Chapter 36 Thrust me please

Chapter 36 Thrust me please

Three weeks of stillness had passed like a held breath.
The snow never let up. It sealed the dirt road, buried the mailbox, turned the pines into heavy white statues. We became creatures of routine: Luca chopped wood until his shoulders shook, Marisol devoured every book in Nonna’s attic and taught herself to bake bread that rose crooked but tasted like hope, and I walked the perimeter twice a day with the rifle, learning every creak of the forest so I would know when it lied.
We were healing in slow motion.

Then, on the twenty-second night, the shortwave crackled alive with a voice none of us expected.
“Luca Moretti, Elio Valenti, or whichever ghost is listening: this is Denver. I have a delivery from an old friend wearing a Roman collar. I’ll be at the ridge trailhead at dawn. Come alone, come armed, come curious. But come.”
Static. Then nothing.

Luca and I stared at the radio like it had grown teeth.

“Roman collar,” I repeated. “Father Marco?”
“Only priest crazy enough to help us,” Luca said. “Also the only one who still owes Nonna a blood debt.”

Marisol appeared in the doorway wrapped in the mink coat, eyes wide. “You’re not going alone.”
“We are,” Luca and I said in unison.

She rolled her eyes so hard I worried for her future. “Then at least take the good coffee. Bribery works on everyone.”

Dawn found Luca and me trudging up the ridge through knee-deep snow, rifles slung, breath pluming white. The trailhead was nothing more than a widening where loggers once turned trucks around. A single set of snowmobile tracks cut through the fresh powder, leading to a man leaning against a black machine that looked expensive and illegal.

He was tall, lean, wrapped in charcoal wool and arrogance. Hooded hazel eyes, cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass, a mouth that looked like it had been built for trouble. Denver lifted a gloved hand in lazy greeting.
“Morning, runaways,” he drawled, accent hard to place (somewhere between Dublin and nowhere). “You both look exactly like your wanted posters, only prettier.”

Luca’s hand tightened on his rifle. “You have ten seconds to tell us who you are before we decide the snow needs another red stain.”
Denver smiled, slow and lethal. “Father Marco sends his love and a crate of things you’ll need: new passports, cash that doesn’t smell like Nonna’s attic, and a satellite phone that can’t be traced. Also this.” He tossed a small velvet pouch. I caught it on reflex. Inside: three gold rings, simple, worn, warm from his pocket.
“Wedding bands,” Denver said, eyes dancing. “Nonna’s instructions were very specific. She said, and I quote, ‘If those idiots haven’t married each other yet, make them do it before one of them dies dramatically.’”

I felt the laugh leave my chest before I could stop it. Luca looked like he’d been hit with a board.
Denver went on, “I’m just the courier. Also, apparently, the officiant. I’m licensed in international waters and three countries that no longer exist. Close enough.” He produced a flask, took a swallow, offered it. “Irish whiskey. For courage.”

We drank. It burned clean.
The crate was lashed to the back of the snowmobile: heavier than it looked. Denver helped us drag it down the trail on a tarp like a makeshift sled. Halfway back, the wind shifted and the snow began again, thick and deliberate, erasing our tracks almost as fast as we made them.

Inside the house, Marisol pounced on the new passports like a kid at Christmas. “You gave me an Irish birthday? I’m nineteen now? Rude.”
Denver leaned in the doorway, watching the scene with unreadable eyes. “You must be the famous Marisol. Heard you once bit a capo so hard he needed stitches.”

“He called me ‘little girl,’” she said sweetly. “I improved his vocabulary.”
Denver laughed, delighted. Something in the sound made heat coil low in my belly (unexpected and unwelcome).

Luca noticed. Of course he did. His gaze flicked between us, sharp and possessive.
Later, after the fire was stoked high and Marisol sent to bed with strict instructions to pretend she was asleep, the three of us sat around the kitchen table with the whiskey and the rings.
Denver poured generously. “So. Vows. I can do short and filthy or long and Catholic. Your choice.

Luca’s voice was rough. “We’re not doing this because a ghost told us to.”
“No,” I said quietly. “We’re doing it because I’m tired of almost losing you.”

The room went still.
Denver leaned back, chair creaking. “Then let’s keep it simple.”

