Chapter 9 #2
“You have got to be kidding me,” I said, crossing my legs, my heels catching the light. “Of all the people I could be stuck beside tonight, it just had to be you.”
His smile deepened, slow and deliberate. “Don’t sound so excited, Donna. You’ll give me a complex.”
“As if you don’t already.” I rolled my eyes. “I bet you have a Hero, God, and Savior complex.”
He scratched the light scruff on his jaw, pretending to think, though his voice came out obviously teasing me. “Well, I do tend to be the protector of those around me...”
“Trust me, Matteo. I could sit in a room full of goddamn clowns and feel safer.”
He chuckled, low and rich, like he was savoring every second of my irritation. “Is that big, bad, scary Francesca DeMone’s only fear? Clowns?”
When my jaw tensed and I didn’t reply, he was having a field day.
“You’ll be safe with me, Donna. I won’t let any clowns come near you within fifty miles. See? Good thing you sat next to me.”
I flicked my gaze to him, sharp as glass. “I didn’t choose this seat. My brother did.”
His eyes were somber. “Then remind me to send Tony flowers.”
“You are impossible.”
“The word you were looking for is irresistible.”
I scoffed, but my throat betrayed me with the faintest hitch. He caught it – of course he did – and his grin sharpened like a blade, satisfaction flickering across his face.
“You know…” he leaned closer, just enough that his cologne curled between us, warm smoke and spice. “You could at least try to enjoy yourself. A fight night, front row, the best company money can buy.”
“Oh yes, the highlight of my evening: sitting next to the one man in Vegas I can’t stand.”
“Funny,” Matteo murmured, voice pitched low as the announcer’s booming call echoed through the room. “My highlight is sitting next to the one woman in Vegas no one can track down.”
The crowd surged, chanting Tony’s name, the lights shifting to white-hot as the fighters prepared to enter the ring. The sound vibrated up through the floor, rattling against the cage of my ribs.
And still, somehow, Matteo’s gaze burned hotter than all of it.
The cage closed with a metallic clang that echoed through the underground hall. The crowd roared, voices slamming together like thunder. Spotlights cut through the smoke, trapping my brother in white fire as he stepped into the ring – sharp, fast, ready.
The announcer bellowed his name, and the chanting rose higher. “K.O. TONY! K.O. TONY! K.O. TONY!”
I braced myself for Matteo to join them, to bark his support, maybe even to rise to his feet. Men like him were loud, primal, easy to rile up in the blood and heat of a fight.
But Matteo didn’t move.
His arm stayed stretched across the back of my seat, his glass resting against his thigh, his body angled loose and confident. He looked at Tony with quiet assurance, like he already knew the outcome. No tension. No doubt. Just… Calm.
It did something to me.
I shifted, crossing my legs, but the movement only pressed me closer to the heat of him, the scent of him – smoke and expensive leather, and something darker beneath it.
My skin burned where his arm brushed the edge of my shoulder, though I told myself it was just the lights, just the crowd, just the heat of the room.
The bell rang.
Tony stepped forward – confident or cocky, no one knew. The other fighter staggered back, already on defense. Tony never let a hit land hard – he slipped through punches with a grin, sharp and taunting, drawing it out for the crowd. He wanted to give them a show, and they ate it up.
Every cheer rattled the balcony, but I barely heard it.
Because my attention was split – half on Tony’s fists, half on the man beside me.
Matteo didn’t so much as flinch when my brother landed a punch to the ribs, didn’t blink when blood splattered against the canvas.
He just sipped his drink, gaze steady, relaxed in that dangerous way only men certain of their own power could be.
The soft glow from the show lights above caught in the edges of his jaw, highlighting the faint scruff along his cheeks, the sharp lines of his mouth.
God, that mouth.
His suit fit like sin – black, expensive, stretched over shoulders built to carry the weight of kingdoms. The open collar of his shirt teased a glimpse of skin, tanned and strong, and his watch gleamed like it belonged in a museum.
He didn’t just sit in the room. He owned it. And everyone knew it.
I wondered what he was like when he fucked.
Calm, just like when he was surrounded by violence.
Rough, like when he handled business.
Part of me wanted the answer to be passionate, like in the way he was when he spoke to me.
Was he a giver? A taker?
And when he gave, did he just do it for his own pleasure?
