A Little Too Much

Chapter Twenty-Six

“HILARY.”

As my heart shatters into a million pieces, it’s everything I can do to not break down into a weepy mess right on the spot.

“May I come in?” he asks when all I can manage to do is stand here, gaping.

“Yeah . . . sorry.” I back away from the opening and let him pass. I close the door and stand facing it for several beats of my racing heart, struggling to collect my thoughts. “You got my messages?”

“I did. And your letter. You’re a hard person to ignore.”

Finally, I find the strength to turn to face him. “So, you’re back?”

“All I can offer you are painful memories and my broken soul, but I love you, and if you’ll allow it, I promise to always love you. If that’s enough for you, then, yes, I’m back.”

Oh, God.

I work to keep my breathing even. “You know what I said about Lorenzo being Henri’s father . . . that was just because you were scaring me and I—”

He steps forward and stops me with a finger on my lips. “I don’t blame you. I was scaring myself.” His face pinches a little as he lowers his hand, but he holds my gaze. “I feel like half a man when you deserve someone whole. Letting you see what I really am scares me, but I will, if that’s what you want. And after you know the real me, I won’t hold you to any promises if you want to leave.”

“I want to earn your trust back, Alessandro. I want you to feel like you can open up to me and know you could never scare me away.”

His eyes are on fireas he cups my chin in his palm and runs a thumb along my bottom lip, liquefying my insides with his touch. I launch myself into his arms, and he holds me tight and kisses me hard. He finally breaks the kiss, his lips skimming across my cheek, his soft breath raising goose bumps all over my body as he whispers, “I trust you with my life.”

I kiss him again and put every ounce of myself into it, peeling off his jacket and letting it drop to the floor. His fingers twist into my hair as I slide my hands under the tails of his button-down onto warm skin at the waist of his jeans. “Make love to me,” I whisper against his lips.

His gaze burns into mine as he takes my hand and tows me to my bedroom at the end of the hall. The early evening sun is just breaking through the gray sky, casting a golden glow over my white walls. My bed is unmade, the sheets in a pool at the bottom.

I close the door and we just stare at each other for a long minute, but all it takes is for him to reach for the hem of my sweater before we’re both tearing at each other’s clothes. Once we’re both undressed, I pull him onto the bed with me. We touch and caress, and he takes his time getting familiar with my body again, finding all of my most sensitive places with his hands and his mouth. But the physical sensations can’t compare with what’s happening inside me as the walls come crashing down.

My heart opens and lets him in, and suddenly, I need him inside me in every way.

I find a condom in the egg crate that passes for my nightstand, and he shudders as I roll it on. He lies back and I lift my hips and sigh as I sink onto him, taking him inside me to the root. He’s everything I need—the only one who’s ever been able to make me feel. And I want to feel this forever.

My heart swells to absorb the converging flood of physical and emotional sensations, and it’s almost too much. It trickles out of me in tears that course over my cheeks and drop onto his chest.

He flips us so I’m under him and kisses them off my face. “I love you,” he whispers.

I pull him tighter to me, needing to find a way to become part of the same being.

His movements become long, slow strokes as he kisses me, his tongue mingling with mine and bringing us that much closer.

“Don’t stop,” I whimper when his lips move to my jawline.

He props himself on his elbows above me. “I have no intention of stopping,” he says, his voice rough and thick with emotion. “If this lasts forever, it will still be over too soon.”

He kneels between my legs and lifts me off the mattress, lowering me slowly onto his length, until he’s so deep inside me I can feel him in my soul. He guides my hips up and down to his agonizing rhythm, and I feel myself spiraling out of control again. His thickness filling me is the center of my universe, and my whole body pulses with the throbbing ache in my heart and between my legs.

A low groan rolls up from his chest and becomes a growl with his last few thrusts. I gasp for breath and his name escapes on a sob as the most intense climax I’ve ever experiences shakes me from the inside out.

He lays us back on the mattress and holds me until my tears slow. Goose bumps skate over me as he traces the lines of my face with the tip of his index finger.

“You are amazing,” I say when I can breathe.

He kisses me. “It’s all in who your teacher is.”

I smile as another shuddering aftershock pulses through me. “Then you must have had some incredible teachers.”

His fingertips moves down the hollow of my throat and trace the lines of my ribs, finding my nipple and teasing it to a hard nub. “Only you.”

I freeze. I can’t have heard him right. “What do you mean, only me?”

“I’ve never been with anyone else.”

He’s lying. He has to be. He’s twenty-five years old. How can there only have been me? “I don’t believe you.”

He shifts off my body and lies on the bed next to me, propping himself over me on an elbow. “Hilary, I almost became a priest.”

“But after that?” When I think of the girl he loved—the one he left the priesthood for—I see someone smart and confident and strong and funny. All the things I’ve been pretending to be, but am not.

“You loved her.” The thought sits like a stone in my gut.

His expression grows wary. “Who are we talking about?”

“The girl . . . the woman you gave the priesthood up for.”

