Page 76 of Corrado

A hand splayed to his chest, and another sliding under the roof of his jaw. He pushed Corrado’s head back to the pillow as he continued staring at him. It was only when that pain started to ebb, when it became better, and Alessio was fucking him until he felt like he couldn’t breathe that the man finally looked away from him.

Alessio’s forehead hit his chest, and Corrado tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling, his lips falling open with a hard moan.

Because there it was.

Fuck.

How many times had he come before?

Felt that pleasure?

More times than he cared to count.

It never felt like this.

Never took away his sight, his vision, and everything else, too. Like he was drowning in Alessio, and sensation.

“Jesus Christ,” he heard Alessio grunt, lips grazing his chest as he stilled, coming almost in perfect tune with Corrado.

Jesus Christ was right.

Corrado still couldn’t breathe.

He felt the soft glide of Alessio’s fingertips drifting over his chest, leaving a trail of raw nerve endings as his hand left where it had been resting. It was only then that Corrado realized he’d been fisting the sheets at his sides.

“You should have told me,” Alessio murmured. “Told me you’d never—”

Corrado looked down as that hand fell from his jaw, finding Alessio’s chin resting against his chest as he stared at him. “Why … I wanted what I got, Les. It didn’t matter.”

Alessio blew out a breath, the warm air skipping across Corrado’s skin. “Yeah, don’t I know that.”

“His name is Andino Marcello, and he is who I picked for you to marry.”

She used to be a normal girl.

And then life happened.

Or rather, someone’s life collided with Ginevra’s, and she realized that, no, her small world wasn’t at all normal. She had simply been living in a delusion that someone else created for her. A pretty bubble that was opaque, so she was unable to see the truth happening all around her.

Last month, she had been normal.

A twenty-one-year-old woman with two younger sisters, a mom she loved, a dad who was distant but kind when he came around, hopes and dreams, and a life.

This month, she was something else.

The daughter of a dead mobster, a half-sister to three new siblings, and a woman with a life that was no longer her own to do with what she wished.

“This is the way of Cosa Nostra,” Kev told her.

Ginevra sat on her mother’s couch, hands twisted into tight balls where she could hide them at her sides, willing herself to stay quiet, and say nothing. She saw what happened when her new half-sister, Siena, tried to speak against Kev, or even their other brother, Darren. They weren’t kind about telling them to shut up, or simply striking out to make them shut up with a slap.

Beside Ginevra, her mother, Marie, stayed silent, too, staring at the wall behind the brothers standing at the other side of the living room. She was immovable, a statue, even.

Matteo died, and everything changed.

Everything.

“This is the Calabrese way,” Darren added when Ginevra and her mother stayed quiet on the couch. “And whether you like it or not, our father gave you the Calabrese name when you were born, and so you’re now expected to own it.”