Chapter Eighteen
Matteo
V alentina fixes what’s left of her clothes and looks around at the floor for anything she might have forgotten, doing her best to avoid the gaze she feels pinned watchfully on her.
I was rough with her.
I was rough with her, rougher than I’d planned on being, and she liked it. She took it all and now it’s making me wonder how much more she could take.
The low, needy sounds she’d made as she fell apart hit me right in the dick. I made her come over and over again, just so I could hear that sweet melody one more time.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m fine.” Her legs shake as she rounds my desk. She has to keep a hand on the surface to steady herself. I resist a smirk at the sight.
“Not too sore?” I ask, sitting at my desk.
Valentina finally pins me with her dark gaze. “We don’t have to do this.”
I lift a brow at her. “This?”
“ This .” She motions between the two of us. “This gentle, caring lover routine you’re trying to embark on. We fucked. It was good—”
“Good?”
Valentina glares at me. “Alright, it was great. But we fucked, that’s it. No need to pretend this is anything other than what it was.”
“Which is?”
She juts her chin at me. “A one time thing. One and done.”
This version of Valentina is harder than the one I met a year and a half ago. There’s a hardened edge about her, from the wariness in her gaze to the tightness in her shoulders. She’s leaner than I remember. Tone and honed. Different. Tough as nails. Somehow, even more attractive.
Equal measures of strength, resilience, and stubbornness radiate off her. She’s no Aphrodite. She’s Athena, the goddess of war, in disguise.
I drum my fingers on the surface of my desk. “No.”
Valentina laughs mirthlessly. “Your input wasn’t asked for.”
“And yet it was given.”
“Too bad.”
I drum my fingers again. Her gaze drops to follow the motion. “Are you ready to tell me what you’re doing at Firenze , masquerading as a stripper?”
Valentina steels her spine, an indecipherable wall coming down in her gaze. “That’s none of your business.”
It’s my turn to chuckle coldly. “You think I’m going to continue letting you roam around without getting some answers first?”
She shrugs. “We can fight if you prefer. I’ll gladly punch you again.”
I smirk, repositioning myself in my chair. “I’d prefer we fuck. My cock is hard again for you, cara . Why don’t you get on your knees and introduce your mouth to him?”
Valentina grits her teeth, but I don’t miss the way the skin of her neck flushes red. “Not going to happen.”
“Then let me in,” I argue. “I’ve proven to you that I intend to keep you safe, haven’t I? Trust me.”
This time her laugh contains mocking levity. “Why should I? You’ve been far from honest yourself.”
“Explain.”
“How long have you known who I was?” she questions, placing her palms on my desk and leaning towards me across the surface.
“How long have I known you were the woman from that night?”
“Yes.”
“Since the first day.”
Valentina inhales sharply. She straightens, her arms crossing over her chest as her glare returns. “That long?”
“That long,” I confirm. “I recognized you the moment I saw you in that dark alley, cara .”
“How?”
The greedy ache to possess her thrums through my veins at the tumultuous look in her eye. “It was easy to recognize you when I’ve seen your face countless times since Carnivale .”
Her brows pinch together and I don’t miss the suddenly wary expression on her face. “Where?”
“Every time I close my eyes at night. Every time I’ve fallen asleep over the past eighteen months solely to seek refuge in the comfort of my memories of you.” She bites her lower lip and a worrisome pressure tightens my sternum. I clear my throat in a clumsy attempt at getting rid of it. “I followed you into Firenze and forced my way into your audition because I had to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind. That I hadn’t seen you in my dreams so often that I was now hallucinating you in my reality.”
I stand and stalk closer. “If you won’t tell me why you’re here, can you at least tell me why you didn’t come that night? I’ve spent eighteen months wondering why.” The words claw past my throat. “Put me out of my misery.”
She shakes her head, jerking her chin out of my grasp. “I… I had somewhere else I needed to be.”
The more she stubbornly digs in her heels, the more she hides herself and her secrets from me, the more I find I want to dig for them. The stronger the itch for her gets, in no way scratched by having fucked her once.
“Don’t ask me why I didn’t come that night, Phantom. Don’t ask me what I’m doing here. Don’t ask me anything. You don’t want to know the answers. You would hate them, believe me.”
She flicks her gaze back up to meet mine. The force of the ferocious look in her eyes nearly makes me take a step back. Unyielding resolve shines in them, the kind reserved only for those you love deeply and wholeheartedly.
The kind you only witness on the faces of people who’ve suffered unconscionable loss.
An awful feeling leadens my stomach. Unease squeezes the next question right out of my throat.
“Are you avenging a dead lover?”
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until she shakes her head and answers, “No.”
The possessiveness I feel towards her is as foreign as it is out of control. There’s no reason I should be seeing red and nearly pawing at the ground like a raging bull at the thought that she’s appeared in my life because of another man.
And yet my stomach unknots and a long exhale settles my shoulders as she tells me otherwise.
I palm the back of her neck, kneading the skin there. “I’m going to keep asking why you’re here.”
Beneath my fingers, I feel her pulse flutter. “And I’m going to keep telling you it’s none of your business.”
“That’s alright, cara .” A cocky grin spreads across my face. “I’ll get through your walls eventually.”
“There’s not enough time in the world.”
“You have no idea how patient I am.”
I’ve been plotting my revenge for ten years. Spending a few weeks getting her to believe she can trust me is going to be child’s play in comparison.
“You’re not very patient where I’m concerned.”
My smile turns pensive at that. I brush her cheek softly with my thumb. “That’s true,” I say thoughtfully. “You seem to be the exception to many of my rules, cara .”
Her lips part and her eyes haze. When I start to lower my face to hers, she snaps out of it. Weaving beneath my arm, she frees herself and turns to face me.
Swallowing thickly, she says, “One and done, Matteo.”
“Are you saying it to convince me or yourself?”
“You.”
The corner of my lips curve. “If you say so.”
Valentina heads for the door but stops when my voice rings out once more. “Wait.”
She turns and watches me approach warily. I wrap one of my suit jackets around her shoulders.
“Wear this.”
“Why?” she asks even as she puts her arms through each sleeve.
My gaze rakes hotly down the length of her. “Your cover up is ripped and your cum is running down your thighs. You look like a walking ad for exactly what happened to you — getting fucked to four screaming orgasms.” Valentina rolls her eyes and tries to leave but I stop her. Slowly, my eyes drop to her mouth. “Who was the last man to kiss these lips?”
“You.”
A dark growl rumbles up my chest. “Before me, I mean. Before yesterday.”
Valentina meets my hard stare boldly. She holds my gaze for long moments before she finally rips her eyes away.
The bolt unlocks loudly and then she’s gone.