2. Matteo
Matteo
Ifreeze. Not out of fear. More out of fascination.
The angel has claws, and it takes all my mother’s teachings not to encourage them to scar my back right here and now.
I had no clue I liked them feisty until now.
“Listen here, dipshit! I’m not a damsel in distress who needs saving.
” She digs the tip of the letter opener in firmly enough for the fascinating scent of imminent danger to waft into my nostrils.
I love pain. I fucking dig it. So I’m hard enough right now to drill a mine. “Say you’ve changed your mind.”
She crowds into me with a ferocity that doesn’t match her angelic features. Her head doesn’t reach my chin, and she doesn’t weigh half of what I do, but she appears as tall as a giant because she’s so riled up.
Her closeness means it’s impossible for her to miss the impact her little hellion act has on my body, but she acts nonchalant. “Say you want his eldest daughter instead.”
When I shake my head, Azra’s eyes burn with fury, intelligence, and something that looks a fuck ton like desperation.
She’s close enough for me to count every fleck of green in her hazel eyes and to savor the feeling of her minty breath on my skin, but it’s the pointy edge of the blade digging into my neck that increases the tension tenfold.
I ought to be angry.
Instead, I’m impressed.
That’s no easy feat.
“Why not?” Her accent is more noticeable now because she’s in shock. Or could it be jealousy? I don’t know her, so I can’t be expected to comprehend all her telltales. “Isabella is beautiful. She’ll make a lovely bride—”
“Bride? Ha!” Her unrecognizable expression slips as I say, “I ain’t interested in getting married, sweetheart. Ever.” Another much more intriguing scent filters between us when I tilt my head, digging the letter opener in deeper. “This isn’t about marriage… and I’m reasonably sure you know that.”
“I’m sure Isabella is open to… that as well. I’ve heard she’s extremely accommodating to her father’s guests,” she whispers. It’s definitely jealousy flashing through her eyes.
“I’ve heard the same…” Before finishing my statement, I wait for the burn of my lie to color her cheeks.
“But I don’t give a fuck if her pussy lays golden eggs.
” I wet my suddenly bone-dry lips, and her eyes follow the trek of my tongue, then narrow during my following sentence. “I’m not giving you back.”
Even if this began as a means to get my dick wet, I’d rather ship her home than fold to an Adami. I just can’t let her know that. My best-kept secret is that I’m a bigoted tyrant when it comes to rapists.
Antonio may not have been at the event that nearly ended Dante’s relationship with Lucia before it began, but I know he’s been involved in past ones. Graphic footage doesn’t lie.
“Why?” Azra’s question isn’t as assertive as her earlier one.
I ball my hands into fists as if that’ll stop my mouth from spilling words it’s never spoken before.
It’s a waste of time.
Just like I blame Giovanni and Dante for my lack of promiscuity over the last few months, I blame them for this. Cupid’s arrow has been aiming for my ass ever since they fell head over dicks for their ladies.
It’s exhausting dogging that little fucker.
“Because he doesn’t deserve you.”
Shocked, Azra blinks slowly, her incredibly long lashes touching her cheeks. It’s understandable. Even when you make me come in under twenty minutes, I don’t issue compliments.
“You’re unqualified to make that judgment. You don’t know me.”
A mixture of excitement and challenge fizzes in my stomach. “I know enough.”
An emotion I’m certain I’ve never experienced twitches my top lip when she brushes off my excuse with a scoff. “That’s not a legitimate reason to cancel my wedding.”
I return her stare, jaw flexing, before hitting her with truths not even a suicidal woman could ignore. “The instant you sign on the dotted line, he’ll use you, control you, then break you until you don’t recognize yourself.”
Her nonchalant shrug whips up her perfume, further thickening my cock. It’s nothing close to saintly and has me picturing how delicious the rest of her will smell. “You don’t know what I can handle. Maybe I might break him.”
My laughter echoes around her room. “You’ve got balls, sweetheart.
I’ll give you that. But even if you had responded to Don Adami’s hit by sodomizing him with my gun before blowing his brains out through his ass, I still wouldn’t believe you understand the Adami family’s capabilities.
” I tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear before flaring my nostrils to drink in the scent of hope wafting from her that Don Adami will soon fall on his knife.
“I know what the Adami family is. And I know what they’re capable of. ”
“And you? Are better? Worse? Or the same?”
She doesn’t flinch when I reply, “Worse, sweetheart. Definitely worse.”
Most women shy away from controversy.
Azra steers straight for it.
