That was damn good lasagna.” Zane sat back in his chair and lifted a napkin to his lips. His plate was scraped clean, adding a testament to his words. And that was his second serving. I got up from the table and grabbed both of the plates.

“Here, let me,” he said, reaching for the dirty plates. I shook my head and dodged his attempts at helping me. I couldn’t stop him from following me to the kitchen, though. He tailed me with our glasses in hand. I could practically feel his shape behind me. Like I’d be able to draw him out if I closed my eyes and had some pen and paper.

The entire night, I’d been acutely aware of Zane’s presence. Of his body. Of his being. I was taking it all in, and it all felt so damn right. It was almost scary how well the night had been going. There wasn’t an ounce of awkwardness or a moment of wishing things would end. It was the total opposite—I was hoping things never ended. Our conversations were so animated and both of us were so involved, it was stimulating every damn part of me.

Seriously. Every single part.

I placed the dishes in the dishwasher and grabbed the glasses from Zane. “We done with these?” I looked at the clock that was above the sink. It was only eleven.

“Oh, I wasn’t bringing them to clean them. I was looking for refills.”

“Smart.” I smiled as I set them down on the counter and walked over to my wine fridge. It was opposite my actual fridge and had a glass door allowing anyone to look in at the rows of white wines. There was a section that wasn’t chilled for the reds. “Another red, or do you want some white?”

“Let’s go with a pinot grigio.”

“White it is,” I said, noting his choice of wine. Pinot grigio happened to be my favorite, and it was also a wine native to Italy. Coincidence? I think not. There was one bottle of pinot with a deep gold wax covering that called my name. I grabbed it and pulled it out. “This is a 2002 Elena Walch from Italy.”

“Sounds great,” Zane said in a tone that told me he didn’t care much about the origin. He looked from the bottle in my hands to my eyes. We held that eye contact for a loaded moment. I wasn’t breaking. I wasn’t going to look away. Zane should have learned that about me. I was the type to go for the full eye contact. Eye fucking was a real thing, and I felt like I was real fucking good at it. Zane, on the other hand, would normally look away. I had noticed he didn’t hold my gaze for as long as I would have liked. That was changing, though. He was standing his ground more and holding eye contact. Even over the course of the dinner, I could tell he was meeting my eyes and keeping them for longer and longer. It meant something to me. Not only was it a sign of progress, but it was also eye contact filled with a tension that was only getting harder and harder to ignore.

I walked to the counter and set the wine down.

“So, what part of Italy are you from?” Zane asked.

“Both my parents were born in Palermo. It’s a small city in Southern Italy. It’s the warmest city in all of Europe, they say. We go back a couple of times every few years.

There was a warmth that was spreading out from my core, and it had nothing to do with the warm weather in my parents’ hometown. The heat was tightening my balls, making my heart beat quicker, making my lips tingle. I turned, ignoring the wine bottle and refocusing on Zane, who was leaning back against the counter with his arms across his chest, making the slits on his shirt pop open and giving me a peek at the furry, muscular chest beneath. I wanted to run my fingers through the dark hair. My tongue.

My dick.

It throbbed in my briefs. Soon, there’d be no hiding the bulge. Zane was looking at me, truly looking at me. His beautiful deep brown eyes were captivating. Words were said without either of our lips moving.

In seconds flat, I crossed the distance that separated us. My hands went up to his face as his fingers dug into my hips. He pulled me onto him as my mouth found his. A moan escaped us both. His lips were soft, his stubble rough. The taste of wine was still on both our tongues as we probed the other’s mouth. My fingers went up to get lost in Zane’s head of hair. He had a short cut, though long enough for me to mess up on the top. I bundled some in a fist and tugged his head back, sucking on his bottom lip, feeling Zane push his body forward onto mine as a sign that he liked it.

Well, judging by how hard his dick was, he fucking loved it.

I pulled his head back a little harder, exposing his neck. We were both about the same size in height, so I craned my head to suck on his sensitive flesh. I moved on to a new spot before I felt like I was leaving a hickey. He was moaning and grinding his hard dick against mine, sending waves of ecstasy coursing through my body. I was seeing stars, and not in the way that happens when you hit your head. No, these were from being launched out of the earth’s stratosphere and into space. The kind of stars you saw only through a dream (or because your buddy had a really great batch of mushrooms… it was college, could you really blame me?).

In this case, I was seeing stars because of how high I felt from Zane’s kiss. From his tongue, the way it felt against mine. I was high from the feeling of his hard, muscular body pushing against mine. Of the way he smelled, a scent I wanted to bottle up and use on a daily basis.

Cazzo. Zane was unwinding me. I let go of his hair and dropped my hands down to his hips. My hands slid between us, running over his hardness, feeling the thickness of it through his pants. I could feel it throbbing when I squeezed. It drove me crazy.

