“A friend?”
“A friend,” he confirms, his fingertips trailing down my body. A smile tugs at his lips and there’s a wicked glimmer in his eyes that sends electricity crackling under my skin. “You’d tell me if there was something else I could to do please you?”
I glide a hand down his pecs and abs. “Being with you is . . . it’s never been like this for me.”
His eyes tighten a little. “Been like what?”
I nip his upper lip, then kiss the corner of his mouth. “I mean, it’s never been this easy for me to come. I’ve needed . . . more.”
He lifts his eyebrows. “More?”
“Pain. I’ve always needed it rough.” There’s a tortured look in his eyes as he gazes at me and I realize how that sounded. “I’m not a masochist. I don’t mean it like that, it’s just . . . I thought the pain grounded me—made me exist—but maybe it just connected me with my body so I could feel.” I run a hand over his strong shoulder. “It’s always been different with us. With you, everything is so much more intense, I don’t need the . . . extra stimulation. I mean, hell, just thinking about sex with you takes me halfway there.” My fingers trace over his happy trail to his tuft of hair. I slip off his condom and drop it over the edge of the bed behind me, then grasp him. “As a matter of fact, whenever you’re ready . . .”
His eyes flash and one corner of his mouth pulls into a sexy smile as I feel him stir in my hand. “I am your enthusiastic pupil. Putty in your capable hands.”
“Is it weird?” I ask, squeezing him.
He tips his head at me in a question.
“You were almost a priest and now . . .” I trail off, stroking his growing erection. “Though you make sex a religious experience for me, what we’re doing is very unpriestly.”
He rolls on top of me and reaches across for a condom in my egg crate. “Which is why I didn’t become a priest.”
I push him back a little. “But still, to go from nothing to all this . . .” I say, flipping my hand at the bed.
“Being with you makes me very happy. Obviously,” he adds, glancing down at his erection. “If you’re asking me if what we’re doing is against the teachings of the Church, the answer is yes. If you’re asking me if I regret it, the answer is no.”
I slip the condom from his fingers and tear it open. “Are you going to hell?” I ask as I roll it over him.
His smile is a little wicked and it makes the sensitive point between my legs pulse. “Probably.”
I spread wide and roll my hips under him, taking him deep inside. “Good. Take me with you.”
WHEN I WAKE up, it’s dark, and the other side of the bed is empty. The cool night air prickles my skin into goose bumps as I sit up and scan the room, my heart skipping at the thought that Alessandro in my bed was just another of my fantasies. But then I see the moonlight reflecting off the long, lean curves of his naked body as he stands at the window, looking out into the New York night.
“Alessandro?” I croak.
He doesn’t turn, but I see him stiffen.
I slip out of bed and move slowly toward him, and when I reach him, I skim my fingertips down his back. He shudders under me.
“I don’t deserve to be this happy. Not when I’ve hurt so many people. I don’t even have names or faces for most of them. There’s nothing I can do to atone for my sins. So they sit right here,” he says, lifting a fist to his chest over his heart, “and they feed on my soul.”
I slip my arms around his chest and press myself against his back. This is it. He’s giving me what I asked for, a look into his soul. The honest truth is, I’m a little scared of what I’m going to see there, but I have to step up to the plate and be strong for him. I told him nothing I saw would scare me away, and I’m not going to let him down. “Who are these people, Alessandro? And if you say me, I’m throwing you out this window.”
He turns in my arms and rests his forehead on the crown of my head. “Then, I won’t say it. But it’s not just you. Every kid in school who I dealt drugs to, every person I let Lorenzo beat and rob, every kid I let him force into the gang, every rival gang member I let him stab.” He lifts his head and looks into my eyes. “And, even if he didn’t rape you, there were others.”
“Did you rape anyone?” I ask, confident I already know the answer.
“No.”
“Who gave you the drugs to deal?”
He blows out a breath and shivers. “Lorenzo.”
“Who beat and robbed those people?”
The moonlight glimmers in the sheen of tears pooling in his eyes. “I helped, Hilary. I didn’t try to stop him. I helped him. I was just as angry as Lorenzo was. He was just better at acting on that anger, so I took my lead from him.” He rakes both hands through his hair and tips his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing as fights for control. “And I shot a man. It was only by the grace of God that he didn’t die. I don’t even know what became of him or his family. I looked for them when I came back, but . . .”
“Whose gun was it?” I try not to let the shock show in my voice. I can’t believe Alessandro, the boy I knew, the man I know, would have shot anyone. But if he did, I know at whose urging it was.
He lowers his gaze. “It doesn’t matter whose gun it was. I’m the one who pulled the trigger. That man’s blood will forever be on my hands. My hands, Hilary. Not Lorenzo’s.”
I step back into his arms and lay my head on his chest. “Tell me what happened.”
He draws a shaky breath and blows it into my hair. “It’s what finally got us arrested. There was an old man who set up his hot-dog stand at the corner of the park near our house on weekends. It was dusk and just starting to rain . . .” His voice hitches. “Lorenzo didn’t usually carry, but he was short cash for his supplier and he knew they’d be coming after him, so he walked up to the old man while he was packing up his stand and pointed the gun in his face. When the old man opened his cashbox, Lorenzo pistol-whipped him and dropped him to the ground.” He shakes his head. “He couldn’t just take the money, he had to beat that poor man too. He gave him a few kicks to the ribs to be sure he was down, then handed me the gun so he could grab the money. The last thing either one of us expected is the man to take that kind of beating and get up, but he did. Before I could react, he was off the ground and on Lorenzo.”
My face is pinched in a grimace of dread. I force it to relax and push back to look at Alessandro. “So you shot him.”
He lets go of me and rubs a hand down his face, and that’s when I realize it’s tears he’s wiping away. “I didn’t even hesitate. I shot a defenseless old man in the back.” He leans his hands on the windowsill, hanging his head.
For a long time I can’t speak. “You were there . . . in that position, because of Lorenzo, Alessandro. If he hadn’t robbed that vendor, you never would have had that gun in your hand.”
“But I did,” he says as another tear rolls over his lashes. I want so badly to wipe it away for him, but I don’t. “I had a choice. I didn’t have to shoot him. He ended up in a wheelchair.”
“I won’t believe you wanted to hurt that man. You were scared.”
“It’s irrelevant whether I wanted to hurt him. He ended up paralyzed.” He pushes away from the window and turns, reaching up to tug his hair. “When I went to the police and told them what happened, Lorenzo was furious.”
“Wait! What?”
He breathes deep. “He couldn’t understand why I would—”