Page 20 of The Associate

Conor volunteered to boil the water as Gio prepared the dough. Small talk steered toward food, from comparing childhood comfort meals to a spirited debate over whether the Irish or Italians put on the most elaborate holiday spreads. “I realize outsiders would expect Italians and Sicilians to put out more food at Christmas,” Conor was saying as he helped Gio create fork-tine ridges on the cut gnocchi dumplings, “but you should come to a traditional Irish Christmas dinner one year. Boiled spiced beef, ham, cooked goose.” He raised his flour-coated fork. “Roasted potatoes.Actualpotatoes.”

“Is that an invite?” Gio asked, side-eying his apprentice. Conor’s eyes softened and he widened his smile, though Gio noted a hint of sadness emerging in his features.Right. The man was thinking about his father, whose chances of making it to Christmas remained slim.

“I miss the big family dinners,” Conor said. He gathered the gnocchi to cook while Gio focused on browning the butter. “Most of my cousins have moved away, and their parents are either passed or shut in. Don’t get out much. We used to have our holiday dinners in the pub. Da would even invite a few regulars who would otherwise have been alone on Easter or Christmas.”

Gio stirred the melted butter, checking for changes in color and aroma. Why did Conor volunteer that act of kindness, feeding people and expecting nothing in return? The San Gaetanos welcomed outsiders to break bread on occasion, but the mob rarely, if ever, handed out a free meal. Once they took over Lonnegan’s, the generosity stopped.

Conor fished out the cooked gnocchi with Gio’s handheld strainer. There was enough for two small bowls and Conor insisted on sharing. When the sauce achieved its perfect nutty sage aroma, Gio portioned it out and they moved to the living room couch. Conor declined a second beer and they switched to club soda.

Seconds into their meal, Conor moaned his approval. His full lower lip carried a nice buttery sheen, and Gio longed to lean over and lick him clean. “No need to sell me on your approval. This isn’t exactly the best representation of Spatafora cooking skills.” He spoke in jest, and was glad Conor picked up on it.

“This is amazing, though,” Conor said. “My spice rack at home consists solely of salt and pepper. My mam will cook with garlic, and that’s about as seasoned as it gets in the Malloy family.”

Gio tilted his bowl and slid one of his last dumplings through the yellow-brown puddle. “Garlic is its own food group in my family. During the summer I’d sit out on the stoop with my pop and my uncles after dinner while they smoked.” He chuckled at the memories. “In the heat, we’d sweat it all out and smell like a pizzeria.”

“Your mother and your aunts must have loved that come bedtime.”

“I tried not to think about it,” Gio said, and took Conor’s empty bowl. “Me, I do enjoy many flavors. Case in point.” He spotted a tiny droplet of brown butter beading on the underside of Conor’s lower lip. Bending forward, Gio closed his lips over the spot and worried the plush skin between his teeth. He wobbled in place and shifted his feet to anchor himself when Conor pushed up into the kiss. The tang of butter combined with the musky sage renewed Gio’s appetite and pivoted it toward Conor. Softening his jaw, he let Conor fill his mouth and showed his appreciation with a moan similar to Conor’s culinary review.

When they tapered off the kiss, Gio straightened his posture and Conor rested back on the couch with a hazy expression. “I think you smell good and taste even better,” he said, reaching out to hook his fingers into the waist of Gio’s jeans. His gaze fixed on the bulge underneath Gio’s belt. “I’m still hungry.”

“I got you.” Gio offered his hand and pulled Conor into a tight hug and another searing kiss. Chest to chest, eyes closed and exploring backsides and biceps, they slotted their legs together and rolled into a slow, agonizing grind that sharpened in the ache in Gio’s groin. In the battle between tight denim and a solid hard-on, something had to give. Gio pushed hard into Conor one more time and tore away, gasping.

“This way.”

Gio didn’t bring lovers home. His connection to the San Gaetanos was part of the reason, but Gio worried more about a random hookup finding one of his guns. With Conor, the rules no longer applied. Gio’s fierce and instant attraction thrilled and amazed him, and triggered thoughts of reexamining his entire life. All through his youth, life among made man fascinated him. The authority, the power, the passion. Locked in Conor’s arms, he saw possibilities outside the insular existence of the San Gaetanos.

