4. Heaven
CHAPTER 4
HEAVEN
E verything inside me turns to ice.
Matteo Villani.
Oh, fuck.
I’m shaking, tied up in knots in more ways than one. My dress is still hiked up, and I’m more than naked. I’m vulnerable, but I’m not about to let him see that.
He takes off his mask, and though I’ve googled him, the blurry pictures have nothing on the man in front of me. He’s utterly gorgeous. The hard lines of his face, the high cheekbones, the winged brows and that mouth. I should have guessed from the mouth.
He’s older now, perhaps not in years from when the photos were taken, but there’s something about him. A hardness, and his mouth turns into a dark smile.
“I thought traditional introductions were a little passé,” he says, making no move to untie me. Sex is in the air and he’s more than aroused. The thick line of his cock is hard against his pants, and color flushes his cheeks. It gives his mouth a sensuality I’m guessing he uses against women.
He’s a monster and I let him… I nearly…hell…I nearly came. Would have if he hadn’t withdrawn. I can still feel his mouth and tongue on my flesh, his fingers inside me.
I hate him.
And I still don’t know what’s going on with him and my family. Only…the way he looks at me… Shit.
I need to play this out as best I can. The struggle not to rip these rings from the wall and beat him with them is real. “Are they?”
He saunters close, fingers trailing over my exposed flesh, and I shiver. “Considering you’re tied up on my wall, mostly naked, and you let me eat your lovely pussy, I’d say we’re beyond that.”
“And here I thought the Italians had manners.”
“We do, tesoro, when it’s warranted.” His gaze shifts to my breasts. “What would your father say if he saw you now?”
“He’d kill you.”
Matteo lifts his gaze and laughs. “No, that wouldn’t happen.”
“Whatever business deal you have, you think?—”
“Oh, Heaven, you don’t know a thing, do you?”
His fingers slip down over my dress to my naked pussy and slide over the wetness, and I can barely stop my moan.
He says something in my ear in Italian, the sound soft and erotic. I hate him for doing this to me. For using me as a toy.
“Stop touching me,” I say, barely getting my voice out in a cool, calm way. “I rescind my invitation.”
He keeps stroking me between my legs, sliding along my pussy lips, making me shiver and want to push down onto his fingers. “Really? You don’t seem like you do. I could make you come.”
“I don’t want anything from you. Untie me.”
With a sigh, he does just that, and releases my dress. Then, before I can do anything, he places his palm against my stomach and pushes me into the wall as he bends and lifts my leg. He lets me go and steps back, my panties hanging from his fingers. “Souvenir.”
“Asshole.”
“Oh, I’m worse than that, amore mio. Much worse. Haven’t you heard the talk?” Those blue eyes slide back to my breasts as I’m putting my dress back in place. “I’m worse than your nightmares.”
“Ha. A pathetic man like you? I doubt it.”
His mouth turns up. “I like claws, so be careful.” Matteo pockets my panties and I clamp down on my anger.
He deserves a tsunami of it, but not right now. He knows who I am, so I’m just going for it. “I came here tonight to check your business, to see if it’s compatible and?—”
“Heaven.” All the charm falls away. “You might want to ask yourself this—what kind of underboss gets left out in the cold?”
“If my brother and father knew?—”
“That I finger fucked you? Had you naked and panting and wanting my cock, wanting everything and anything I did to you? What do you think they’d do? Because this is the second time you’ve threatened me with your father. Can’t fight your own fights?”
“I’m positive they wouldn’t want to deal with you in business.”
He’s not giving me a damn thing, and the anger and disgust is rising. I’m not sure who the disgust is for.
“I wouldn’t be placing bets on that. I have something they want far more than your tattered virtue.”
Alarm bells are ringing in my head, and I don’t know what for. But I trust my instincts, and they’re saying this is bad.
Did my father make a deal to boost Conor in the world? We’ve been vying for years for top spot. To take over, and Conor’s actions are making a grim sense. There’s something in this union for him. And they’re leaving me out in the cold.
“What’s the deal you have with my family?”
“You’ll find out, Heaven, don’t you worry.”
I narrow my eyes at the gorgeous sleazeball. “I’m not. I like to be prepared.”
“Visiting my sex club is being prepared? Me tying you up is being prepared? Going down on you is?—”
“Know your enemy,” I say as evenly as I can. “Because that’s what you are.”
“Your father thinks differently?—”
“Fuck you and your games. You could have told me what I wanted to know when you saw me.”
“I’ll let your brother know about what you got up to, shall I?”
“Do that and I’ll shoot your dick off.”
He looks unfazed. “Pity. I think you’d have a lot of fun with it. Your cunt’s so wet for it.”
“Fuck you, Matteo.”
“My thoughts exactly, he says. I could use this, though. I’m not above a little blackmail.”
Jesus Christ, Conor cannot find out about this under any circumstance. Hell, nobody in my family can.
I’m already fighting an uphill battle to grab that top spot. Dad has been playing me and Conor against each other for the past couple of years with this co-underboss bullshit, and I’ve worked damn hard to prove I’m worthy of being the boss of my family.
I earned it. Conor knows how to maim, but I’m the one who’s established a network, the one who’s nurtured all of the relationships with our partners. I’ve made the family a ton of cash by using my head, not my fists.
Conor can barely string together a coherent sentence sober, much less drunk. And let’s face it, he’s half in the bag more often than not.
Dad has to see that I’m the more responsible choice to lead our family. I’m not letting anyone, including this fucker here, ruin anything.
“Just try,” I say. “And see how far it gets you.”
“This is a done deal, Heaven. Me telling them what a bad, filthy little girl you are is icing on the cake. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“They wouldn’t believe you.”
