18. Azra
Azra
I’m buzzing. Truly, intensely buzzing.
The club’s music is still pulsing under my skin, and the bass prickles it with goose bumps. I’ve never experienced anything like this. Four years ago, I shrank into someone else’s shadow, and I’ve been fighting to find a way out ever since.
Tonight I danced, laughed, and lived—for myself.
That was a foreign concept only hours ago, and I have one man to thank for breaking the cruel cycle.
“Matteo?”
He peers down at me, his smirk lazy and easy. “Yeah?”
“Tonight was fun.”
My lungs are still gasping for air from how he carried me out of the club.
Half of my breathlessness is because of indignation, and the other half is from the thrill of being swept away from danger like precious cargo.
But now, under his genuine smile, the messy state of my lungs as he carries me up the stairwell of his family’s home is solely compliments of him.
“Not the smartest man in the room, but I think I figured out that you enjoyed yourself, sweetheart.”
I curl my lips, wafting up the scent of the many cocktails I sampled tonight. “How can’t you be the smartest man in the room when you’re the only man in the room?”
I wiggle, wordlessly requesting to be placed down before I twirl to face him.
Bad move.
I’m drunk. Very drunk.
“Whoa…”
Before I can fall, Matteo is at my side, once again sweeping me away from danger. He whisks me across the space in three quick strides, pulls back the bedding, then places me on the mattress. As I stare at my shoes, suddenly oblivious to how buckles work, Matteo enters the walk-in closet.
I lean against the headboard, head spinning in the best way.
I should feel embarrassed that I drank so much.
My memories might blur at the edges tomorrow, but one thing won’t fade.
Not even if I drowned myself in a hundred drinks would I forget Matteo’s roundabout way of saying he wants me to be his.
My pulse races through my body in all directions when Matteo returns seconds later with a faded college shirt.
“Whose shirt is that?” I think that’s what I say. My words are a little slurred. “Is it yours?”
“It sure as fuck better not be anyone else’s since it was in my closet.” He freezes, his brow arching. “Do you have men’s shirts in your suitcase?”
I run my teeth over my lower lip to savor the hint of jealousy in his tone before I gradually shake my head.
“Lucky…” His words are muffled, but I still hear them. I’m drunk, not deaf. “If you ever wear another man’s shirt, I’ll rip it off you before ripping out his throat with my bare hands.”
“First thing tomorrow, I’m going to the thrift store. A used shirt would still work, right?” Eyes wide, I slap my hand over my mouth. I shouldn’t have said that out loud. “Sorry. I’m a little more… carefree when drinking than I thought I would be.”
He smiles. It isn’t the big, genuine grin he’s given me multiple times tonight, but it’s still catastrophic to my panties.
“Can you manage, or do you need my help?”
It takes far too long for me to realize what he’s offering when he hands me his shirt.
“I think I’ve got it.” On wobbly legs, I stand. “But if you could lower the zipper, that would be great.” I spin and stumble forward, my hands shooting out to grip the duvet.
Flashes of the corset scene in Wuthering Heights flood my head when Matteo eases my sways with one hand on my hip before the other pushes my hair aside so he can find the zipper of my skin-tight dress.
The backs of his fingers brush my spine as he lowers the zipper to the small indentations in my lower back. His touch is brief, but it provokes a moan that I feel everywhere.
The pleat in his trousers tickles the frilled hem of my dress, and my panties suddenly feel tight against my clit. Every shallow breath Matteo releases brushes against my skin.
I’m afraid to move, but I’m also grinding my hips upward without realizing. Try as I may, I haven’t gotten our exchange in the dressing room out of my head all night. Even while I sat across from the ogre I must marry, I kept replaying how Matteo’s pupils flared seconds before he went down on me.
Soft, needy breaths surround me as the throb between my legs becomes blinding. The spasms spark a restless energy through me. It’s daring and bold and inspires me to be the girl I was before the knocks of life taught me that being small was the only way to be safe.
“Matteo…”
I say his name differently this time. Huskily and full of lust. But he still responds with the same easy drawl. “Yeah?”
“I had fun tonight.”
Desperate to see the smile my commentary could muster, I whirl to face him, uncaring that my dress slips off my frame partway around.
Matteo’s dark, unreadable eyes lift from the lacy bra Lucia gifted me to align with my hooded gaze. “Not just at the nightclub. At the gala…” My chest thrusts as I shift my focus to the walk-in closet. “And in there.”
“Yeah?” he murmurs again, his voice far from easy and carefree.
After wetting my suddenly bone-dry lips, I nod.
He watches the trek of my tongue, his pants pitching, before he asks, “How much?”
“This much.”
I don’t think. I just move.
Propped up on my toes, I squash my lips to his mouth. My kiss starts slowly, but it turns blinding when Matteo’s lips part at the request of my lashing tongue.
After inching us back until the heavenly soft bedding cuddles my back and his knee wedges between my legs, he deepens our kiss. He kisses me furiously, dampening my panties to the point I can’t blame the shadowing on sweat from hours on the dance floor.
The whiskey he sampled throughout the night lingers on his lips, and the vanilla oak traces meld well with the lemon juice in my cocktails.
The tension shifts from teasing into something warm and wanting, but then his hand comes up, firm and steady, to pin me to the mattress.
