The Venetian and the Rum Runner - L.A. Witt Page 0,142
guided himself in. He leaned over him, and he breathed against the back of Danny’s neck as he slowly, carefully pushed inside. Beneath him, Danny moaned, his head falling forward and his back arching into Carmine’s chest as he murmured something Carmine thought might’ve been Irish. Maybe even blasphemy. Whatever it was, he wanted to hear it again, so he withdrew and eased back in, and yes, more slurred nonsense tumbled off Danny’s lips.
Carmine sat up a little and tugged Danny’s shoulder so he’d do the same. Once they were both partly upright, Danny resting a hand on the headboard to keep them balanced, Carmine wrapped an arm around Danny’s middle. Danny reached up to curve his free hand behind Carmine’s neck, and then he twisted slightly, tilting his head back, and they found each other’s lips and kissed as Carmine kept moving slowly and easily inside him.
It had been ages since he’d been able to indulge in something so luxuriously unhurried, and he couldn’t remember ever wanting a man the way he needed Danny now. After all the mutual suspicion and hostility in the beginning, they’d come to this, and Carmine had never been so desperate to be as deep inside a man as he could get.
Danny broke the kiss and slumped forward a little, swearing in English this time.
Carmine clapped his hand over Danny’s mouth and murmured, “Not a sound, Danny.”
Shuddering, Danny made a muffled, frustrated noise. He was tight around Carmine now, his muscles tense and his hips moving in time with Carmine’s.
Carmine leaned forward and, still thrusting into Danny, kissed the side of his neck. “Not a sound. Everything in here belongs to me. No one else.”
The soft whimper was nearly noiseless, but it made Carmine grin, and he rewarded Danny with a deep, hard thrust. Danny gripped the headboard with both hands now, and his breath was hot against Carmine’s hand.
Carmine slid his arm around Danny’s waist again, and the second he closed his fingers around Danny’s cock, Danny moaned, clenching hard around him.
Pumping him, riding him, Carmine gave him everything he could without alerting the entire house to what was happening in this room. In his arms, Danny trembled and tensed, his moans still muffled by Carmine’s hand, and his cock stiffened with every stroke and thrust until he finally jerked, coming with a low, choked groan. The sheer pleasure of feeling Danny unravel against him was all Carmine needed, and he bit back a cry as he spent inside his trembling lover.
Danny sagged over the headboard. Carmine slumped over him. For a long time, in the stillness of the silent bedroom, with Carmine still buried deep inside Danny, they just breathed.
And though he knew it was pointless, Carmine couldn’t help begging God for this night to never end.
Chapter 31
How was this real?
In a way, it made perfect sense to be wrapped up together like this, Danny’s head resting on Carmine’s chest with Carmine’s strong arm around his shoulders, but when Danny stopped to think about the big picture, it was hard to comprehend how they’d ever landed here at all. Not just because Carmine’s house had been difficult to stealthily infiltrate, either. Danny had been meant to hate men like Carmine, and yet…
Now he struggled to imagine a time when Carmine had been on the other side of a battle line drawn in familial blood. It wasn’t Carmine who’d killed Robert or Hugh any more than it was Danny who’d killed members of the Pulvirenti family.
It was exactly as James had said—that Danny and Carmine weren’t so different after all. Lying naked together in rumpled sheets, they were finally what they’d been all along—two men. Not a gangster. Not a thief-turned-rum runner. Not Irish. Not Sicilian or a Venetian. Not a Moore. Not a Battaglia or a Pulvirenti. Just a couple of men finding a moment’s peace on a battlefield.
“It’s strange,” he said after a long time. “Feels like we were always going to end up this way, but I also can’t believe we did.”
Laughing softly, Carmine kissed the top of Danny’s head. “Yeah. I thought you hated me.”
Danny sighed as he ran his palm up Carmine’s chest. “I did, in the beginning. After everything that’s happened… After both of my brothers were killed…”
Carmine trailed his fingers along Danny’s arm. “I suppose we both came to this city expecting a new life. Just didn’t realize that new life would be in the middle of a war.”