“I want you, Zane.” My words fell out in a growl. Zane’s gaze was filled with fire. Our eyes locked. There was something in Zane I hadn’t seen before. Maybe glimpses of, but never the full thing. Lust. Hunger. Zane was looking at me like a lion would stare down a plate of thick, raw, bleeding meat.

And I wanted to feed him. My fingers found the zipper to Zane’s pants. I pulled it down, the zip sounding in the room like a chorus of angels. With his pants open, I buried my hand between his thighs, feeling the warmth, holding his balls in my hand, the soft material of his blue briefs creating a barrier I needed to rip off. I could feel the heat of him against my palm, and it was mesmerizing. It spread through me as our lips met again, and this time our kiss was even hotter.

My hand moved up from his balls to the band of his briefs. I tugged them down, feeling his soft fur brush against the back of my fingers. I moaned into Zane’s mouth as I slipped my hand into his briefs, immediately feeling my hand get slick with his precome. I grabbed his velvety soft length and almost came right then and there. Just holding his rock-hard cock in my hand was enough to unwind me and send me rocketing to another level.

I gave him two good strokes before I couldn’t take it anymore. His cock needed to be between my lips. His taste was all I wanted on my tongue. I broke from the kiss and smiled as I slipped my hand out of his briefs and grabbed on to the waistband. With one tug, they fell down to Zane’s ankles, his cock springing forward. My smile grew wider.

“Wow, that’s a cazzo,” I said, my jaw practically on the floor. Which was a good thing because anyone would need an unhingeable jaw to fit that entire thing in their mouth.

Zane put a hand around himself, his thumb on the base, as though I needed it there for scale. “From what I can see, you have a big cazzo yourself.” His eyes were turned down to the huge bulge in my shorts. I could have provided shelter for a family of four with how big the tent was.

“Your Italian makes me even bigger,” I said, rubbing myself over my shorts with one hand and stroking his bare cock off with another.

“It’s impressive, right?” Zane said, smirking. “Grazie.”

I cocked my head, smiling. “I could see a few spots for improvement,” I teased, “but that’s nothing a great tutor can’t help you with.”

“And where would I find this great Italian tutor? Do you have any suggestions? Not sure I can think of anyone.”

“Oh really? You can’t think of one person you’d want to tutor you in the beautiful and romantic lingua Italiana?”

Zane licked his lower lip, a move that drove me wild. He was grabbing his balls while I stroked him off. All the while our eyes remained locked together, fire spreading through both of our bodies. I could feel it, the heat rising inside of him. He was warm in my hand, throbbing with a need to come. “Nope, no one’s coming to mind.”

“Bene,” I said, shrugging. “I’m sure someone will pop up.”

“Hopefully,” Zane said, slowly moving his hips so his cock was sliding across my palm. I used his precome as lube, slicking up his shaft with his own juices. “Oh wait,” he said, “I almost forgot.”

My eyebrows arched up excitedly. I was having fun playing with Zane while also playing with him.

“One of our detectives. She’s Italian. She can teach me.”

My eyebrows drew together, and my mouth twisted into a sarcastic grin, all while my grip was still closed around Zane’s pulsing shaft.

“Well, good luck with that.” I dropped my shorts and briefs to the floor. We were both naked from the waist down. “I doubt her extracurricular activities would have been as fun as mine, though.”

“Oh, really?” Zane asked, but he wasn’t looking into my eyes anymore. He was staring down at my dick, hard and pink in the air, the tip wet with my own precome. “What would you have me do—” Zane looked up, back into my eyes, his own filled with even more hunger. “—Professor?”

I moved forward, grabbing his hips and pushing our cocks together, feeling the heat from his roll off and spread through mine. It was such an intense sensation. I loved it. Knowing how hard I made him and feeling it against my body, it was exactly what I wanted.

“Well, for one,” I said, kissing him between words, “I’ll teach you the ‘off-book’ words.”

“What are a few?”

“How about a phrase to start with?”

“Sure, teach me.”

“Okay, how about ‘succhiami il cazzo.’”

Zane’s head tilted. He was smiling as he tried the words out under his breath before committing. “Say it one more time,” he said, his hand sliding down my side to reach for our cocks. He grabbed both of us in his hand and started to rub. I could feel the soft skin of his cock against mine while his fingers worked the other side. It was magical.

“Succhiami il cazzo,” I repeated, trying to enunciate some more but finding that the pleasure shooting through my balls was too much for me to focus on much else.

“Schucchu-mama al cazzo,” Zane tried, butchering the first part but sounding so damn adorable doing it. I don’t know how he did it, but he managed to be both smoldering hot and cheek-pinching cute at the same damn time.

“It means ‘suck my cock,’” I said, grinning, “and since you asked so nicely.”

I dropped to my knees, licking my lips as I went in for tonight’s main course