He stood, moved behind us, placed one hand on each of our shoulders like a priest who’d long ago traded salvation for sin.
“Elio Valenti, do you take this stubborn bastard in sickness and health, in war and peace, until death or something equally dramatic do you part?”

I met Luca’s eyes. They were wet and fierce. “I do. Have for years.”
“Luca Moretti, same question, only with more profanity allowed.”
Luca’s laugh cracked. “Fuck yes, I do.”
Denver slid the rings onto our fingers (mine first, then Luca’s). The gold was warm, worn soft by decades of someone else’s marriage.
“By the power vested in me by questionable authorities and excellent whiskey, I pronounce you husbands. You may now kiss like you mean it.”
Luca kissed me like the world was on fire and we were the last match. Hard, claiming, a little bit angry. When we broke apart, the room smelled of smoke and want.
Denver’s voice dropped to velvet. “There’s one more tradition Nonna insisted on.”
He stepped closer, until I could smell snow on his coat and something darker underneath.
“She said the marriage isn’t sealed until it’s witnessed. Properly.”
Luca went predator-still. “Explain.”
Denver’s smile was slow, sinful. “I’m offering. No strings. No tomorrow. Just tonight (to make it sacred).”
I should have said no. We both should have.
Instead, Luca looked at me, eyes blown wide, and I saw the same reckless hunger that had always lived between us.
“Elio,” he said, my name a question and a plea.
I answered by reaching for Denver’s coat, pulling him in until all three of us were breathing the same air.
The bedroom was warm from the fire. We left the lights off; the glow painted us in gold and shadow.

Clothes fell away like confessions.
Denver was beautiful the way a knife is beautiful (clean lines, dangerous promise). Scars crossed his ribs like latitude lines. Luca traced one with his tongue and Denver hissed, fingers tangling in Luca’s hair.

I watched them for a moment, heat pooling low, then stepped in behind Luca, pressed my mouth to the nape of his neck where his pulse thundered. He shuddered, pushed back against me.

Denver met my eyes over Luca’s shoulder and smiled like he’d won something.
We moved to the bed slowly, reverently. The mattress dipped under our combined weight. I kissed Luca first (deep, familiar, grounding), then turned and kissed Denver (different, sharp, tasting of whiskey and winter).

Hands everywhere. Mouths everywhere.
Luca made a broken sound when Denver wrapped a hand around him, slow and sure. I swallowed the sound, kissed him until he was trembling.

I found the oil we kept in the nightstand (Luca’s doing, hopeful bastard) and slicked my fingers. Denver watched, pupils blown, as I opened Luca slowly, carefully, the way I hadn’t in years. Luca arched, head thrown back, throat bared.
Denver leaned down and licked a stripe up Luca’s cock while I worked a third finger inside him. Luca cursed in three languages.
When I finally pushed inside him, slow and relentless, Luca’s hands scrabbled for purchase on the sheets. Denver knelt in front of him, feeding Luca his cock inch by inch until Luca was moaning around him, tears of overwhelm at the corners of his eyes.

We found a rhythm (filthy, perfect). Every thrust pushed Luca deeper onto Denver; every pull had him clenching around me. The room filled with the sounds of us: wet, desperate, alive.
I reached around, wrapped my hand around Luca’s cock, stroked in time. Denver’s head fell back, throat working as Luca took him deeper.
Close. So close.

“Come for us,” I whispered against Luca’s spine.
He did (shattered, crying out around Denver, pulsing hot over my fist). The clench of him dragged me over the edge. I buried myself deep and came with his name on my tongue.
Denver followed seconds later, hips stuttering, spilling down Luca’s throat with a low, wrecked groan.
We collapsed in a tangle of limbs and sweat and gold rings glinting in the firelight.
Later (minutes, hours, impossible to tell), Denver traced lazy circles on my chest while Luca dozed between us.

“Nonna was right,” he murmured. “Some things are worth witnessing.”

He left before dawn, snowmobile growling away into the white. On the kitchen table he’d left the satellite phone, a fresh bottle of whiskey, and a note in elegant handwriting:

Take care of each other, husbands.
The world is wide, and it’s yours now.
—A.
We never saw him again.

c