Dark Soul Vol. 1 (8 page)

“If you’re not up for it, I’m getting my rocks off elsewhere.” Silvio stood, deliberately showing off his sinuous grace. And the bulge in his jeans. The cocky smile was just the icing.

Stefano grimaced, paged through several potential responses to this, each one harsh and insulting enough to warn Silvio off despite the images racing through his head: Frantic, then lazy sex on the fine cotton sheets in his suite. Touching that body any way he wanted. Fucking Silvio so hard it would hurt them both. Yeah, there was no way he could get up now. “Sure. Enjoy.”

Silvio brushed past, rubbing deliberately against his arm, trailing fingertips over his shoulder. But then he walked off, hopefully without spotting the shudder racing through Stefano’s body.

God, he’d never had sex with somebody like Silvio. Like, male. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. This kind of obsession was embarrassing and downright dangerous, especially when he needed to keep his shit together. He needed a clear head, needed control to deal with the Russians, and Silvio was slowly wrestling both away.

He sipped water until he felt calmer, taking in the landscape with its hills and trees and the breeze that made the heat bearable. Driving up here from Rome, it had all looked so strangely familiar, until he’d realized this was the landscape painted over and over by Renaissance artists. Hills or mountains in the background; gently curved, open fields dotted with proud cypresses and pines arranged in lines or small clusters; houses built from large stones and topped by flat red brick roofs, perched on ridges or leaning into hills, at once remote and inviting. The Val d’Orcia was the perfect place for Gianbattista Falchi.

The food had settled, so Stefano returned to the suite to get his workout clothes—which had been washed and dried already. He headed for the gym again. Nothing better to do, and a reasonably solitary pleasure. He sometimes spent hours conditioning, stretching, while somewhere in the back of his mind little wheels clicked and turned, working through whatever it was that needed working through.

He indulged in a light workout with weights, bracketed by rowing and skipping as warm-up and cool-down, then a long stretching session. It refreshed him like only a night of good sleep after sex did. He texted Donata—
Things are going well, still miss you
—and she texted back that she was just leaving the
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.
That conjured up thoughts of Milan’s majestic
Piazza del Duomo
and its white cathedral, which he remembered from their honeymoon as a squat but graceful building with a million delicate spires reaching to Heaven, drenched in pink morning light.

He headed for the showers, washed the sweat off and wrapped a towel around his waist. There had to be a sauna somewhere.

He passed through several frosted glass doors and another changing room, when the air got hotter and more humid.

When he opened the next door, the first thing he saw was another swimming pool, and beyond that, the sauna. To the side of it, half-shielded by large potted ferns and white marble columns, was a whirlpool. And Falchi. With Silvio.

Silvio was lying flat on his belly on the marble path around the whirlpool, wriggling out of his black Speedo. He pulled one leg up, revealing just how aroused he was. And opening himself up for Falchi, who draped atop him, covering him.

Falchi was already naked, and for his age, he’d kept himself exceedingly well. The hair on his chest was graying, but he wasn’t yet sagging much, just not young anymore.

And what a contrast he was to hairless, pale Silvio, who pushed back against Falchi, inviting him like a cat in heat, black eyes closed, lips open, looking so young and so needy it clenched Stefano’s heart.

He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t see this, but still he found himself crouching between the plants, hiding behind a pillar, suddenly breathless.

If you’re not up for it . . .

Stefano shook his head.
I am. God damn it, I am
now.

Falchi rubbed against Silvio, hard dick sliding over his small, muscular ass, up to his flank, and Silvio reached back to touch him. He jerked Falchi’s cock, the angle clumsy, but Falchi still smiled and dipped down to brush Silvio’s ear with his lips. Maybe whispering. Something like
I know you want it
. Or,
Tell me how much you want my dick up your ass.

Silvio opened further, lifted himself up from the stone floor, and Falchi’s hand slid beneath him, taking hold of his cock. The younger man gasped audibly, rocking into a grip that seemed downright painful, then clenched his eyes shut when his lover squeezed his balls and pulled.

