Chapter Nine
Lilianna Genovese
I sat beside Callum for longer than I’d planned. He continued sleeping soundly as if nothing had happened. Relief filled me, my injuries aching as the adrenaline faded.
Matteo had saved me again, and this time…
This time was different. He had raced home and lost every ounce of control as he took on the men who wanted to do me harm. I’d never seen him like that. I wasn’t sure anyone had.
I stroked my son’s hair behind his ear and left a small kiss on his forehead before moving from the room and back into the living area. I expected to see the bodies lying where they’d fallen, but instead, I found two men in latex gloves rounding the room, and all trace of the bodies gone.
Matteo lingered in the hallway leading to his room, gesturing me forward.
“I have people to take care of messes like this,” he said as I strode forward. I stopped right in front of him, noting that his hands were haphazardly bandaged. “And I have new guards outside. You’re safe.”
“You can trust them?” I asked.
“They’re my most trusted men—both outside the doors and at the bottom of the elevators. Nobody else will be getting in here.”
I gave the people in the room one more wary look before nodding and following Matteo.
“What are we doing?” I asked.
“I’m making sure your injuries are clean and tended to.”
I scoffed and tried stopping, but he tugged me forward. I couldn’t help but look around at the dark, rustic wood of the bedframe and matching furniture set. A black leather couch sat along one wall with two end tables on either side. A book lay on one of them and a beer bottle on the other. Aside from that, though, the room was almost clinically tidy.
It fit his personality. Everything was in the place where it belonged.
“You're more hurt than I am,” I told him as he guided me into a bathroom.
“I’ve endured worse.”
The large, open glass shower had a standing tub on the inside and plenty of space for more than one person to get clean. The marble walls had black showerheads erupting from them, giving the entire space a sleek, modern look.
In the center of the room, he stopped and looked me over slowly. He moved a mere inch from me as he tore his shirt over his head and quickly dropped his black cargo pants to the ground. He moved forward, gripping the hem of my shirt and pulling it over my head. My hair fell in my face haphazardly, and I blew it from my eyes.
“Matteo…”
He didn’t say anything as he bent to his knee and tugged my pants from my body gently. I gasped as his fingers brushed against my bare skin. His gaze moved up my body before locking on my eyes. Seeing him on his knees before me, lashes fanning across his cheekbones, had me struggling to catch my breath. His dark hair hung loosely on his shoulders, and I couldn’t stop myself from running my fingers through the curls.
“I don’t want to see you in that position again,” he told me. “I’ll do anything to make sure I don’t.”
His words settled in my chest, and the ache there grew. I wanted him so damn badly that my body moved of its own accord. I dropped to my knees in front of him and gathered his face in my hands. The stubble from a day of growth tickled my fingers as I moved forward and pressed my lips onto his. Attraction zapped through me, bringing about a need that I’d been pushing away.
I shouldn’t let this go further, but after tonight, we both deserved to allow ourselves a bit of lenience.
We’d earned this.
When my lips moved away, his arm wound around my waist and brought me closer. I gasped, but there was no air left between us. Where my body ended, his began. “My biggest regret in leaving was always you,” I whispered.
The truth of the statement burrowed deep. The lost relationship with my brother was a big regret, but the one I’d considered more than any other had been the lost potential between Matteo and I. Callum not knowing his biological father. Me not delving into the passion and longing that had been present for so many years between us.
He stood almost effortlessly, lifting me with him. My legs wound around his waist as he took us to the shower and turned on the water.
He guided me beneath the spray of warm water and held me there, looking over every inch of my face.
“Lili, I’ve wanted you for years. I wanted you when we were children, but after our night together, I fucking needed you. When you left, I tried to find you.”
My eyes widened. “You—you did?”
He nodded once. “I did. I was fucking pissed that you left me like that.”
“I’m sorry,” I admitted.
“You’re not going to leave me again—not like that.”
But I was going to leave again, and we both knew it. This relationship had an expiration date. I wouldn’t be running away to a place where nobody could find me this time, but I couldn’t stay, and we both knew it.
But I wouldn’t leave the same way.
I wouldn’t run this time.
I tightened my grip around his neck and pressed myself into him again, forcing our lips together hungrily. His warm chest was a wall at my front, his arms a cage around my back. I didn’t want to escape as I surrendered to his grip, gasping at the hard length pressed between us. His boxers bulged, and I ground into him, gasping from the shooting pleasure that ran through me.
Matteo wasted no time, turning our bodies and pressing me into the glass wall of the shower. He ground his hips more deeply into mine, and I tipped my head back, crying out as his lips devoured my neck, moving down to where one of his hands gripped my breast.
