Page 103 of Alessio

Corrado was up for that.

The thing Alessio wanted to be doing?

Well, it certainly wasn’t what he was doing.

“You’re quiet down there,” Cara said, drawing Alessio out of his thoughts.

The loud chatter at the table continued like she hadn’t called him out on the fact he wasn’t feeling the conversation tonight. To his benefit, Alessio turned his attention away from Corrado and Ginevra sitting across from him. He wanted to be over there—or rather, get both home, and in his bed.

That’s what he wanted.

Instead, he smiled at Cara, tipping his wine glass up for a quick drink. “Things on my mind, that’s all.”

Corrado’s mother returned his smile, her gaze drifting across the table from where he was sitting to the other two, but came back to him. “So, what you’re saying is I should thank you for making time to leave the penthouse for us, hmm?”

Alessio laughed. “Anything for you.”

He loved Corrado’s mother. There was something warm and inviting about the woman. She comforted without trying at all, and he never felt unwelcome here. And, through watching her with her small army of sons, he had learned how a mother should love their children. He respected her for that, more than anything else.

“Well, I’m glad you’re all getting it figured out,” Cara said, winking.

Alessio shrugged. “Getting there.”

“Figuring out what, now?”

Corrado’s voice drew Alessio’s attention back across the table. He would have sat over there, on the other side of Ginevra, but he didn’t trust his control to do that right now. Corrado had a far better handle on his needs and keeping them tampered down until it was an appropriate time.

No doubt, his hand was on Ginevra’s thigh under the table. He’d have the soft skin of her thigh against his palm, warm and shivering. Despite having ate dinner here, he bet Corrado could still taste the woman on his tongue, too, because Alessio sure as hell could.

And he wanted more.

If he was over there, like Corrado, they would have already left. So, he took the seat across from them, and settled himself with his fucking imagination. Which frankly, was just about as bad as having them.

Alessio shifted in his seat, ignoring a raging erection because now was not the goddamn time, and his body didn’t care.

“Figuring out what?” Corrado asked again, grinning.

Alessio gave him a look as Ginevra turned into the conversation, her conversation with Bene over. He gestured between them with a flick of his wrist. “This.”

He wondered how Corrado would take him outright saying that at his family’s dinner table. Sure, they’d come here a lot over the years. Both had sat at this table, ate meals with his parents and siblings, and were together through it all. Yet, never once had they said those words.

Oh, sure, he told Corrado’s father when Gian asked.

That wasn’t the same.

Corrado nodded, unbothered at the silence stretching over the table, and glanced his mother’s way. “Yeah, that’s about right.”

“How?”

Both Alessio and Corrado’s attention snapped to the youngest of the second set of Guzzi twins. Bene, who Ginevra had just been conversing with moments ago. At the lift of Corrado’s brow, a silent order for his brother to clarify, Bene did just that.

“How does that work?” he asked.

Corrado cleared his throat. “Bene.”

The warning was clear.

Don’t ask.