Love at first sight? Gio never believed in that fairytale bullshit. His mother devoured the instalove romcom movies and books, where he preferred the classic mob dramas. Nobody fell head over heels for each other on the shows he watched—definitely not same-sex couples.

Is this fate?Was he meant to park his car in front of Lonnegan’s last night? Say something to a handsome stranger? He could have gotten into his car and driven away, then spent the evening at JT’s in wistful longing for companionship before going home unsatisfied. One-nighters fulfilled urges, sure, but Conor fed his soul. Gio felt it.

He stowed his semi-automatic handgun, the one he carried daily, under his mattress when he slept. He’d left it there when he collected Conor, but he wasn’t worried about that discovery. The smaller pistol under his pillow concerned him at present, but he had an idea.

Gio walked backward into his bedroom, kissing and nipping at Conor with every step. When the backs of his thighs hit the side of the bed, he toed off his shoes and let Conor help with the rest of his clothes. The polo landed in a corner, and Gio kicked his puddled pants and briefs to one side. All the while, he fixed on Conor’s eyes, pleased with how the man panned his gaze down Gio’s nearly nude body. Nothing Conor hadn’t already seen—the important parts—but now they had the space and light to better appreciate each other.

Gio palmed his balls and cock, stroking and squeezing as Conor finished undressing by himself. “You are amazing,” he said, his voice husky and low as he looked his fill. Skin like cream, tinted a peachy pink, set Gio’s mouth watering. Conor’s stamina in the bar today shouldn’t have surprised Gio—the man was fit, sinewy with tight arms and defined pecs. He looked forward to a long, hard fuck.

“I mean this…” Gio reached out with his free hand and slid his fingers down Conor’s throat to his left nipple. He traced the hard nub before pinching, loving the hiss that followed. “And this.” Stepping closer, he grabbed Conor’s bare ass. “I can’t believe you were hiding a fine-as-fuck bubble butt under your pants.”

Conor touched their foreheads together, shaking with quiet laughter. “To think I almost left it at home this morning.”

“Thanks for bringing it. Your cock, too.” Conor’s hung well and long. “It’s gonna feel so fucking incredible inside me.”

Conor grasped Gio’s butt and massaged. “Your whole naked body is how I imagined it. Broad and sexy and hard all over,” he said, and pivoted his hips forward so that their cocks brushed.

Gio tilted back his head, counting to ten in silence as he accepted kisses along his jaw and down his throat. At the finish he touched the sides of Conor’s face and eased him away. They’d spent enough time upright, so he crawled onto his bed and lay on his stomach. “Everything you need is in the top drawer,” he said, nodding at his nightstand.

While Conor retrieved the travel bottle of lube and the rubbers, Gio arched his back to give his ass some shape. His wasn’t as rounded or high as Conor’s, thank genetics for that, but the way Conor smoothed his hand along the low curves boosted his self-worth. The moment’s distraction also allowed Gio to slip his hands under the pillow and take hold of his smaller gun, which he secreted underneath the mattress through the slim posts of his wrought-iron headboard.

He glanced over his shoulder at Conor, now hunched over the foot of his bed and focused on Gio’s backside. He winced at the light slap of Conor’s hand on his left cheek, and low curses spilled from his lips when Conor opened him and licked a long, wet stripe over his hole.

Fuck!Conor hadn’t been joking about his appetite. Gio hugged the pillow and relaxed into Conor’s hunger. He felt Conor alternate between broad swipes of his tongue around his hole and nipping love bites down his balls. When Conor sucked one into his mouth and rolled it between his teeth Gio tried not to jackknife off the bed. “You’re killing me, man.” What a way to go, though, in bed with a fearless lover who might devour his ass until he begged to move on to more.

Gio rolled his dick into the mattress, spreading pre-cum on his top sheet. He imagined Conor could make him orgasm by just licking his ass. “Please,” he said, and paused for breath. “Please fuck me.”

Not yet. Gio endured more teasing in the form of a hard faceplant between his ass cheeks and the mild abrasion of Conor’s stubble on his sensitive areas. A lubed-up finger sliding into his hole followed, and Gio twisted around again to look. Conor’s mouth softened into an awed moue as he played with Gio.

“You take me so easily,” Conor said. He added a second finger and pumped. “You’re so tight and hot. If I didn’t want to plow this sweet ass I could watch myself finger-fuck you for hours.”

---