“Take it off,” I demanded, reaching for my bra.
He easily reached to my back and unclasped the bra, allowing it to fall to the floor in a sopping pile of fabric. He moved his hand to mine, squeezing it and pinning it above me as his head dipped. He sucked my nipple between his lips, and I bucked, crying out as the ecstasy of his touch shot through my entire body.
His hand tightened on mine as his mouth moved to my other breast, nipping the skin around the nipples in a way that had me panting in need.
“Matteo!” I shouted as liquid pooled between my thighs. The heat was almost unbearable, and I needed more of him.
He lowered me onto legs that seemed unable to support me fully. His hand trailed down my arm as he lowered himself to his knees and jerked my panties down to my ankles. I stepped out of them as his large hand wrapped around my ankle and pulled my leg over his shoulder.
I couldn’t find words as he grabbed both of my hips and pressed them into the shower wall before feasting on me .
I hadn’t ever heard the sounds that were leaving my lips.
My body writhed with all the pent-up lust and need that had only grown over the years. His tongue swept through me, plunging in and out with circular motions that had every inch of me shaking in a way that I couldn’t process. The strength and callouses of his hands on my hips combined with the scruff of his jaw on my inner thighs was enough that I shuttered with immediate release, unable to stop the bucking of my hips.
A sound reverberated from the back of his throat as he pulled himself from me and licked his glistening lips. Matteo slowly stood. He dropped his boxers to the ground and came toward me. He surprised me when he reached past me and pumped soap into his hands. He rubbed them together, his eyes never leaving mine.
I panted and waited.
He rubbed his hands across my body slowly, lathering each spot carefully. He started on my arms, then my chest, which he spent considerably longer than necessary washing. His hands moved across my sides and then between my thighs.
I jerked and trembled beneath his hands.
“We can do this later,” I begged.
Matteo smirked. “I have other plans for later.”
The image of him between my thighs had me closing my eyes and taking in the feeling of his hands all over me, lathering and rinsing the soap from me efficiently.
He reached for the faucet, and I blocked his path.
“It’s my turn,” I told him, mimicking his motions.
I rubbed the soap across his chest first, watching as bubbles formed atop his hair. He held his breath as I touched him, careful to get each spot on his skin. I moved to the solid arms. Veins bulged from them, and I licked my lips as I considered them wrapped around me.
I moved lower, finally reaching the considerable spot I’d most yearned to touch.
I ran my hands up and down it, then cupped his balls in my hands and washed them just as efficiently.
“Are you done?” he asked, his tone dark.
I looked through my lashes at him and saw a stoic, almost blank expression on his face. Was he not enjoying this?
“Do you want me to be?”
“When you finish, Lili, I’m taking you to my bed,” he said, his fists clenched at his sides. “When we get to bed, I’ll be the one in control. Get this out of your system now.”
My breath caught in my throat as I realized it wasn’t stoicism in his eyes, but rather a forced control.
I couldn’t wait to see what he had in mind.
I stood and bit my lip as I maneuvered him under the water and watched all the soap run from him.
“I’m done.”
He moved quickly enough that I squealed. He bent and pulled me into his arms, carrying me from the shower without bothering to turn off the water. I circled my arms around his neck eagerly, burying my face into his shoulder as the cool air of the penthouse tickled my skin.
He thrust me on the bed, climbing atop me and covering me with his body. His lips slammed on mine in a claiming kiss, one hand gathering both of my wrists and pinning them above my head. His fingertips trailed down my center, one of them plunging into me quickly.
“God!” I cried out. Another finger quickly joined the assault, and all thoughts of the temperature in the room left me as I burned from the inside out.
I burned for him. I needed more than his fingers inside of me. I needed all of him.
I wrapped both legs around him as he grabbed his cock and pulled it toward me. I didn’t hesitate to jerk my hips upright and take him in one hard thrust. He filled me, stretching me in all the right places. I cried out, and he groaned, releasing my wrists and planting both hands beside my head.
I stared into eyes that sizzled with the same need I felt as he thrust in and out of me.
“You’re mine, Lilianna,” he growled.
I could only nod as my climax grew more and more powerful with each thrust. I closed my eyes, but he gripped my chin.
“Look at me when you come,” he demanded.
His words sent me plummeting over the edge, and the dark mysterious longing in his eyes brought forward everything.
I left nothing behind as I came hard for him.
Matteo tipped his head back, his jaw clenched as my pleasure eddied into trembling sensation. I bucked into his hips as his motions grew wild and erratic.
He looked like a God above me. All the hard lines and angles of him created this unstoppable, unmovable man, and he wanted me.
He came for me just as hard as I’d come for him, and I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.