Daniele nodded.
“But if you walk around the house, you’ll wake her. Can you stay in your own bed?”
He considered that, his head tilted to the side, then he gave a decisive nod. I smiled before pressing a kiss to his forehead. Turning on his dim nightlight, I walked to the door and extinguished the lamp.
“Goodnight, Daniele.” I began to close the door when a soft voice rang out.
“G’night.”
I froze. Slowly, I turned around, but Daniele hid under his covers. I swallowed and left. As if in trance, I headed downstairs, finding Cassio in the cigar lounge, setting up the pool table for our game. One look at my face and he came toward me. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Daniele said good night.”
Cassio took a step back. “He talked to you?” Surprise mixed with disappointment in his voice. First Loulou, now me.
“He only said good night, but it’s a start, right?”
He nodded slowly, but I could tell it hit him hard that Daniele spoke to me first. I wrapped my arms around his middle. “You’re gone a lot, so Loulou, Simona, and I are the people he relates to. You should make time to take a walk in the dog park with us or have lunch. When you see him, he’s always tired and not in the right mindset to bond with you.”
“We could spend his birthday at the beach house. Daniele loves it there.”
I grinned. “That’s perfect. I want to bake a cake and decorate everything with dinosaurs. Maybe we can invite Mia and her family so Daniele has someone to play with. Her daughters are close to him in age, right?”
“One’s a year younger, the other is two years older. And that sounds like a great plan.” He brushed my bangs away from my forehead.
“Do you still hate them?” I remembered what he’d said about my hair the first time I met him. It had hurt back then but not so much now. Our tastes were very different. At least Cassio had by now mostly given up dressing me the way he wanted.
“There’s nothing I hate about you,” he murmured.
My heart thudded wildly. I scanned his face, trying to determine what the tone in his voice meant. His lips found mine, halting my thoughts. His kiss became forceful as he gripped my hips and hoisted me on the pool table. I squealed in surprise. Cassio positioned my butt right on the edge and pushed my legs apart. It was horribly uncomfortable, but I’d be damned if I said anything. My short plaid skirt rode up. “What about my skirts? You don’t hate them either?”
Cassio licked a hot, wet trail up my inner thigh. I squirmed, stifling a giggle. Part of me wanted to shove him away, but the other wanted more. “Not as long as they allow me quick access to your sweet pussy.”
He kissed me through my panties.
“You’re really into oral.” I pushed up on my elbows to see him between my legs. He always went down on me before sex and sometimes just because. He didn’t rush it either. He took his time, and it was amazing. Seeing him enjoy it as much as I did was a major turn-on.
“Fuck yes. I could eat you all day.” He dipped his tongue between my folds, my panties still between us. “Is that a complaint?”
I grasped his short hair, trying to push him back down so he’d lick me. Talking was the last thing on my mind. “Absolutely not. Your tongue is magic.”
He chuckled and the deep rumble caused another flood of wetness to trickle out of me. He hooked his fingers in my panties and dragged them down slowly. I lifted my butt to make it easier for him then spread my legs wider. “What about you, honey, do you like to get on your knees and suck my cock?”
“Yes,” I pressed out, sliding closer to his mouth. He smirked. Instead of his tongue, his index finger began to tease me lightly. He dipped it in, drawing out my arousal. “You want me this badly that you’re going to ruin the pool table.”
“I don’t care. Please stop teasing me. I need your tongue.”
His smile turned darker. “Do you remember when I told you that only I give orders in the bedroom?”
“We’re not in our bedroom,” I squeaked before he lifted me off the table, spun me around, and pushed me forward so I was bent over the edge, my butt jutting out. He slapped my ass hard causing me to arch with a gasped moan. His zipper hissed. He palmed my ass, his tip parting my cheeks slowly until I felt him against my opening, and then he slammed all the way in.
I braced myself on the green surface as Cassio thrust into me.
“You always eat me out,” I managed. “You don’t need me to order you to do it.”