“Fuck…” With the hand not curled around my throat, he adjusts his crotch. “We can’t. We have to stop.”
I blink, my breaths uneven. “Why?”
He exhales slowly, as if his internal fight is the fiercest battle he’s faced to date.
“Because you’ve had too much to drink.” He strays his eyes to the door.
“Dante would take my fucking nuts, and Vanni…” A shiver rolls down his spine as he returns his eyes front and center.
“And me… I’d be no better than the men I punish if I didn’t stop this now. ”
I go to interject, but he shakes his head once before he slips off the bed and takes a giant step back.
“I’m not taking advantage of you,” he says. “Not tonight.” His following words are whispers. “Not ever.” He scrubs a hand along his bristled jaw. “If I claim you, it won’t be while you’re drunk.”
He’s holding himself back for me, but I’m too horny to realize I’ve been seeking this type of chivalry for years. “But I’m really horny.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, micina, you can’t say shit like that to me.”
“Why? It’s the truth.”
With him stumped for a reply, I slide my hand between my legs. Somehow, it makes my pulse race even more. It isn’t the dampness of my panties against my fingers making me careless; it is the way Matteo’s nostrils flare and how the width and length of the rod in his pants instantly augment.
“Azra…” A groan gobbles up his reply when I insert my index finger between the wet lines of my pussy, taking my panties with me.
“My fingers are tiny and dainty. Even if I finger-fuck myself on a regular schedule, I’ll still pass the purity test.”
“Fuck.” That’s all I get. A curse and a manic throb in both his jaw and groin.
As my shoulder blades meet, I slide my hand underneath the moist fabric of my underwear. “Can you take advantage of yourself?”
“No.” I don’t recognize Matteo’s voice. It’s deep and penetrating. “You can’t.”
“Good.”
We moan in sync when I stimulate my clit with my thumb before leisurely dragging my index finger through my drenched slit. I circle the nervy bud like Matteo did with his tongue, and moan just as loud as when he brought me to climax.
I haven’t done anything like this in months, since before I arrived in Sicily to marry Antonio. I haven’t felt the urge. It’s hard to find beauty in ruins. But now, with Matteo’s attention fixed on me, I can see it becoming a regular occurrence.
The more aroused Matteo’s expression becomes watching me, the braver I become. No longer worried about the rules, I push a finger inside myself, groaning when my soft, plush inside graces my fingertip.
“Tell me what you feel like,” Matteo demands, kneading himself through his pants.
I spread my thighs wider and double the swirls of my thumb. “I feel soft.”
Matteo groans.
“And wet.”
He shudders.
“And tight.”
His response this time is more of a growl than a moan. “How tight?”
Closing my eyes, I push my finger all the way inside, reveling in how good it feels for the walls of my vagina to have something to cling to as the tingles running rampant through my core double.
“Tight enough to know that is going to destroy me.” I open my eyes and lock them on his fat cock.
I’m no longer worried about masturbating in front of an audience when Matteo removes his cock from his pants and gives it a long stroke. It’s a fight to keep quiet when a trickle of pre-cum pools at the top of his impressive manhood.
The veins in his hands throb as his speed picks up. Over and over again, he slides his hand down the base before he returns it to the tip. I flick my clit just as often and pump my finger in rhythm to the speed of his strokes.
With my lower lip between my teeth, I pretend my finger is his cock, and my thumb is his fantastic V muscle. The sensation is amazing. My body relishes every tingle, grateful that the years of tension it’s been begging me to let go of are finally relenting.
“I wish I could replace my thumb with your tongue.”
Matteo rocks his big dick in and out of his fisted hand three times before he replies, “If only I could, but you’ve been drinking.” He aligns his lusty eyes with mine. “People do stupid shit when they’re drunk.”
“Is that why you bartered for me? Because you’d been drinking?”
Should I even care? The reasoning behind his motives that day won’t change anything.
It’ll only remind me of my own.
“Don’t answer that. I don’t care. I just want to come.”
A jolt darts through me when Matteo growls out, “Then stop treating your clit like it’s fragile and give it the attention it deserves.”
All of me shakes, even my legs, when I pinch my clit. I sink into the mattress as fireworks burst before my eyes. This feels amazing. Much better than any self-stimulation routine I’ve undertaken previously.
The crueler I treat my clit, the wetter I become.
I imagine it isn’t my hands on me. It’s Matteo’s mouth, teeth, and tongue.
“I’m close,” I warn, the tingles too rampant to ignore.
“Watch me, Azra. Give me your fucking eyes.” Matteo’s trousers brush my knee as he moves closer. “Let me see you unravel.”
The slow build of the wave in my stomach intensifies when our eyes lock and hold. He screams my praises without a word leaving his mouth, and I can’t hold back for a second longer. A surge of euphoria floods me as I plunge my finger in and out of myself.
As a climax overwhelms me, I press my lips together to keep myself from waking his family. Every muscle in my body pulls taut as I thrash against the mattress, stars exploding.
I can’t catch my breath… or keep my eyelids open a second longer.
I’m barely coherent as I drift among clouds of orgasmic bliss and pure exhaustion, but I swear Matteo says, “Because I wanted to save you… even knowing you’d most likely need saving from me over all others.”