Page 72 of His Nephew's Ex
Bolts of blinding light and intense waves of something deeper, richer, purer, and perfection—those are the things I experience. I’m stretched beyond belief, and finally, he stretches me wider,demanding, taking. Until our bodies shake and melt together. And his name explodes off my lips with a million unanswered prayers.
We come for what seems like forever. Drowning, floating, burning, shivering. Boneless, satiated. Together.
Long after our orgasms have subsided, we stay tangled and silent in the golden light of the candles and the ivory clouds that are finally drifting to the ground. His arms surround me, gently stroking my skin as I draw patterns on his chest, my engagement ring glinting in the flickering lights.
I shift against him to find a more comfortable position, and the twinge in my sex is an ache I know I’ll be feeling for days. The ache reminds me of how far he took us—not only to the outer reaches of pleasure, but also the deepest part of myself. This new Loriana is one who acknowledges fears and surrenders anyway, who leaps without looking and finds flying is safer than falling.
His heartbeat matches the rhythm of mine—rattled and sated and slowly returning to normal. I lick my dry lips, remembering the bite of his belt on my skin and how his grip was hard enough to bruise. Knowing he was rough, yet still giving me everything I wanted with an intensity that makes me achy and breathless all over again.
There are still things we haven’t done. Positions we haven’t tried. Stuff he has to teach me about sex—things I want to do with him, especially if they drive him out of his mind.
It was the sexiest, most primal thing ever, knowing I was making him crazy. And that he did the same to me. I breathe him in, wanting more—as always.
Nothing can happen now that he hasn’t already done, as far as physical acts. We’ve already taken and given, claimed and owned.
Now it’s the other stuff I want to explore with him—the feelings that make my insides tighten and my knees weak. Even the thought of them terrifies me as much as it thrills me. And yet, despite my fear, I find myself craving them with a force I never anticipated. It’s almost... overwhelming how much I want him in every possible way—even the scary ones that shouldn’t make any sense after what we just did.
Beside me, Simeone sighs. “That was the best sex I’ve ever had. By a long shot.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” he confirms, and something in his voice tells me he isn’t exaggerating.
He might’ve been my first, one, and only, but at least I know for certain that I’m his best. Something about that knowledge makes me smile, and a little piece of my inner virgin takes an awkward bow before fading into the night.
23
Simeone
The DNA report burns like acid in my hands as I look at it again. Its clinical language reducing twenty years of guilt and responsibility to a simple truth:Probability of paternity: 0.00%.
Zero percent.
Flavio is not my brother’s son. Not family. Not blood. I thought the rage from this knowledge would have eased by now, but I am angrier than I was the day I found out. And what hurts me the most is that I have nothing left of Ulrico. No matter what Flavio did, I was willing to just discipline him, and then turn right around to clean up his mess. But this new revelation has stripped me of every piece of my brother I had left.
The crystal tumbler explodes against my office wall, amber whiskey streaming down the mahogany paneling like tears I’ll never shed. Twenty years of believing I owed something to Ulrico’s memory. Twenty years of cleaning up messes for a boy who carries another man’s genes while wearing my brother’s name like stolen armor.
The second glass follows the first, then the third. By the time I’ve destroyed every piece of crystal in reach, my office looks like a war zone, and my knuckles are bleeding from where I punched the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.
But the rage won’t break. Won’t bleed out. Won’t do anything but burn hotter with each breath.
I sink into my chair and reach for the bottle of twenty-five-year-old Macallan—the same kind of drink Ulrico and I opened the night before his last mission. The whiskey tastes like regret and lost time, each swallow carrying the weight of every lie I’ve swallowed, every excuse I’ve made, every moment I’ve let sentiment override sense.
The irony cuts deeper than any blade: I’ve spent over two decades protecting what I thought was my brother’s legacy while the real legacy—my own blood, my own child growing in Loriana’s womb—got threatened to be destroyed by my misplaced loyalty.
“Bastardo maledetto,” I curse into the empty room, my voice echoing off walls that have witnessed more confessions than any cathedral. “Twenty-six fucking years.”
The bottle grows lighter as the afternoon bleeds into evening. Each drink reveals another layer of the deception—how carefully orchestrated it must have been, how perfectly timed. A grieving woman showing up at Ulrico’s funeral with claims of pregnancy, playing on my guilt and need to honor my brother’s memory.
She played me like a violin, and I danced to her tune for over twenty years.
The door creaks open behind me, but I don’t turn around. Only one person in this house would dare enter my office without permission when I’m in this state.
“Don’t,” I say quietly, sensing her hesitation in the doorway. “Whatever comforting words you’re planning, save them. I’m not in the mood for pity.”
“Good,” Loriana’s voice comes from closer than expected, and I realize she’s already crossed the room. “Because I wasn’t planning to offer any.”
I finally look up to find her standing beside my desk, taking in the destruction with those intelligent brown eyes that see too much. She’s wearing one of my shirts over her nightgown, her hair loose around her shoulders, looking like everything pure in a world gone to hell.