Stefano’s own balls tightened in sympathy, but God, Silvio in pain was a sight to behold. It fed the same dark arousal that claimed him when he watched the kind of porn where the actors wore not just lust on their faces, but pain or shame or both. He’d never get shame from Silvio, but the way the young killer embraced his emotions during sex—regardless of what exactly they were—was a huge turn-on. Whatever happened to Silvio, he sank into it without reservation, possibly even without self-awareness.

What would it be like to have a lover like that? Somebody he could do this to, mix the pleasure with pain. Someone who would take it all and more and never consider him a controlling freak. Donata sometimes liked it rough, but it was a mood thing, and he was still always careful. Always considerate. Silvio would be so very different.

“Battista . . .
ti prego
,” Silvio begged, voice colored with real pain.

Falchi nudged Silvio closer to the whirlpool, almost balancing him on the rim, released his balls and reached into the water to scoop some up. He lifted the hand over Silvio’s back and let the water run over his ass. Silvio curved his spine into the trickle, but then Falchi took him by the hips, positioned his cock against Silvio’s ass, and thrust.

Silvio groaned and bit his lips hard, face showing nothing but pain. Stefano winced. Was that all the preparation he’d gotten?
Water
? When a bottle of bath or body oil stood not far away on a shelf right next to the nearby massage table?

Falchi seemed to have some difficulty pressing inside. He reached down to position his dick again, strong hand digging into Silvio’s glutes to force his way, hips rolling to get to a better angle. By the look on the younger man’s face, Silvio struggled just as much to accept the essentially dry fuck.

Stefano clenched his jaw, sickened and aroused.

Silvio dropped his forehead to the tiled ground, breathing harshly as Falchi forced his way further inside, rocking his body with every short, powerful thrust.

Somehow, Silvio remained painfully hard through it all: tight, tense, taut, every muscle clearly visible beneath his skin, all his considerable willpower directed at accepting what was happening to him.

God, how Stefano wished he were the one doing it.

He wanted to feel Silvio like that, force him to surrender and accept him inside. He’d been insane to blow him off, shouldn’t have let him walk away because of his stupid pride. He could’ve had this, and he’d chosen a goddamned workout.

Silvio was crumpling under the assault. Relaxing, giving. The ability of this man to accept and yield mystified Stefano.

It seemed his pain was melting away, beneath intense focus or maybe just emptiness. It was clear, though, that Falchi found it easier to fuck him now, his thrusts harsher, even brutal, thoroughly domineering. He clearly controlled Silvio, and, more impressively, himself. For all the hard fucking Falchi was dishing out, he never closed his eyes, never seemed to get carried away, while Silvio did all that despite the pain.

Stefano tightened his fist in his towel, too aware of his maddening hard-on rubbing against the terrycloth. Could he get off without making a sound? He shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t be spying, but he
was
, and he couldn’t ignore what it was doing to him. Short of begging to join them, this was the only option.

He pulled the towel apart, spit into his hand and began to stroke. Pleasure raced through him, his body jumping at the touch like an eager dog, as if mocking him for his prior self-control.

Men are animals,
Donata sometimes chided him. Like that evening when he’d stopped the elevator, pulled up her cocktail dress and tugged her barely-there g-string out of the way. Fucked her right there, standing up, from behind, her pussy wet and clenching around him.

He realized he was jerking in time with Falchi’s thrusts, which made his skin crawl. He wanted to imagine himself fucking Silvio, so he concentrated on Silvio’s face, his movements, but the view of Falchi’s cock thrusting in and out was impossible to ignore, and besides, he didn’t have the focus to ignore anything when he was so desperate to get off. Falchi was just a proxy; Silvio was the main attraction.

Falchi paused to whisper something into Silvio’s ear. But what?
Do you like it, bitch?
Stefano couldn’t imagine him being so crude. Not the
gentleman.

