He gripped his tie that hung around my neck and pulled me to him. I remembered I was naked for the first time in twenty minutes, save for his tie and my thong. His breath ghosted my lips. He smelled like scotch and cigars mixed with the scent of clean linen.
“I won.” Marcello tugged on the tie, pulling it tighter around my neck. “Luca set the terms.”
“Is this really how you want me?”
Dropping the tie, he sat back, his eyes on my naked body. He licked his lips, ran his hand up and down my side. His thumb brushed my nipple, and then he tugged on it.
I cried out, a whimper on my lips. “Marcello.”
“Fuck, I love when you moan my name.”
“Marcello,” I whispered as he pinched the tiny bud again.
He smirked, his big hand cupping my breast, making me shiver from his touch. “If you were mine, I would never treat you the way he does. I don’t care about the game. You don’t have to do this.” The pad of his thumb swiped over my painfully sore nipple. “What do you want, Alex?”
He gave me a second to speak, looking at me with those wide blue eyes. So beautiful. We breathed hard, lips parted. I attempted to talk, but nothing came out.
What did I want? No one had ever asked me. Not even Luca had given me a choice. Would I have a choice if I were with Marcello? Would things be different?
Luca hated my brother, while Marcello was his friend. He tried to help him, even if it led to his demise. And maybe he was the key to finding Aiden. I was so fucking angry with Luca. He deserved to deal with the fallout for tonight. What kind of asshole plays games like this?
Luca was a bad man, and we were a terrible combination, but my heart bled for him. He was the Devil in my dreams and nightmares. I had been in love with him for a long time. Despite his idiotic games and all of his mindfuckery, I loved that asshole. What I felt for Marcello was a childhood crush compared to my feelings for my beautiful monster.
“I like you, Marcello,” I said, unable to meet his gaze because it killed me to reject him. “But I think we both know Luca has my heart.”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
Then he slid off the bed, giving me a nice view of his muscular back. Marcello walked over to the dresser and sifted through the contents of his drawer. I caught the black Rolling Stones T-shirt he threw at me and slipped it over my head. The cotton was soft and smelled like a mixture of clean linen and his spicy aftershave.
Marcello sat on the bed beside me. “I knew this would go nowhere,” he admitted. “Even after your grandfather gave you a choice. But I don’t regret the time we’ve spent together. Under different circumstances, I could have made you happy.”
“You do, Marcello. It’s just things are different with us. You remind me so much of Aiden.”
“I’ve become his replacement,” he guessed.
“Yes, but it’s not that simple with us.” I patted his hand rested on my thigh. “Think we can be friends?”
His eyebrows lifted, a sexy smirk on his lips. “After what we just did?”
“I need you, Marcello. But not in the same way as Luca.”
Marcello nodded. “Yeah, we can be friends.”
“We still have Legare,” I pointed out.
He shook his head. “It’s not what you think.”
Before he could respond, the door slammed into the wall. My breath caught in my throat. Luca stood in the doorway, a bottle of Macallan in his hand, a blood-red tie hanging loosely around his neck. He wore a black suit, the jacket open, his white shirt wrinkled, looking like he’d been to hell and back again.
Marcello narrowed his eyes at his brother. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Luca leaned against the doorframe, so drunk he could barely stand up. “She’s mine, Marcello.” Nostrils flared, Luca plopped into an oversized armchair across from the bed. He spread his thighs and drank from the bottle. “Alex doesn’t want this.”
“Luca,” I cut in with a groan. “I was just telling Marcello that I can’t be with him.”
He cocked his head at me. “No?”
“No,” I confirmed.
Luca fisted the bottle, a brutal look in his eyes as he stared through me. “Why not?”
“Because of you.”
A moment passed before he strolled toward the bed with a drunken sway. He dropped to his knees in front of me and pulled my legs apart, his fingers tracing my inner thighs. “You chose me?”
“Yes, Luca. Like there was ever a choice.”
He laid his head on my lap and hooked his arm around my back. “Fuck, baby. I’m so sorry for playing that game with you. When I saw you on top of Marcello… I wanted to rip my heart out to make the pain stop.”