His chest pressed against my back. “Even now I’m hungry for your sweetness.” He slammed harder into me, causing the balls in front of me to clank against each other. He drove himself even deeper into me, and the triangle with the balls actually jerked. And that was all it took, this visual of Cassio’s visceral taking of me, to send me over the edge, spinning me out of control so fast my vision tunneled, focusing on the bright green fabric as my nails scraped over it. My release hit me like a wrecking ball, and I dropped my head on the table, trying to draw in breaths as my body quaked.
Cassio pulled out of me. I gasped and my walls constricted from the unexpected loss. I could feel cold air hit my wet flesh. Then his tongue was against me, heating it up. He lapped at me carefully, knowing I was still overly sensitive. I became slack on top of the table, suspended by its edge as my legs gave in.
Soon the pleasure built again, and he became hungrier, the lapping turning to a thrashing. I lost all sense of time then, letting Cassio take control, letting him give me pleasure and take his own until I felt almost delirious. We both ended up sprawled on the pool table afterward, breathing harshly. I was fairly sure I’d have rug burn and a few bruises tomorrow, but I couldn’t care less.
“Sometimes I wonder what I’ll tell Daniele once he’s older and demands answers. He’ll wonder why half his family died.”
I turned toward him then rolled over and propped myself up on his chest, my chin on my linked fingers. “You sound guilty.”
“Sometimes I feel guilty.”
“You had to kill Andrea. Even if you hadn’t killed him in a fit of rage, you’d have to kill him for being a traitor.”
“I never got confirmation. I didn’t question him nor Gaia. I should have, but I killed him before I could torture the truth out of him. And her… I simply couldn’t press information out of her like that. She wouldn’t have told me anything anyway.”
I gnawed on my lower lip. “Andrea was a traitor. Everything pointed to it, so his death was inevitable. Gaia’s death was a result of their forbidden affair and thus was inevitable too. It was her choice, and you couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
“I killed Daniele’s and Simona’s grandparents also.”
“Daniele is going to ask questions one day, and we’ll answer them. We’ll tell him Andrea was a traitor who ran away. His betrayal broke his sister’s heart, so she killed herself, and their parents couldn’t live having lost both their children. It’s a story few people could challenge and those that could, won’t.”
His palm caressed my back. “I didn’t think you’d be someone who’d opt for a lie.”
“If it protects you and the kids.”
Cassio sighed, his strong chest rising under my chin. “First, he’ll have to forgive me for whatever it is he holds against me.”
Two days before Daniele’s birthday, when it was certain we would spend the weekend in the beach house, I called Mia. I hadn’t talked to her since the wedding and only exchanged the occasional short texts of pleasantries.
“Giulia, what a pleasure. Is everything all right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Of course?” Her curiosity was unmistakable. I wondered how much she really knew about the reason for Gaia’s death. Judging by Cassio’s words, she only knew the basics.
“We’ll be spending the weekend at the beach to celebrate Daniele’s birthday, and I was wondering if you and your family would join us. Or is it too strenuous for you?” Mia’s due date was in only three weeks, so I wasn’t sure if she wanted to risk even a short trip.
“He’s taking you there already?”
I frowned. “We already spent a weekend in the house.”
“Oh. That’s wonderful, Giulia.”
Her joyous surprise caught me off guard. I thought the house was for the family, not just Cassio.
“And of course we’ll join you. Do you want me to ask Ilaria and my parents if they want to come too?”
“Yes,” I said, relieved. I had even less interaction with them and would have felt awkward calling them out of the blue, especially Cassio’s parents.
It was cold but sunny when we arrived at the beach house on Friday afternoon. Cassio had gotten Daniele’s present, which surprised me. My mother had always taken care of buying us things, but I was glad that he was trying to be involved with his kids.
After we settled in, I began assembling the ingredients for the birthday cake. Cassio scanned the display as he came up behind me. He was dressed in chinos that accentuated his long muscular legs, and his sweater did nothing to hide his broad chest. His aftershave, a spicy scent that always filled me with astonishing warmth, reached my nose, and I had to resist the urge to lean back into him. So far, we hadn’t shared any kind of intimacy in front of the kids, and I wouldn’t initiate anything.