Silvio’s chest expanded with several rapid breaths, then a few slow, deep ones.

The reason for which became disturbingly clear when Falchi grabbed Silvio’s head and pushed it over the rim into the whirlpool.

Stefano jolted, shocked, as Falchi kept Silvio down with one hand and held him in place with the other while thrusting deep, long, and brutal into that tight ass.

Silvio resisted—didn’t fight so much as
squirm
—but no bubbles rose from the water. In Silvio’s place, Stefano would have thrashed and screamed and probably lost every bit of breath in an attempt to free himself.

But Silvio didn’t, even though every harsh line of his body spoke of panic held in check with an iron will and a dark lust that Stefano could almost taste. Falchi’s thrusts grew ever faster and harder, but Stefano couldn’t keep pace. He was too worried, even scared, and his erection faltered. He couldn’t interfere. How long had it been? A minute? It felt like five. Fuck, it felt like an hour.

Thank God, Falchi climaxed and immediately released Silvio, who came up spluttering and drawing breaths in huge, noisy gulps, Falchi still buried to the hilt inside him.

Silvio pushed back from the rim and lay down, tension draining from him, although he was still catching his breath.

Falchi gently bit his neck, his shoulder, and Silvio blinked like he was waking up from a long, deep sleep, rather than returning from death’s door. He twisted to kiss Falchi, and Falchi responded by running his hand down Silvio’s stretched throat, rewarding him, pleasuring him while they were still locked in that intense but oh-so-tender kiss.

When Falchi pulled out and rolled to the side, Silvio crawled over and turned to place his head on Falchi’s shoulder. How could he be so calm and tender after what Falchi had done to him? Hell, judging from his reddened ass, Silvio was still in pain.

Yet there he was, as soft and pliant as a newborn, if half-drowned, kitten. Even more shocking, he’d clearly had his pleasure, his cock soft and a splotch of come marking out the lines of his belly.

Stefano gathered up his towel, fastened it around himself again and made his exit before Silvio and Falchi started noticing anything beyond one another.

Stefano wanted to skip dinner, but when Silvio came to fetch him, he didn’t have any good reason not to attend.

Dinner was served in a large dining room, its floor-to-ceiling glass doors folded open to the cool evening breeze. Falchi was a pleasant enough host, which helped Stefano not to think of him as freak and pervert. He knew he was being unreasonable, though. Falchi hadn’t exactly meant for Stefano to watch him half-drown his lover during sex. Their house, their relationship.

When the food was gone, Falchi took a wine bottle in one hand and two fresh glasses from a tray in the other and nodded to Stefano. “We have to talk.”

Silvio glanced between them, but remained sitting. “Page me if you need me.”

Falchi nodded to him and led Stefano down the corridor, up a staircase, and into a room that was half library and half office. Dark wooden shelves full of books and antiques covered two of the walls floor to ceiling.

A group of Chesterfields were gathered around a table near the windows, which was where Falchi now placed the wine, a local Chianti. More intriguing was an oil painting on the one wall not covered in books. Stefano stared at it, then nodded toward it when Falchi noticed. “May I?”

With no protest to stop him, he walked toward the painting, the same tightness building in his chest and heart and balls as when he faced Silvio. In a way, he was. Same body shape, same face, and above all the same black eyes, though the painting mimicked those nude art shots that left most to the imagination, playing only on the lines and curves and hollows of the human body. Silvio was sitting with one leg stretched out, one drawn up, a strong arm wrapped around it. His left; Silvio was a lefthander. His fingers seemed too long and like weapons to slice and stab with. Silvio looked about sixteen and even more compelling and magnetic than now as an adult.

Darkness half-obscured his face, the second eye not actually painted on the canvas, but still it stood from the black paint like antimatter against a lightless night. The sharp features made him look impish—but without any sense of mischief or fun. A kobold, something inhuman and vaguely threatening.