Chapter Thirteen

Rossi

June—1992

“Your eyes are such an unusual color.”

“Oh yeah? What color is that?” Rossi tightened his arm around Stefano’s naked form, keeping him close. Resting on their backs in the bed at the hotel they’d been coming to for the past few months—Stefano toyed with his fingers. The man glanced upward into his face.

“Whiskey colored.”

He grinned. “I’ve had them called gold, but I’ve never had them called that before.”

“Who called your eyes gold?” Stefano squinted at him, and the look was so cute, Rossi had to laugh.

“Hold on,” he said and shifted from beneath Stefano to reach for his wallet. He rifled through it and pulled out a small photo that he carried and handed it to Stefano.

“You’re married?” The man’s face turned white.

“No, but that’s my son.” He pointed to the toddler next to the woman in the picture. Noah was just over a year old, born in 1991.

Stefano frowned. “So, you’re bisexual.”

“If you have to put a label on it,” he said. “I’m also not completely Italian. My mother was, but my father wasn’t.”

“Did your father have the same-colored eyes?”

“According to my mom, he did.” Rossi sat on the edge of the bed.

Stefano squinted at him for a moment. “You told me you were in foster care. How’d you end up there?”

“My dad was killed in action when I was ten and my mom overdosed on pills a few months later. It was only me and my younger sister, no living relatives, so… yeah, foster care.” Rossi shrugged.

Stefano changed the subject by pointing to the woman next to Noah in the photo.

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Mia.”

“So, Mia said you had golden eyes?”

“My son and I both do,” he boasted proudly, scooting farther up on the bed to look at Noah in the photo. It was a colored photo but you couldn’t see Noah’s eyes, only his blond hair that was so much like his mother’s.

“Tell me what happened.”

At Stefano’s soft words, he told the man about how he’d met Mia in high school. They weren’t careful, but they didn’t know she was pregnant. They’d ended things when he informed her he was going into the military.

“She called me when she found out she was pregnant, but by that time, she was already seeing someone else. I send her money from my checks.”

Stefano handed him back the photo with a soft smile. “You’re a good dad.”

“Well, not really. Mia said she didn’t need me around confusing Noah, so…” He shrugged.

“That’s bullshit,” Stefano growled.

“Nah… She’s given me the opportunity to make something of myself, and from what she said, her new fiancé makes her happy.”

“Well, then, what are you going to be when you grow up?” Stefano joked.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you… my training starts next month. I hope to be in Special Forces by next year.”

The incident with Jones and Farling had never been brought to light. Neither man had reported what had happened in the bar that night and they avoided him like the plague.

“Oh… Um, well, I’m not going for Special Forces.”

“I haven’t been accepted yet. I may not make it.”

“You’ll make it.” The light in Stefano’s eyes and the confidence he had in Rossi made him tongue-tied. It had been this way from the beginning. They had been inseparable except for when on duty. Stefano was just finishing up his AIT training and Rossi didn’t want to think about what that would mean for them. Through sheer luck, his own training had been extended, allowing him to further know this incredible man.

The relief of finally telling Stefano about Noah and Stefano’s unwavering acceptance made his chest warm and his throat feel tight.

Stefano’s hands moved up and down his arms. “I know you will.”

Rossi rolled them on the hotel bed and pinned Stefano’s naked form beneath him. “I’ll be your Special Forces.”

“Promises, promises,” Stefano panted with a laugh against his mouth and roamed his hands down his back, squeezing and scraping with his nails.

“We still have condoms.” His voice was muffled against Stefano’s neck.

“Mhmm.”

He pushed up and planked over Stefano and roamed his gaze from the man’s beautiful face downward, sweeping his eyes over the man’s chest and down to his thick cock. Making a sound in the back of his throat, he dropped his head and trailed his mouth over the skin on Stefano’s chest. Not much chest hair, but what little he did have was soft. He nosed against one of Stefano’s nipples and drew the nub into his mouth.

Stefano arched beneath him and writhed on the sheets that had been destroyed the night before. They only had a few more hours, and Rossi was going to make the most of them. Reaching his destination, he licked at the head of Stefano’s dick and then took it into his mouth.

Rather than speak, Stefano groaned and fisted those talented hands into his hair. Taking the cock to the back of his throat, Rossi slipped slowly off and then took him in again.

“Okay,” Stefano said breathily. “I can’t take any… mo… moreeeeee.”

Rossi cupped and toyed with Stefano’s balls in one hand and slid his mouth and hand up and down the man’s cock. If he could have smiled, he would have, but he was occupied.

“I’m going to come, Gio!”

He pulled off and slipped a spit slickened finger into Stefano’s clenching entrance and curled his finger. He rolled the man’s sac with his other hand and Stefano shot. Come spurted in a long rope and then several drizzles before his jerking cock stilled.

Rising up, Rossi caught Stefano’s eyes; there was something in their expression that puzzled him.

“I love you,” Stefano blurted and then gasped. He clapped his hand over his mouth, those brown eyes going wide like a startled deer in headlights.

When Rossi grinned, Stefano slapped his hands over his eyes.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”

“Stef.”

“What?” Stefano peeked at him through his fingers when he didn’t immediately respond.

“I love you too, baby.”