Chapter 13 Matteo #2
Her head snaps toward me. “If I don’t do what he says—if I don’t become his wife within the next three months—then he takes everything from my family.
My father will be ruined, and we’ll be left destitute.
He paid for my mother’s surgery that saved her life, and he pays for her aftercare now. If his funding stops, then she dies.”
She barely gets the last sentence out. Her shoulders slump, the fight draining from her eyes.
“Matteo… this isn’t something I get to walk away from.”
The crack in her voice lands square in my chest.
Tears gather on her lashes. “You think I don’t know what kind of life this is? You think I don’t feel trapped in ways I can’t even say out loud?”
She lifts her left hand, the ring catching the light like something cruel.
“I don’t have a choice here. I’m stuck.”
The silence that follows is suffocating. My heartbeat is the only sound in the room.
“Then let me help you.”
She shakes her head hard. “I can’t. My parents—he’d go after them. Giacomo is… he’s unpredictable.”
I step in, take her face in my hands, make her look at me. “I can protect you, Beatrice. Let me.” My voice is low, raw, scraped open from wanting too much.
Her fingers curl around mine, stopping me. “You can’t. Not from him.”
The words crack through me, but I lean in anyway, touching my forehead to hers, holding her like she’s the only thing tethering me to the earth. I want to rip every weight off her shoulders and carry it until my bones break.
“Then tell me what I can do,” I breathe, close enough to taste her exhale.
Our breaths fuse—hot, uneven, trembling with everything we’ve been pretending not to feel. The space between us tightens, tightens, tightens… until it feels like one more heartbeat will break it.
She finally pulls back, barely an inch, eyes flicking away. “Make me forget.”
My pulse slams into my ribs. “What?”
She swallows hard, voice cracking. “I want to forget what happened tonight. Even for a moment. Help me forget, Matteo.”
The words detonate inside me.
She tries to retreat, but I catch her wrist—not to keep her, but to stop her from disappearing from me.
“No.”
Her lips part, and my restraint—weeks of it—hangs suspended by a single, fraying thread. Everything I’ve held back threatens to rush forward at once. If this is what she wants—if she’s choosing me—then I will give her every escape she needs.
The tension collapses around us, heavy, electric. Inch by inch, the air dissolves until there’s nothing left but her pulse and mine.
“Lie down on the bed, bella,” I murmur, my voice so strained it barely sounds like my own.
Her breath catches. “What?”
“Lie down,” I say again, softer but deeper, a promise woven inside every syllable. “Let me help you forget. That’s what you want… isn’t it?”
Her answer isn’t spoken—it’s the way she moves.
She pushes herself upward, settling against the headboard with a shaky inhale, her eyes tracking every step I take as I circle the bed and come to her side.
Weeks. Weeks of fighting the pull of her. Weeks of trying to bury her in the parts of my mind untouched by danger, untouched by longing, untouched by the truth that she has become my favorite ache.
The more I told myself she was trouble, the deeper I sank into wanting her anyway.
I reach for her chin. She doesn’t flinch. She leans into me.
I stroke her lower lip with my thumb, slow enough to feel the tremor she tries to hide. Her mouth parts beneath the touch—soft, inviting, trembling with intent.
And when I slip my thumb past her lips, she closes around it and sucks, eyes locked on mine like she’s daring me to lose every last boundary.
Holy. Fucking. Hell.
Everything I’ve restrained snaps at once.
“Take off the shorts,” I say, my voice ragged with hunger I’m barely keeping in check.
She closes her lips around my thumb one last time, slow and deliberate, before letting it slip free with a soft pop. Heat knifes through me, straight to my core, and my cock thickens in an instant.
I force myself to breathe.
This is about her.
“Off.”
She obeys, tossing the shorts aside and looking up like she knows exactly what she’s doing to me.
“Good,” I murmur. “Now spread your legs.”
Her pupils blow wide. She bites her lip, sinks deeper into the mattress, and opens for me—slow, deliberate, needy. The sight sends a low heat tearing through me.
I move onto the bed, settling between her thighs, and cup her pussy with my palm. I give a careful squeeze. She gasps—a mix of pleasure and the sharp edge of pressure—and the sound nearly ruins me.
