Kami’s right. The Adamo occupation of Brando’s restaurant goes past closing time. There is laughter, storytelling, and yes, singing.

Once the cooking part of the evening is done, Brando walks through the dining room with me, introducing me to everyone, including his parents. Which kind of freaks me out again, because it makes us way too much like a couple at a wedding reception. I keep reminding myself it’s just a family reunion of sorts.

Alma, his mother, is lovely to me. I find myself wondering if she really is psychic; she has the air of someone who’s in tune with … deeper things. His father, Nario, is a big burly bear of a man who’s never met a stranger. He’s at the center of the action, laughing often and easily, leading songs, making toasts, doing everything with irrepressible good humor. And he adores his wife.

I can see how Brando takes after both of them. He’s very much his own person, but he has his father’s physical presence and gift for hospitality, and also some of his mother’s gentleness and ability to look beneath the surface.

The notable absence from this extended family gathering is Brando’s brother, Matteo. Not only is he not there, but no one even mentions him. Where is he, and what is he doing, that such an obviously affectionate family would act as though he doesn’t exist?

I want to ask, but I don’t. Invasion notwithstanding, it’s not my place.

When the evening finally winds down, late at night, everyone goes into the kitchen to help clean up. Most of it is long since done, and Brando assures them he can take care of the odds and ends tomorrow, but the mamas and aunties and nonnas won’t hear of it, and no one argues with them.

Then it’s time to say good night, with hugs and kisses all around. I’m included as if I were already part of the family, and it leaves me with a warm glow, but also a little overwhelmed.

“Your family doesn’t do things by half measures,” I say, covering a yawn, as we lock up and go out to the SUV. Brando let the staff leave hours ago. Gastone and Kami stayed, of course, with the rest of the family.

“No, they don’t.” Brando slings an arm around my shoulders. “They liked you.”

I get that glow again. “I liked them too.”

The ride back to Brando’s cabin passes in companionable silence. When we get there we go straight upstairs, and since it’s now the wee hours of Wednesday morning, and we’ve only had four hours’ sleep since Sunday night, I expect that we’ll collapse.

I’m wrong. We’re still wired from the evening’s events, and when I peel off my outfit and get down to Brando’s boxer briefs, he sends me a crooked grin and pulls me gently to him. “You should always wear my clothes,” he says, his breath warm against my neck.

“Always?”

“When you wear anything at all, that is.”

I press against him when his hands cup my ass. My brain may be too tired for a snappy comeback, but my body has no problem responding to his touch. Soon we’re both naked and tumbling into bed.

Even bleary-eyed as we are, our bodies know what to do. It’s strange how quickly the dance of lovemaking has imprinted itself on me, right down to the cellular level. It must be an instinct passed down in the genes, waiting for the right events — the right man — to awaken it.

When he enters me I rise to meet him, my nails digging into his back, and urgency seizes us. Our coupling turns frantic, rough and greedy, and the sound of our bodies meeting fills the room.

My neck arches, my head going back as Brando spears into me, fast, then faster, the delicious friction of his cock sending me soaring, driving me to the edge, until pleasure arcs across my nerve endings like white lightning, dragging me into ecstasy with velvet-tipped claws. My body bucks as the climax shreds me, my pussy clamping down hard, milking Brando for every drop of his release.

He collapses on me, and for a few moments I bear his full weight. It feels so right, in a way I can’t explain. Then he moves, and without a word shifts us into the same positions as before, with him curled around me.

Only then does he speak. “ When I was a kid, we had a dog named Pizza.”

“That’s adorable.”

“He was a good dog. And he did love pizza, which we were not supposed to feed him. It made his farts really stinky.”

I laugh. “I had a cat named Fluffer. She was huge, and apparently considered herself a guard cat. One time a dog came into the yard and she jumped on his back and rode him down the street, the poor dog yelping all the way.”

“Cats are mean.”

“Hey, she was protecting her domain. She was very nice when it came to her people. And at least cats aren’t stinky.”

“So you’re a cat person.”

“I like dogs, too,” I protest.

“Cat person,” he says teasingly, as if it were a schoolyard taunt.

“Whatever,” I retort in a mock huffy tone. “All right-thinking people appreciate both species.”

We trade stories of our childhoods, in softer and softer voices, until sleep claims us. My last thought, as I drift off, is that maybe the Adamo mamas are right.