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“Fuck that, I’m celebrating.” He started for the house, then spun. “Catalina, you’ll stay? I’ll whip up a puttanesca.”
“You’re welcome to,” Francis added, in case Vitari’s frosty welcome had dissuaded her. “We wouldn’t be here without your help. Please, stay.”
“I would love to, but I have a flight to catch.” She stood and reapplied her sunglasses. “Crime does not stop because you have hung up your guns, Angel—and your cassock, Padre Blanco.” Her gaze fell to Vitari. “This life is more than you deserve. Cherish it, Angelo della Morte.”
Vitari’s smile slipped but clung on. “I do, ma’am. You have no idea how much.”
They watched her climb back into her car and drive through the vineyard, until there was nothing of their old life in the view, just fields of grapes in red-tinged dusk light.
“What did she ask you?” Vitari asked flatly, still standing and staring after the car, despite it being long gone.
“She knows about the money.”
“Insurance, to make sure we testify.”
“Maybe, or maybe she’s telling us she knows, but she’s letting us go?”
Vitari grinned, landed a quick kiss to his cheek, and strode up the yard. “You always think the best of people,” he called back. “Let’s celebrate!”
Francis lingered a while in the quiet dusk under the fairy lights, staring down across the hillside and their small plantation. Sometimes, he’d wake in a panic, thinking this was the dream, and the reality was a grimy hotel, alone, knowing Vitari was gone. Now Sasha was dead, he didn’t think he’d be having that dream again.
This was their life now. It was wonderful, and much more than either of them deserved. He planned to cherish every single moment. Starting with dinner…
Inside the house, Francis helped begin dinner preparations while Vitari washed the day’s dust off himself, then Vitari took over stirring the dishes. Aldo sensed something had happened and asked what they were celebrating, to which Vitari declared in dramatic fashion, the death of their enemies, then flashed the boy his stunning, mischievous grin, seeding yet more ideas into the boy’s head about their mysterious past life.
After dinner, they sent the boy home before his mother worried, despite his insistence he stay and help them finish the wine. And so, it was just the two of them, sharing a second bottle of their own wine in front of the crackling fire.
“It wasn’t enough,” Vitari said. He lounged in the chair, glass of wine resting on the arm, gazing at the fire.
“God will punish him.” Francis had to believe Sasha Zhokov was suffering eternal damnation in Hell. Justice would prevail, if not in this life, then in the afterlife.
“I know you believe that, but I believe in retribution I can taste.”
Francis plucked the wine from his hand, set it down on a nearby table, and stood between Vitari’s spread knees. Vitari lifted his gaze. It took a little while, but slowly, L’ Angelo della Morte faded, until he was Vitari the winemaker, relaxed in his chair, smiling up at Francis. Although, Francis’s avenging angel was never far away.
“What are you thinkin’, Padre?” Vitari asked, smirking, because he knew exactly what Francis was thinking. He even shuffled down in the chair a little, widening the gap between his thighs, where Francis would soon be resting on his elbows, Vitari’s dick deep down his throat.
“I’m just admiring my angel.”
“You never needed an angel to save you, I just hitched along for the ride.”
Francis knelt, like he did at church, rested his elbows between Vitari’s legs, and brought his hands together, as though in prayer. “Forgive me, Lord, for all I am about to do.”
Vitari’s soft lips parted, his eyes filling with need. He leaned forward and pinched Francis’s chin. “Are you going to ruin me, Francis?”
“No, I’m going to save you, amore mio.”
Vitari’s mouth plundered Francis’s, his tongue thrust, and Francis rocked against him, with him, pulling him in and pushing back, drowning under a surge of need and want and a passion that burned brighter than any righteous fire.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Vitari
God, if loving Francis was a sin in the crazy game that had been his life so far, then Vitari was all in. Francis pried at his belt, not yet desperate, but the fire in his eyes suggested his desperation was close. When Francis lost control, he was a force of nature, more an avenging angel than Vitari had ever been. When he lost control, he was goddamned divine.
When they’d first met, Vitari never could have known the thousand different ways Father Francis Scott would save him. Kidnapping a priest was the second best moment of his life. But loving him? That was the first.
He loved this man to the point of agony, loved him in ways he hadn’t known were possible. And as Francis clutched his dick, freed it from his pants, and swallowed him down while looking up at him with those big, innocent eyes? Fuck, it was too much. Vitari flung his head back, falling so fast and so hard he was weak for him.
