Chapter 5
Matteo
Sunday night settles into silence around me. Two full days have passed since I brought Isabella here, and the safehouse feels different now. Heavier. Charged with tension that has nothing to do with security and everything to do with the woman upstairs.
Night has claimed the forest completely, leaving only the soft glow of security monitors to push back the darkness. I sit in my office, leather chair creaking as I lean back, surveying the screens that show every corner of my domain.
Every corner including hers.
The monitor in the center displays Isabella's room, where she sits on the edge of the enormous bed I chose specifically for her.
She's been there for an hour, just sitting, staring out at the forest like she's plotting her escape.
My oversized gray sweatpants hang loose on her slender frame, the waistband rolled multiple times.
The matching hoodie swallows her completely, sleeves pushed up to her elbows.
My clothes. The only things available to her in this place.
I flip my coin between my fingers, metal warm from my skin. Three days. Three days of watching her move through this house like a caged bird, all controlled grace and hidden fury. Three days of morning coffee and carefully polite conversation and pretending this is just business.
It stopped being just business the moment I saw her photograph.
The bathroom door opens on the screen, and Isabella disappears from view. I hear the soft sound of running water through the speakers, pipes humming through the walls. Her second shower today.
I should turn off the monitor. Give her privacy. My hand hovers over the switch.
This is insane. I'm Matteo Rosetti. I've had supermodels beg to spend the night in my bed.
I've walked away from billionaire's daughters who offered me everything they had.
I choose who I want, when I want them, how I want them.
I don't sit in dark rooms watching hidden cameras like some desperate fool.
Yet here I am.
The coin grows still between my fingers.
Instead of hitting the off switch, I reach for a different control. The hidden camera feed flickers to life, showing the bathroom from an angle she'll never suspect. Steam rises from the glass shower enclosure, and there's Isabella, her back to the camera as she reaches for a towel.
Hell. Look at her.
She has no idea I can see her. No idea I'm watching every movement, cataloguing every detail. No idea that the most powerful man in New York is reduced to this, sitting alone in the dark, already hard just from the promise of seeing her naked.
What has she done to me?
Heat shoots straight to my cock, and I'm pressing my palm against the growing bulge in my pants before rational thought kicks in.
She pulls the hoodie over her head, then steps out of the sweatpants, and I forget how to breathe.
Her skin looks porcelain pale in the soft lighting, curves and valleys that make my hands ache to touch.
There's a single candle burning on the counter, something she asked for yesterday.
I gave it to her so I could watch her by candlelight.
Twisted doesn't begin to cover it.
But I'm also harder than I've been in years. This is different from the calculated seductions, the rehearsed moves, the women who spread their legs because of my name or my money or the thrill of danger. This is raw. Primal. Real.
I've never had to work for it before. Never had to want something I couldn't simply take.
Lindsay Lonnigan practically threw herself at me last week, and I felt nothing but mild satisfaction when I made her come.
The Petrova twins offered me a threesome at Leo's birthday party, and I turned them down because I was bored before they finished talking.
But Isabella? Isabella makes me feel like a teenager again, desperate and hungry and completely out of control.
She steps under the spray, and water cascades over her shoulders, down her spine. Her head tilts back, eyes closed, and she makes a soft sound that the microphones barely pick up. Even through the speakers, that sound goes straight to my cock.
That noise. That tiny, unconscious expression of pleasure is going to haunt me.
This isn't about power anymore.
I unzip my pants with trembling fingers, pulling my cock free. It's already slick with precum, the head dark and swollen. When was the last time I was this hard? When was the last time I needed release this badly?
Never. The answer is never.
My breathing changes, getting heavier as I watch her hands move over her neck, slick with soap and water.
Her fingers trace her collarbone, then lower, circling the tops of her breasts, and I have to bite back a groan.
She's touching herself so innocently, so unconsciously, and it's driving me out of my fucking mind.
I wrap my hand around my cock and stroke slowly, savoring the sensation. Usually, I'm quick, efficient. Get off and move on. But this? This I want to make last.
She's completely unaware. Completely mine to watch. The thought should make me feel guilty, should make me shut off the feed and walk away.
Instead, it makes me stroke myself harder.
I've had women worship my body, beg for my touch, do anything I asked. But none of them ever made me feel like this. Like I'm starving. Like I'd crawl on my knees just to taste her skin.
Her movements are unconscious, sensual, self-contained. She isn't performing for anyone, which makes it worse. Makes it real. There's no artifice here, no careful control. Just Isabella being Isabella, and it's more intoxicating than any seduction I've ever orchestrated.