I tore my gaze back to the ring just as Tony decided he’d had enough. He slipped inside the other man’s guard, one strike, two – and then a brutal right hook. The man dropped like a marionette with its strings cut. The crowd erupted, screaming Tony’s name, money flying through the air.
I jumped to my feet, clapping, shouting with the rest of them. Tony raised his arms in victory, blood dripping from his knuckles, grin wide and face intact.
And then I felt it again – the heat at my back.
I turned, breath catching when I met Matteo’s chest.
He stood, big and tall, behind me. That calm, steady gaze. Those eyes, like he knew every thought running through my head.
It took me a moment to realize he was covering my back, so none of the men behind us could steal a look at me.
It didn’t come across as controlling. But more... Masculine and protective. Like he was just making sure I was comfortable.
Before I could even register the group of men that ran in front of us, Matteo’s huge arms wrapped around me, pressing me back into his warm, hard body. A soft gasp escaped me at the contact; at the way my body, which I knew to be so hard and violent, felt so soft and small against his.
Within a moment, the VIP section exploded, every man jumping and cheering and pushing each other with violent joy.
But none of it touched me.
Because Matteo Di’Ablo was there to keep me safe in his arms.
No man had ever tried to protect me before.
Men only ever tried to hurt me.
As soon as I opened my mouth and hit my fist on the table – they were basically praying I would get slapped or humbled. Put back in my place. Just wait until – was a phrase men told me too often.
But not Matteo.
He wasn’t intimidated by me or my power. And he didn’t back down just because he knew I could protect myself. He didn’t get vindictive. He didn’t try to humble me – unless it had something to do with me admitting I was attracted to him…
Glancing over my shoulder, I brought my eyes up to his.
Heat.
Nothing but lit gasoline between us.
Matteo was the first and only man to be attracted to my fire.
I now had a very serious problem.
Because I didn’t just want him gone anymore.
I wanted him.
My undoing was red, hot and short-tempered.
One I didn’t see coming.
Not entirely at least.
All it took was one true touch to turn me stupid.
Skin to skin. Sizzling in heat. And doused in fatal attraction.
I swallowed dry.
Tensing my jaw, I stretched my neck in a failed attempt to get her out from under my skin.
It’d been an instinct reaction on my part – to pull her closer and block out the danger with my bigger frame.
Francesca DeMone had touched me exactly three times before tonight.
First, when she dragged me by the collar over the desk in her club’s underground’s office. And I had to walk around with a hard-on for a month, remembering the fire in her eyes.
When she slapped me across the face with the contract of our expansion in my hotel suite, before leaning forward and pushing her tits in my face. And all I could think about was bending her over my desk.
And last, when she grabbed me by the bicep to hold me in place in an attempt to console me at her family’s party. And all I could think about was pushing my hand into those heavenly, platinum strands of hair, pulling her head back and kissing her deeper then she’d ever been before.
Every single one of those times, I was thinking with my dick, yet somehow managed to do the reasonable thing.
My muscles were coiled tight as I tried to take in a deeper breath to loosen the tension in my body.
Francesca didn’t seem to be doing much better either.
She was sat in the armchair next to me, her posture too straight, her face too still, her body too stiff.
Both of us looked like if just one wrong move or wondering look was caught by the other, we’d cross the line of no return and ravage the entire room.
Though, no one else was able to catch our distress.
The office smelled like old cigars and fresh leather. A wide desk of polished mahogany separated the Vegas Boss from us, contracts stacked in neat piles, a fountain pen glinting in the lamplight. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the Strip, neon bleeding through the glass like veins of fire.
I sat back in the armchair, the leather creaking beneath me. To my left, Francesca a mirror of me – rigid, contained.
We didn’t look at each other. Couldn’t.
If I turned my head even an inch, if my eyes so much as brushed her face, I knew I’d give myself away. That the heat I’d felt beside her during the fight would break loose here, in this room where control was the only thing keeping our world from burning.
So, instead, I fixed my attention on the Vegas Boss.
“You’ve always had my respect,” the man was saying, sliding the papers closer. “Your families, your crews – we’ve all made money together for decades. This expansion? It’s a good thing. A solid thing. For New York, for Mexico, for Vegas. We’ll all eat better.”
Francesca nodded once, slow. “That’s what we want.”
