Like Father, Like Son

Chapter 16

His hand reaches past me, and the lock clicks with the finality of a decision neither of us can take back.

The sound unleashes what we've been fighting for months. His mouth crashes against mine, and my back hits the door hard enough to rattle the frame. This kiss is nothing like the wine cellar—that was exploration, discovery. This is desperation made physical, hunger given form.

My fingers tangle in his hair, pulling hard enough to make him groan against my mouth. The sound reverberates through my bones, primal and perfect. His hands frame my face like I'm something precious and breakable, but his mouth tells a different story—demanding, consuming, claiming.

The whiskey on our breath mingles, creating its own intoxication. His tongue traces the seam of my lips, and I open for him without hesitation, without thought, without anything except the need that's been eating me alive since that first night in the drugstore.

His teeth catch my bottom lip, and the sharp edge of pain makes me gasp. He swallows the sound like communion wine, sacred and necessary. My hands slide down to his shoulders, feeling the tension coiled there, the barely leashed control that's fracturing with each passing second.

"Lucia," he breathes against my throat, and my name in his mouth sounds like a confession extracted under torture—necessary and ruinous in equal measure. His lips find that spot where my pulse hammers against skin, and when he bites down gently, my knees forget their purpose.

He catches me before I fall, one arm banding around my waist while the other braces against the door. But there's a hesitation in his grip, a tremor that makes my stomach drop through the floor.

"If you're about to develop a conscience, I will actually die on this carpet." The words tumble out, desperate and graceless. "I'll haunt this study forever. Your accountants will find me possessing the ledgers."

"Lucia—"

"I'm serious. They'll have to sage the whole mansion. Maybe call a priest." My fingers twist in his shirt, holding him like he might evaporate. "Don't you dare get noble on me now, Salvatore. We've already crossed every line that matters."

His laugh is dark honey against my throat, and then his mouth is back on mine, hungrier for my desperate honesty. The position presses our bodies together completely, and I feel him—hard, insistent, undeniable evidence that his control is theater, that underneath the Don's perfect facade is a man who wants me with the same desperate intensity that's been slowly killing me.

The discovery makes me bold. I roll my hips against him, experimental but certain, and the sound he makes—half growl, half surrender—ignites something feral in my chest. His hand fists in my hair, angling my head back to expose my throat, and his mouth traces a path of fire from my jaw to my collarbone.

Suddenly I'm airborne. He lifts me like I weigh nothing, like the universe has suspended its rules just for us. Three strides cross the room before he sets me on his desk, contracts scattering like startled birds. The mahogany is cold against my thighs, but his hands are furnace-hot as they slide up my legs, pushing fabric aside with reverent urgency.

The world blurs—whiskey and want creating double vision where every sensation magnifies tenfold. His mouth finds mine again, and I taste his hunger, metallic and raw. My legs wrap around his waist, pulling him closer, and when our bodies align just right, we both freeze for a heartbeat, overwhelmed by the perfect wrongness of it.

His forehead drops to mine, breathing ragged. "This is the last exit before we crash."

"Then let's be spectacular wreckage." The words come out raw, reckless, true.

That breaks whatever last thread of restraint he was clinging to. His hands are everywhere—my thighs, my waist, tangling in my hair. I arch into him, my body speaking languages my mouth never learned, telling him yes and please and more without words.

My fingers find his tie, yanking it loose with graceless need. The silk slides through my fingers like water, and I'm already working on his shirt buttons when something catches my eye.

Joana's portrait on the corner of his desk, her painted eyes seeming to track our movements. In my whiskey-hazed perception, her smile shifts, and I swear I hear laughter—not cruel, but knowing, like she's witnessed this scene before, will witness it forever.

Without breaking our kiss, I reach out and lay the frame face-down. The soft thud breaks through his haze enough that he pulls back slightly, following my gaze to the overturned photograph.

Understanding flashes across his face—pain and gratitude mixed with desire so intense it makes my chest ache. His hand cups my jaw, thumb tracing my cheekbone with devastating tenderness.

Then his mouth is on mine again, hungrier now, like I've freed him from surveillance. His kiss tastes like permission, like boundaries crossed and burned. I pull his hair harder, needing him closer, needing to crawl inside his skin and live there.

His shirt finally falls open under my desperate fingers, and the expanse of his chest makes my mouth water. Scars map stories across his skin—some old and silver, others newer, pink and raised. I trace them with my fingertips, feeling him shudder under my touch.

My hand slides lower, following the trail of dark hair that disappears beneath his waistband. When my fingers find his belt buckle, he catches my wrist, grip firm but trembling.

"No." The word comes out raw, shredded. "Not like this."

I know immediately what he means—not here in his study where business happens, where contracts get signed and men get sentenced. Not on this desk where death orders and birthday cards share equal space. He wants me in his bed, in the sanctuary where Joana's ghost might finally rest, where what we're about to do can be more than just desperate fumbling in an office.

The realization makes my heart hammer harder because it means this isn't just hunger or proximity or the whiskey making decisions. This is choice, deliberate and conscious. He's not just taking what's available—he's claiming what he wants, and what he wants is me, properly, completely, in the bed he's kept sacred for so long.

"Salvatore," I whisper, and his name feels like a key turning in a lock I didn't know existed.

His hands frame my face again, and the kiss he gives me now is different—slower, deeper, making promises his mouth can't speak. When he pulls back, we're both breathing like we've run marathons, foreheads pressed together, existing in that space between decision and action where anything still feels possible.

His thumb traces my swollen lips, and I see the moment he makes the choice that will reshape both our worlds. His hand finds mine, fingers interlacing with deliberate intent.

"Come with me," he says, and the words carry weight beyond their simplicity. This is invitation and declaration, a door opening that can never be closed again.

I slide off the desk on unsteady legs, my hand still caught in his, and let him lead me toward everything we're about to become.