“Then why do you care what they may do to me?”
My mouth twitches, but not a word comes out.
You pussy-whipped idiot! You walked straight into her trap!
I should shut this down. I’m accustomed to barking orders and having others follow them or die, but I can’t bring myself to remind her of this.
I’m obsessed with her attitude and eager to see if it holds up while I tame the monster dick her take-no-shit attitude inspires. But my father would hang me from the rafters by my nuts if I didn’t ensure she knows the depravity of the situation she’s placing herself in.
“You want me to hand you back to a man who sees you as nothing more than a bargaining chip?”
Her lips, designed to make men fall to their knees, twist, unfazed. “That’s what I came here to be.”
Something brittle splinters through me. It could be jealousy, or perhaps even possessiveness, but what the fuck would I know? I’m not known for my emotions. I’m immune.
Though you wouldn’t believe me if you heard the concern in my tone. “Then you came to Carlisle for the wrong reason. That shit doesn’t fly here.”
“Since when?” she asks, laughing.
I snuff her giggles. “Since my niece became a part of our lives.”
Her glistening eyes dance between mine for several long seconds, stunned, before she eventually murmurs, “My family needs this marriage.”
“And you?” I ask, assessing her like I’ve known her for longer than five minutes. “Do you need it?”
She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Because she doesn’t know. She’s never had permission to ask herself that question. That isn’t how the Cosa Nostra works.
Now all of Dante’s worries about raising a daughter in our world make sense.
I’m a fucking prick for not understanding them earlier, and I’m also an ass when grouchy.
“I’m not giving you back, so pack your shit and let’s go.”
“No.”
“I ain’t asking.”
A tiny sting blooms at my throat as her attempt to reinforce her stance pierces the sharp end of the letter opener into my neck.
Remorse is her first reaction when a juicy droplet of blood rolls down my neck.
Mine is much more deprived.
A loud knock wobbles her door. “Azra!” The caller’s nasally tone is hiked with jealousy, but I still know who’s knocking.
Even dweebs have memorable voices.
Antonio pounds at her door again. “Open the door… now!”
As fast as Azra’s expression shifts from remorse to panic, her entire demeanor changes. The little firecracker holding me hostage to the wall vanishes as her hellion mask softens into an angelic one.
“One moment,” she calls out, her voice almost childlike. Her teeth graze her fuckable lips as her eyes trace the crimson line spilling down my throat. “I spilled something.”
Antonio’s fury doesn’t evaporate. He knows there’s only one thing men like me spill within minutes of entering the room on the heels of a beautiful woman. It isn’t blood. Well, not my blood.
“Now, Azra!”
At Azra’s fearful reaction to the scald in his tone, I vow to torture him slowly. She looked seconds from burning the world to get her way before he showed up. Now she’s barely a shell of the woman who held me captive with more than a weapon.
When Antonio slams his boot against the door’s lock, the zipper in my pants bites into my cock. Azra doesn’t remove the bloodstain from my neck as a sweet, innocent woman would. She doesn’t wipe at it with her hand or use a tissue.
She demolishes it with her tongue.
Fuck me, it would only be hotter if she were licking her virginal blood off my cock.
“What’s going on?” Antonio asks, his pupils as wide as mine as he bursts into the room.
“Nothing,” Azra replies, slowly backing away, leaving me and my ten-inch dick to its own mercy.
There’s no hiding a dick as big as mine, so I’m not surprised by Antonio’s next line of questioning.
“Did he touch you?” He strays his eyes to me, acting like I won’t kill a man for speaking to me with the wrong tone.
“Did you fucking touch her? She’s my fiancée.
” He bangs his chest all macho-like during his last three words, doubling my wish to cave his face in with my fists.
After dumping the letter opener onto her bed and adding to the throbs of my cock with a stern yet silent warning for me to follow her command, Azra beelines for Antonio.
“He isn’t interested in me like that.” She cups his face, then dances her eyes between his.
It’s not hard considering he suffers from short-man syndrome as much as he does short-dick syndrome.
“He was acting on behalf of his niece. He thought I didn’t want to be here, so he was saving me from what he thought was a forced arrangement.
” Her butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth voice takes care of my erection.
It’s nowhere near as enticing as the salacious imp depriving my thoughts of morals only seconds ago.
“I just finished telling him how much I can’t wait to be your wife, and that there’s no other man in the world for me but you. ”
Her cutesy expression immediately dispels when she cranks her neck back to face me. She glares, and once again, my dick wrangles with my zipper.