“Look at me,” I command, sliding my hands up her warm thighs.
She does.
Her caramel eyes lock on mine—no fear, no hesitation. Just heat. Trust. And a silent dare.
She wants this. She wants me.
I lower myself and press my lips just above her clit—soft, testing, a question disguised as a kiss. I have to be gentle with her. I don’t yet know how deep she wants me to go… or how much of me she can handle.
Her back arches like her body is answering the question I haven’t spoken aloud.
I drag my tongue up her slowly—one long, deliberate stroke from her entrance to the very top of her slit— and her gasp hits me like a shot.
I grip her thighs, spreading her wider, lifting her hips toward my mouth like she was made to fit there.
She’s drenched. Her wetness coats my chin instantly. Her scent is warm, sweet, addictive, the kind of temptation a sane man would pull away from.
I’m not sane when it comes to her.
I don’t rush.
I seal my mouth around her clit and suck, slow and deep, and her moan ricochets off the walls. My tongue circles, flicks, then flattens, and her legs start to tremble like she’s losing her grip on the world.
That’s it, bella. Let me take you apart.
“Matteo…”
My name leaves her on a breath that shivers. Her fingers fist the sheets before sliding into my hair, tugging hard—like she can’t decide whether to pull me closer or push me away.
“You taste like heaven,” I growl against her. “Like sin. Like something I’ll spend the rest of my life craving.”
She whimpers, already unraveling. I glance up her body and see her eyes fluttering shut as she absorbs every ounce of pleasure I give her.
But I’m nowhere near done.
I slip a finger inside her—tight, hot, perfect—and her hips jerk violently in response.
“More,” she whispers, breathless.
I add another finger, and her body ripples around me.
She gasps, head tossing on the pillow, thighs trembling, her whole body writhing like she’s about to come apart under my mouth.
I curl my fingers just right and suck her clit again, harder this time, pumping in and out of her with relentless precision. She gives herself over to me completely, and the sight alone could undo me.
“Matteo!” She screams my name—plea, prayer, surrender.
Her thighs clamp around my head and I hold her there, steady, unwavering, working her through every trembling second of it. I don’t stop.
I want every drop of her ecstasy. Every pulse. Every shudder. Every sound she makes because of me.
She comes—louder, shaking, soaking my mouth—and I groan into her, licking her through every violent tremor until she’s trembling so hard she can barely breathe, too sensitive to take even one more stroke.
Only then do I slow, guiding her down from the high she crashes through. Her chest rises and falls in sharp, frantic bursts, her skin glistening from how hard I worked her.
My God.
She’s devastating.
I kiss her thighs. Her hips. Her stomach. Slow, reverent kisses that map the path back to her lips. By the time I reach her mouth, her eyes flutter open, breath catching against mine. We’re a hair apart. A single heartbeat from collision.
“Kiss me,” she whispers, voice wrecked. “I want to taste myself on your lips.”
I can’t deny her—not now, not ever.
I press my mouth to hers in a searing, consuming kiss that drags me into a different universe. She tastes herself on my tongue greedily, drawing me deeper, answering every press, every breath, every need.
We move like we’ve been doing this for years.
She moans into me, sliding her hands up my chest like she’s trying to memorize the shape of me—trying to find the place where she ends and I begin.
The kiss turns electric, hungry, addictive. I could drown in her.
But air becomes a necessity, and I pull back, resting my forehead against hers as we both pant.
“You okay?” I murmur.
She nods slowly. “Perfect… thank you.”
Her lashes lower, brushing her cheeks as she blinks up at me. Her eyes—warm, soft, toffee-colored—are nothing like the fear and pain she carried earlier. They’re alive now. Lit from within.
“I think you just ruined me,” she breathes. “It’s… it’s never been that good.”
And it never will be. Not with anyone else.
Now that I’ve tasted this woman, there’s no universe where I walk away.
I grin, voice dropping. “Good. Because I’m not done with you yet.”
I claim her mouth again, sealing a vow to myself in the heat of her kiss.
She will be mine. And I will fight whatever I must to make her mine completely.