and Luca strong-armed his way in as the oldest?
I bid the musings farewell. I loathed that burning curiosity inside me that occasionally wanted to know more about the Varassos’ inner-clockwork. Anyone would be interested, but at the end of the day, I didn’t want to know anything more about the Varasso family than what was necessary. For what it was worth, I knew I ultimately should be grateful that Luca held the throne, whether by will or by force. If Alessandro sat in his father’s chair, neither of the past two nights would have happened. I wouldn’t have even considered letting Alessandro talk to me at the funeral. A participant was one thing, but the patriarch was far beyond what I could handle.
I brushed over Alessandro’s face a few times before he reached up and took my hand without opening his eyes, kissed the palm, and set it back down against his chest.
His head lolled over, and he smiled at me. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, yourself,” I kissed his bottom lip gently. “Last night was wonderful.”
“Last night was more than wonderful,” he replied, returning my peck with one on my nose. “I didn’t want it to end.”
I nodded. “I know what you mean.”
One of his hands was wrapped around me, and his fingers circled against my lower back. I started to mentally hang onto the back and forth movement, feeling my eyes get tired again.
Alessandro snorted. “You look like you could go back to sleep.”
I nodded. “I probably could.”
“Go ahead,” he coaxed. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Will you?”
I knew how things went for the Varassos. The fact that Alessandro had been with me since eight o’clock last night meant he’d be getting a call anytime now to head back home and handle business. I tried not to count down the minutes when we were together, but for every second longer that he was with me, the more I started to anticipate the inevitable.
His
warm expression cooled a bit. “You know my family too well.”
“I’ve grown used to never being able to have you all to myself for too long.” I traced the lines on Alessandro’s chest and stomach with a finger, trying to distract myself from the annoying gnawing at my heart at the idea of him leaving. I was a disappointed, lovesick teenager again. “It’s par for the course.”
“I don’t want it to be,” Alessandro replied. “I’m sorry.”
He hugged me a bit closer, and I breathed in his earthy scent. It was so familiar and unchanged that it made me feel even more at home than I would if I were in my own bed alone. He was home.
“So, is today the day you buy a ticket and fly back to California?” he asked. I could clearly see the thought made him sad.
“No, I don’t think so,” I replied honestly, and his frown did a one-eighty. “I haven’t taken a vacation from my job in…Well, I don’t know that I’ve ever taken a vacation from my job. It’s good to relax. The scenery is nice.” I hit his stomach. “I can spare a few more days.”
“Then, can I see you again?” I asked. “Like, all of the time.”
I laughed, realizing I was already letting myself get a little too close. “Yeah. I think that can be arranged.”
14
Alessandro
I couldn’t put into words the joy I was experiencing, knowing that Willow was staying in Philly for a bit longer. It had already been a week since I took her out on what I had dubbed our second first date, and we hadn’t stopped talking to one another for a moment. Any time Ricky came over to help us sort things out with Marco, he came with a report of Willow walking around the house with a smile on her face, in his words, “Singing like the end of a Disney movie or some shit.”
I wanted to see her again, but duty called, as it always did. We were still trying to figure out where the threat to Marco had come from, and Luca asked Ricky to stop communicating with him for the time being. It was possible that his phone or house was bugged, and even though Ricky had been clear and intentional in speaking to Marco in code only, it didn’t mean that someone else in our particular line of work wasn’t smart enough to figure out what they were actually saying.
The Binachis—Dante, Dario, and Donovan—were already convicted and sentenced. They weren’t getting out. It had been a risky move for Marco to sacrifice them for his own happiness, but I had to commend his bravery. If any of us was going to be on the outs and enjoying a pressure-free life, I wanted to protect that, if for no other reason than the dream that one day it might be my reality.
“What’d you find out?” Ricky asked Luca, having joined us for this meeting.
“I’ve spoken with everyone we know on the force, and no one can figure out how the Binachis got Marco’s new address. Which means one of two things,” Luca explained.
“Either they know and aren’t saying anything, or it was one of them,” I replied.
“Exactly. Now…”
Luca’s voice faded from my consciousness as my phone buzzed in my grip. I picked it up and smiled to see that it was a text from Willow. She was lying by the pool and decided to send me a delectable shot of the sun wallpapering her smooth skin. God, I would have given my left arm to be there next to her.
I shot back a playful text about what I would do to her if I were there, and she replied with another picture, this one of her holding up her bikini top, no longer held to her torso. Her pert breasts filled my brain alongside the memory of them filling my mouth, and suddenly my pants were getting tighter.
I felt a shove on my arm and looked up, and Luca, Gabriel, and Ricky were all staring back at me.
“Care to join us?” Luca asked like a patience-zapped school teacher.
“Sorry.” I tucked my phone away. “What were you saying?”
“We need to find out where this mole is,” Luca said. “Do you have any ideas?”
