Page 104 of Baby Surprise for my Brother's Best Friend

I brush my fingers over his. “Careful. Say things like that, and I might actually start believing you mean them.”

We move to the floor, backs against the couch, the wine bottle between us and our glasses balanced precariously on the rug.

The lights are low, casting everything in a golden hush. Outside the windows, the city glows, distant, untouchable.

Alessio swirls the wine in his glass, quiet for a beat. Then he glances at me, and the teasing’s gone.

“I never thought I could feel this way about someone. Not really.”

I look at him, startled. Not by the words, but by how hard it seems for him to say them.

He keeps going, eyes on his glass. “It terrifies me. How much I… how much space you take up in here.” He taps two fingers against his chest. “And I’m just…every day…I’m trying to be someone who deserves you.”

My heart stutters.

It would be easy to make a joke, to smooth over the heat rising in my throat.

But he’s being real with me. So, I meet him there.

“I get scared too. Not of you, but… of letting someone in. Of getting it wrong again. Of waking up one day and realizing I gave everything I fought for away.”

His eyes lock on mine. Gentle. Steady.

“I’ve spent so long trying to prove I’m more than someone’s girlfriend,” I whisper. “That I’m not just some accessory to a man’s life.”

He doesn’t speak. He just reaches out and laces our fingers together.

For a while, we sit in that silence. In the truth of it. No masks. No PR polish. Just us.

He lifts my hand, his thumb brushing slowly across my knuckles. “I know I can’t give you everything. But I’ll give you everything I have. Always.”

I don’t answer right away.

My chest aches in the best kind of way. There’s a tremble in my breath I don’t try to hide.

“I think I might be falling for you, Alessio.”

His breath catches like I’ve knocked the wind out of him. He blinks, like he didn’t hear me right.

Then, quietly, fiercely, he says, “IknowI’m falling for you. So damn hard it scares the hell out of me.”

And then his mouth is on mine.

The kiss is slow at first, reverent. But it deepens quickly, turning hungry. Desperate. Like he’s afraid of losing this moment, of letting it slip through his fingers.

We rise together, our bodies already drawn like magnets.

We make our way to the bedroom.

We fall into bed like we’ve been waiting for this moment all night. Maybe since that first night together. I know I have.

The room is warm from the wine, the laughter, the truth we spilled on the floor. But it’s our skin that turns it into something else entirely.

His hands trail over me slowly, like he’s memorizing every inch.

I tug his shirt off and let my fingers explore the defined ridges of his abdomen, following the line of his V until his breath stutters.

He kisses me again, deeper now, surer. The kind of kiss that says there’s no one else, nowhere else.

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