I picture those plush, pillowy lips, and my cock goes hard inside my pants. I remember the scent of her skin just under herearlobe—flowers and candy and a more ethereal smell I can’t pinpoint that is essentially her. I inhale sharply, drunk on the memory of her, the aroma of her arousal that I drowned in during our time together.

I remember the feel of her, tight around my finger when I slipped it inside her in that loft in Tribeca, tighter around my cock when I took her in the bridal suite. How it felt to bury my face between her luscious breasts, the pebbled bud of her nipple between my teeth, the nub of her clit under my tongue as she gushed onto my tongue that was laving her slit, poking into her to lap all that cream…

One of my hands undoes my belt and button and zipper while the other slips under my briefs, closing hard around my erect cock. I sneak in a breath, imagining it’s Bianca’s hand palming my dick, her mouth which I never got to fuck closing on my member. I can feel the wetness of her tongue on the bulbous head, her playful streak wherein she’d lick the slit at the top and savor my pre-cum, the heat of her mouth as I push myself deeper inside, ramming and pulling back, my fist closing in her hair.

When I imagine the tip of my cock touching the back of her throat, I erupt in the hardest orgasm I’ve had so far in all my fantasies of Bianca Bonucci.

“Damn,” I mutter when I come back to earth again.

I have come all over my hands and on my pants. I get the box of tissues in the drawer and hastily wipe it all off before it has the chance to dry. I have no plans to explain to my dry cleaner why there are dried come splatters on my clothes.

The silence in the room settles onto me, and I’m left itching suddenly. It’s like the air is closing all over me, pressing, tryingto force itself under my skin.

I jump out of my chair and head to the door. I almost smack into my father in the hallway. I no longer live here, but Pellegrini business is conducted from this house, hence my study in this building.

My father throws one look at me and lifts an eyebrow. I follow his gaze, cringing at the piece of tissue stuck to the front of my pants.

“It’s like catching you at fifteen again,” he says, lips twitching with a smile he’s repressing.

I groan, remembering that year. We’d been in our vacation house in The Hamptons. New occupants had moved in next door—Mr. and Mrs. Corrigan. He was never here, it seemed, and she was always out back near the pool, sunning herself on a chaise, topless, and perfectly visible from the small window in the upstairs bathroom.

I’d been watching her and her glorious breasts on display, furiously jacking off like only a fifteen-year-old teenage boy can. My dad caught me as I came out, a piece of tissue paper stuck to my T-shirt. His lips had twitched then, too.

With a wink, he’d said, “Make sure you’re at least legal before you start chasing after her tits.”

After catching glimpses of Mrs. Corrigan that summer, every girl my age paled in comparison. As luck would have it, she was there the next year, and the next, as well. At seventeen, finally legal as my dad had requested, I tried my luck even more by applying to be her pool boy that season. I became that and so much more to Mrs. Corrigan—Eva—those two months we spent there. It washer pleasure to take care of my sexual education in practical terms.

I blink out of the memory to find my father still watching me. Thirty-one years separate us, but after that day in The Hamptons, it’s like the line separating us as father and son faded—though it didn’t disappear; he’s still my father and also still my Don—and we became firm friends. He gave me my first taste of whiskey when I turned eighteen, and he wouldn’t hesitate to drop a comment like “She’s got a pair on her, that one!” when we were out together. However, he also taught me to treat women right, that consent is paramount if we are to consider ourselves honorable men. He might make comments about waitresses and such, but he always kept his hands to himself, addressed them with proper manners befitting a gentleman.

“You look like you need a drink,” he says.

I know it’s a suggestion just shy of an order, so I follow him into his own study adjoining mine and sit down on a leather sofa while he goes to the decanters. He returns with two tumblers of whiskey, hands me one.

I grab it and take a sip. He sprung for the good stuff. I fear an interrogation coming.

Or, in the case of my father, he’ll simply sit, look at me with his intense dark eyes, and wait until I cave.

One way or another, I will cave, so I resign myself and concede already.

“Mattia’s going to call off the search for Bianca.”

He takes a sip of whiskey. “Of course, it’s about a woman.”

I bristle. “Not any woman. I…” I haven’t told him about my plans for when I find her. Maybe it’s time I did. “I want to marry her.”

He stares at me for long seconds. “You know she’s promised to another.”

“Another who’s dead.”

“There’s still another Abrashi brother.”

I curse softly. “No one in their right mind will marry their daughter toThe Butcher.”

“That’s true. The family’s angling on Don Salvatore to give up his daughter now that the Bonucci girl is missing.”

I swallow, hard. “So it doesn’t even matter what girl it is. It didn’t even have to be Bianca.”

“That’s how alliances word,figlio.”