“I mean, the obvious is a false info dump,’ I responded. “Tell people in controlled groups and wait for the info to get back to us, narrowing the playing field of who knows.”
Luca nodded. “We can tell a couple of the guys down at the station about a drug drop and see if we get busted instead.”
Ricky crossed one leg over the other. “We have to start inside first. Hand out a few cards and see if any of ‘em come back to you. Here’s the thing, though. For transparency, you should all come up with different stories, and don’t even tell one another. Something obvious that you’d notice right away if someone was running their mouths.”
“Why wouldn’t we tell each other?” Luca asked.
“Simple,” Ricky said. “Because if the mole is in here, we’ll know.”
We exchanged looks with one another nervously. We hadn’t considered the possibility that one of us would be the mole. It didn’t make much sense for any of us to be. Luca’s whole life hung in the balance of our organization, and I’d been loyal to a fault since the day I was born. Even Gabriel, who could be categorized as a man having a motive, wasn’t stupid enough to cross Luca, who he was terrified of. If it had been Gabriel, he would already be in the wind, covering up his tracks behind him as he went.
“Look,” Ricky continued. “It’s not like I think anyone in here said anything. Obviously, we didn’t, but if one of us is tapped somehow and we release a story, we can at least identify that it might be one of us being spied on, that’s it.” He looked at me. “I’m sure you were planning to reimage all the phones and computers, but hold off just a minute. Let’s see if something turns around based on this conversation alone. I’ll let you guys know when we’ll move to step two.”
Ricky was talking like he was one of the boys. He’d only served as our legal aid up to that point, but he probably felt like he had more skin in the game since he was the only one speaking to Marco when he got the card. He still didn’t know his address, but that kind of serendipity was always cause for suspicion.
Gabriel was sitting silently off to the side. He didn’t often speak up during meetings. He knew better. He and Luca were at odds at best, but when tensions were high, Gabriel always got the brunt of Luca’s wrath. Still, as we sat there, his hand shook as he held it in the air. We all stared at him for a minute until Luca got irritated.
“What?” Luca spat.
“Um. I was doing a little bit of research, and I found something,” Gabriel started. He opened his phone, pressed a couple of buttons, and then started talking. “Testing.”
We all jumped as Gabriel’s voice came screaming out of Ricky’s pocket. Ricky stabbed his hand into his pocket, returning with his phone in hand, Gabriel’s voice still grumbling out of it.
“What the hell is going on?’ Luca growled, hearing it echo from Ricky’s phone.
Gabriel pressed a few additional buttons, and then he disconnected it from whatever it was connected to and slid it back into his pocket. “It’s related to the GPS systems we use.” He looked over at me as the resident tech guru of our family. “I discovered it completely by accident. I was trying to figure out how to turn down the volume on the GPS app and realized it has a built-in intercom system that will allow us to communicate with anyone else on the same network.”
My whole body got colder, and my mind went numb. I was responsible for vetting and implementing a GPS system that would allow us to track everyone within the organization with ease. Another thing Luca had inherited from my dad was his paranoia, not that it wasn’t well-placed in this kind of business. Was all of this my fault for overlooking a simple little feature?
“All it would have taken is one accidental button press,” Gabriel said.
“But none of us knew Marco’s address,” Ricky replied.
Gabriel nodded. “None of us do, but Marco does.”
It hit us like a freight train. Marco had a brand new baby, and even though he probably swapped his phone for a new one once he was placed in witness protection, I know the first thing I would have done to feel close to my family is download the app that tracked their moveme
nts. He handed the phone to Amanda, she absently pressed some buttons, and boom, his location is transmitted to someone else.
“Fuck!” Luca barked. He looked over at Gabriel. “Good work.”
Gabriel swallowed hard, sitting back in his chair. “Thanks.”
Luca turned to me, and I knew I was about to be torn open. “You had no idea this was a thing?”
“None. If it weren’t for the bleeding danger of it all, I’d actually think that was pretty cool,” I responded. “I don’t so much anymore.”
Luca sighed. “All right. Well, we need to get in touch with him, but we can’t do it on that phone. We all delete that app off of our phones, and Gabe, I need you to make sure the entire organization gets rid of it as well. You watch them delete the app. Alessandro, can you change the password?”
“I’ll deactivate the account right now,” I said. “No one will be able to get back in.”
Luca nodded, and I was kind of surprised he wasn’t angrier at my fuck up. “Ricky?”
“I’ll call him from a burner,” Ricky replied. “I’ll let him know he needs to delete the app immediately.”
“Tell him to change his phone,” I said, “and Kelly’s, too, probably.”
Ricky nodded. “Got it.”
Luca took a deep breath in and then let it out. “This is bad, but we can fix it. We just have to be more careful, okay?”
Ricky, Gabriel, and I were all looking at one another like we were in the twilight zone. In any other situation, I’d expect Luca to be burning with rage and screaming until he was red in the face. His new calm demeanor was shocking, if not a bit frightening.