“I did,” he says, pensively, catching the corner of his lower lip between his teeth. “She made me feel things I hadn’t felt in a very long time . . . things I never thought I’d feel again.”

“But you never slept with her,” I say, still trying to absorb what he said.

He shakes his head slowly, keeping his gaze locked with mine. “No.”

“Do you still love her?”

“She holds a special place in my heart.” When I lower my gaze, he trails his fingers, which had been playing with my nipple, up my throat to my chin, lifting it so I’m looking at him. “As a friend, Hilary. She’ll always be a friend.”

“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—”

“No. I mean . . . you turned yourself in?”

He nods.

And still, he insists on beating himself up over this. I take a deep breath. “So there are some things you did wrong, Alessandro. You made some bad choices. You’re human. But you have to separate those things from the things Lorenzo did. You have to let his shit go so you can focus on what to do about your own. I want to help you.” I lift my hand and trace a finger along the scar on his side. He flinches away from me, but I don’t stop. “I want that more than anything . . . for you to let me in so I can make you see what an amazing person you really are. But I can’t do that unless you want me to. You have to invite me in.”

He tips his forehead into mine. “You are so far inside me, sometimes I’m not sure where I stop and you start.”

“Then let me help you. You can show me your pain. I promise it won’t break me.”

His gaze burns into mine. “I’ve always seen your strength, even when we were young. But I can’t burden you with mine on top of what you’re already dealing with. It wouldn’t be right.”

I pull away from him. “If you can’t trust me to help you through this, I don’t think we’re going to make it.” I tip his face up and kiss him gently on the lips. “And I want to make it, Alessandro. I want that more than anything.”

A tear spills over his long lashes, and then another. I wipe them away with my thumb and watch as what’s left of his composure crumbles. I manage to coax him back to my bed, where he wraps himself around me. I hold him as he falls apart, and hope it’s enough.

After the longest hour of my life, he finally lifts his head out of my chest and looks at me. “You’ll help me sort mine from his?”

“I will do anything for you that you’ll let me.” As I say it, a knot forms in my chest at the truth in those words. I’d do anything for him. “Is it too hard for you—being here in New York? I mean . . . if you were back in Corsica, would you be able to get past this?”

His eyes flare in the dark. “I thought I was clear. I’m not leaving you again.”

I swallow. “What if I came with you?” I want him to heal . . . to feel whole again . . . and if leaving New York will help him get his soul back, the way he helped me get mine, I’d do it for him in a heartbeat. I don’t want to give up the theater—especially now—but I realize just at this second that Alessandro means more to me than Broadway. He means more to me than anything, except maybe Henri. If he needs to go, I’ll go with him.

He shakes his head slowly. “And just when I thought I couldn’t possibly love you any more . . .”

“I’m serious. I want you to be free of this burden. It will crush you otherwise. If we have to leave for that to happen, I’ll go.”

“No, Hilary. We’re going to do this right here. You’re right that I need to sort Lorenzo’s from mine, and I trust you to help me.”

“I’m so sorry what I said about Lorenzo before you left. I hope you know I didn’t mean any of it.”

His eyes glimmer in the moonlight through the window as his finger traces the lines of my face. “There was some truth in it. I did worship Lorenzo. But you have to understand, he wasn’t always the person you knew. When we were little, Lorenzo was my hero.”

I listen intently as he tells me everything. It turns out Lorenzo wasn’t always hard. He was softer when they were young kids. But he changed after he got beat up one day on his way home from school.

“I could see him slipping away,” Alessandro says. “He started hanging out with older kids, who I guess he thought would protect him. They thought it was funny to use Lorenzo as their gofer. They’d send him into stores to shoplift cigarettes or candy, and he’d do it. They’d send him to buy their drugs, and he’d do it. I threatened to tell our father what he was doing, but he said his ‘gang’ would beat the crap out of me if I told. And then Dad died and Lorenzo just went off the deep end. He started using . . . skipping school . . . and our mom was too distraught to see what was happening.”

We talk for hours about Lorenzo as Alessandro tries to sort it all out in his head. There are more tears—both his and mine—as he recounts everything leading up to the group home.

“And then . . . what he did to you. I couldn’t bear it when he started bragging. I wanted to help you, but I didn’t know how. When you came to me . . . when you told me what you wanted, I felt sick. But you didn’t give up, and I’d always . . . I really liked you and I . . .” He swallows as more tears threaten. “God help me, I wanted you for myself, and I rationalized what I did by convincing myself I could help you if you let me close enough.”

“You did help me, Alessandro. You helped me more that I can even say.”

His lips purse. “Not in the way I’d meant to.”

“Please, Alessandro. I don’t know how to make you understand. You were what I needed, and if what we did was wrong, it was my fault. I can’t live with your guilt. If you can’t forgive yourself for you, do it for me. Please.”

He brushes his fingertips over my jawline. “There’s very little I wouldn’t do for you.”

I kiss him, then sink deeper into his body, resting my head on his chest. I remember how safe I felt in his sixteen-year-old arms. Some things never change.