She had her hands folded neatly in her lap, her legs crossed, her face the picture of a Consigliere. But I saw it – the tension in her jaw, the way her throat moved when she swallowed. She was trying as hard as I was.
He looked between us, then chuckled. “Sharp kids, both of you. Enzo raised you well, Francesca.”
She smiled politely. I kept my eyes on the desk, on the pen, anywhere but her.
Because if I looked – if I let myself see those doe eyes glinting like sin under the low light – I wouldn’t stop.
He leaned back, satisfied. “Alright, then. Let’s make it official.” He picked up the pen, scrawled his signature with a flourish, and pressed the papers flat with a heavy palm. “There. Done. We move forward.”
The deal was sealed. Simple as that.
But my chest tightened, not from business, not from the expansion that would line pockets from here to New York – no. It was from the girl at my side, from the heat I refused to acknowledge, the hunger sitting like fire in my blood.
I still didn’t look at her. Not once.
Because if I did, it was over.
The meeting wrapped, signatures drying in black ink, hands shaken, promises sealed. The Vegas Boss poured another glass of bourbon, but I didn’t stay for the toast. Business was finished, and lingering would’ve meant too much time in that room with her.
But Francesca was already on her feet too, slipping out with her usual poise, every movement sharp enough to cut. I followed, keeping a measured pace, until the heavy double doors closed behind us.
The hallway outside was dim, lit only by recessed lighting that bathed the marble floors in gold. Tony leaned against the wall, phone in hand, already buzzing with energy.
“There y’all are,” he grinned, sliding his phone into his pocket. “Vegas is calling. Clubs, cards, the whole damn strip. You coming, Matteo?”
“Yeah,” I said evenly, though my eyes had already caught on Francesca.
She was straightening her clutch, her fingers precise, as if the simple act of aligning the clasp could distract from what was happening inside her head. She glanced up briefly, first at Tony, then… Past. Me.
God, this woman…
“As much as I would love to,” she said, her tone dry. “I need to get this contract back to New York. Papà will want it in his hands by morning.”
Tony frowned, pushing off the wall. “Frankenstein, relax. He’ll get it when he gets it. Stay. Have some fun.”
“First of all, don’t call me that.” Her lips curved into a faint smile, but it didn’t miss the warning. “And second, I got business I need to handle in New York.”
Tony rolled his eyes, but hugged his sister nonetheless.
Pulling back, Francesca turned to me, her eyes coming up to mine.
Everything else vanished like a vacuum. Like it was just me and her and this stupid tension between us.
Her gaze lingered a beat too long, daring me to look away first. I didn’t.
The air between us tightened, every unspoken word and unacknowledged want pressed into the space of a single breath.
I should’ve hated the way her lips pouted like she was about to retort something, or the way her chin lifted in defiance – but all I felt was the pull, reckless and dangerous.
My voice was somber when I spoke. “See you around.”
Her glossy lips parted, but she didn’t answer.
I watched her walk away.
The click of her heels against the marble echoed like a metronome, hypnotic.
That dress clung to every line of her – hips swaying with the kind of rhythm that wasn’t intentional but left me groaning all the same.
The curve of her waist was small enough I knew I could span it with just my hands, pull her in, hold her still.
The dress teased with each step, the flash of toned thigh against the shimmer of the Vegas lights pouring through the glass walls at the end of the hall. Those heels – too high, too dangerous – made her legs look endless, her back arched like temptation itself.
I told myself I was only watching to make sure she left safely.
But the truth burned in my chest.
I wanted her.
Bad enough that the thought of Vegas clubs and tables suddenly felt like ash in my mouth.
Three months ago, I wanted to bend her over and fuck the pent-up frustration and stress out of her. The way she needed it.
Now?
Now, I wanted to sink my teeth into her.
Dig my fingers into her thighs and hold them to the mattress while I devoured her.
Lick every inch of her skin and smell her natural scent until I got enough.
Push as deep inside her as I could and stay there until I wasn’t fucked up over her anymore.
Because I’d never felt this heat in my veins so strongly before.
Three months ago, I just wanted to fuck her.
Now, after having my arms around her, I knew being with her once wouldn’t be enough.
Because the Francesca DeMone had arched her ass back into me.
And God help her, if I could forget it.