My thumb swipes over the head of my cock, spreading the moisture there, and I imagine it's her tongue. Would she be shy the first time? Would she look up at me with those green eyes while she took me in her mouth?
The fantasy makes my hips jerk up into my fist.
On the screen, she tips her head back, water streaming over her face, and starts to hum. Some melody I don't recognize, soft and haunting. The sound drifts through the speakers, and I stroke myself faster, my other hand gripping the arm of my chair.
If I touched her now, she'd burn me alive. And I'd beg for the fire.
What is she doing to me? I'm the one who does the taking. I'm the one who makes women lose control. I don't sit in dark rooms watching screens like some lovesick fool.
But here I am, pumping my cock to the sight of a woman who doesn't even know I exist in her private moments. A woman I kidnapped. A woman who hates me.
The irony isn't lost on me. Matteo Rosetti, who's never had to work for anything in his life, reduced to this. To watching. To wanting what he can't simply reach out and take.
She turns slightly, profile visible now, and soap slides down her body. Her skin glistens in the candlelight, golden and wet. When she runs her hands through her hair, arching her back, I stroke myself harder, faster.
Look at her. Just look at her.
She doesn't know I'm here. But she's mine now. Mine to protect. Mine to watch. Mine to want. Mine to take apart until she's screaming my name.
The admission makes my hand move rougher. I've been telling myself this is about Chase, about leverage, about family business. But watching her now, seeing her like this, stroking my cock to the sight of her naked body, I know the truth.
I want her. Not as a pawn or a weapon or a means to an end. I want Isabella Callahan with a hunger that's going to consume me.
And the most twisted part? I like being consumed. I like that she's turned me into this. That she's made me desperate in a way no woman ever has.
She hums again, the melody drifting through the speakers, and my hips thrust into my fist. I imagine it's her mouth making those sounds around my cock, her hands on me instead of soap and water.
I imagine pushing her against that glass shower wall and taking her until she can't remember her own name.
Would she fight me? Would she melt? Would she wrap those long legs around my waist and beg for more?
My breathing gets ragged as I watch her hands smooth soap over her stomach, lower, and I nearly lose control right there. Instead, I force myself to slow down, to match the rhythm of her movements. To pretend those are my hands on her skin.
This is torture. Beautiful, exquisite torture.
When she reaches for the body wash again, bending slightly, giving me a view that makes my vision blur, I lose what's left of my control. My hand moves faster, rougher, and I bite down on my knuckles to keep from groaning her name out loud.
She's everything. Every curve, every movement, every unconscious gesture that she has no idea is driving me insane. And she has no idea that she's destroying the most controlled man in New York one drop of water at a time.
I've never wanted anything the way I want her. Never needed to possess something so completely. The women before her were entertainment, relief, conquest. Isabella is something else entirely.
She's going to be the death of me. This untouchable woman who doesn't know she's making me lose my mind.
My cock throbs in my hand, close to the edge, and I force myself to slow down again. Not yet. Not like this. When I finally come, it's going to be inside her. Deep inside her while she's wrapped around me, taking everything I have to give.
The thought nearly breaks my resolve.
Then I catch myself before I can finish, slamming my free hand on the controls instead, cutting the feed.
The monitors go black, leaving me alone in the sudden darkness with my cock still hard in my hand and the taste of her name on my tongue. I'm shaking, actually shaking, from the need to finish what she started without even knowing it.
But I don't. I tuck myself back into my pants, every movement torture, and lean back in my chair. My breathing is ragged, my body wound tight as a wire, and there's a sick satisfaction in denying myself what I want most.
Because when I finally do come, it's going to be inside her. Not to her image on a screen, not to fantasies and stolen glimpses. Inside Isabella Callahan's body while she screams my name.
The thought makes my cock throb painfully against my zipper.
I flip the coin once, twice, the familiar rhythm helping me regain some semblance of control.
Somewhere upstairs, Isabella is finishing her shower, completely unaware that she's just turned my carefully ordered world upside down.
Unaware that I'm sitting here hard and aching and half out of my mind with want for her.
The coin stills in my palm, and for the first time in years, I don't know what my next move should be. All I know is that the careful control I've built my life on is cracking, and she's the one holding the hammer.
She's burned into me now. Into my thoughts, my dreams, my blood. Every drop of water on her skin, every soft sound she made, every curve and valley of her body. It's all mine now. Seared into my memory where I can call it up whenever I want.
And I will want to. Hell, I'll be jerking off to this for weeks.
Three days ago, I kidnapped Isabella Callahan for my family.
Tonight, I'd burn the world down to keep her. And tomorrow, I'm going to start planning exactly how to make her mine in every way that matters.