Matteo runs a hand through his dark locks so they fall right back into place, hanging over his left eye. “Wouldn’t they?”
He’s exactly the kind of partner who would run circles around Conor. He’s cunning, calculating, and completely deceitful. And I know I’m right. Whatever this deal is, there’s more at stake than my father or Conor knows. Idiots. All of them.
“I came here to see what you were like, through the kind of business you run. You’re a sleaze whom my family won’t be working with.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “You’re good, Heaven, I’ll give you that. But I’m better. And you have no idea what’s going on. Even now, while you seethe, you want me.”
“No—”
“Yes. I can see it.” He holds his fingers up to his nose, the ones that were in me, and a bolt of need races through my veins. “Smell it. You can fight, but you won’t win. You know why? Because I always win.”
It’s the quiet, casual confidence that makes me uneasy. “You’re not family.”
“You don’t know who you’re trying to play with. Run along. Report to your father and brother. I guarantee not a thing will change. The business deal will be going ahead, Heaven.”
“We’ll see about that.” I’m running on pure lies right now. I know no such thing, but fuck him and the stallion he rode into town on. “You got me at a vulnerable moment, and it won’t be happening again.”
“Won’t it?”
“No.” My hands tighten into fists and I want to punch him.
“Okay, let’s say you have sway, which you don’t, in this deal.” He walks to the door and leans next to it, not barring the exit—that’s if he was telling me the truth and it’s not locked—and crosses his arms, and I try not to look at the strong forearms in his black jacket. Those big, capable hands…
“I hold sway.”
He just laughs. “You’re angry because you lost control, something very dangerous for a woman in your position. You came in here thinking there was a reason to be wary of me and what I might do to your organization if we should work together, and yet, you can’t report back.”
“My father?—”
“I don’t mean my fucking club, Heaven. He knows about that. It’s no secret in our world. No, it’s the shit you want to say about me personally. But you’re involved in that, and you have no idea what that’s going to get you if you breathe even a word of what happened in here.”
“Stop saying I have no idea,” I snap. “And don’t threaten me.”
“I’m not. Just stating a fact.”
Lust and heat rage in his eyes, and I also see cold, hard calculation. He’s a mix of so many things and I hate them all. I try to put the blame on me for being in this room, for letting him tongue and finger fuck me, on the things I’ve seen tonight. But I can’t. Anyone else and I’d have manipulated them and kept my clothes in place. Never in a million years am I admitting that to Matteo Villani.
“The meeting’s going ahead. The business deal’s going ahead. But,” he says, dropping his arms and stepping closer to me. “Don’t you worry, you’ll be right smack bang in the center of things. Being left out will be the least of your worries.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it means,” he says. “You want to rule the family, don’t you? But you’re fucking bad at it. You miss all kinds of things when you get all hot and bothered and let a stranger go down on you. Getting caught up in the moment means you miss shit. Important shit. So, Heaven, tell me. What do you think you might have missed while I had my head buried between your legs? Do you think you might have missed my guys luring your brother Patrick into the middle of an orgy and torturing him within an inch of his life in an attempt to find out who’s been selling laced crank to the staff at one of my sex clubs?”
My mouth drops open. “What the fuck are you… crank ?”
“Meth. Forgive me,” he says, suddenly very Italian, “I don’t know the jargon.” Then he stops. “Also, wrong fucking question.”
Patrick. My hand flies to my mouth. Oh my God. I drop my hand, stalk over to him, and give him a hard shove. He lets me. “If you?—”
Matteo holds up a hand. “Relax. He’s fine. Just getting his dick sucked.” He leans closer to me. “But I think you see where I’m going with this, yeah? You see how losing focus for a single second can really fuck things up, not only for you, but for a lot of other people?”
Terror, old terror, rich with scars both healed and weeping, rises up and I fight it off. He doesn’t… He can’t know. It’s a stab in the dark, his arrogant way of telling me he’s better because he wears his genitals on the outside.
I struggle to reach my loathing, but the fear is still there. The thing that ripped my world apart, the one thing that haunts... Fuck.
He cups my chin and tilts my face upward. “I learned that the hard way. But you did, too, didn’t you, Heaven? I can tell that you did. I can see it in your eyes. You want to hate me, you want to believe I’m full of crap, a lowlife not worthy of your time or attention, but deep down you know I’m right.”
I swallow hard, keeping my eyes downcast so I don’t have to look at him. I refuse to answer.
Matteo laughs and grips my chin a little firmer. “And that infuriates you, doesn’t it?”
“Fuck you and your filthy sex club psychoanalysis. You came to my father because you need something from him…from us . Keep that in mind when you’re speaking to me since I am damn close to running the show for my family. I am your equal, Villani,” I say. “I don’t like to get backed into corners. And I don’t lie down for anyone.”
“Oh, that’s right. You much prefer standing.”
I swallow a gasp as he pins me back against the wall. He brushes up against me, that huge hard-on still there, taunting me because… Thrill after thrill rushes through me and I can remember every moment of his tongue and lips and teeth on me. And of his fingers…
“Should we test the theory?” His voice vibrates against my ear, his teeth catching the lobe between them.
My eyelids flutter shut?—
Fuck, no.
He needs to see firsthand who he’s dealing with.
I tilt my head upward at him, and smile. “I have another one I’d like to try out instead.”
He grins back, his eyes half-hooded and glittering with the same kind of fire that ignites in my belly.
But I ignore it. I grab his hand on my face with both of mine, pulling back his fingers until his entire palm is bent backward. I press down harder, and knee him in the balls. Then I push him away from me. He lets out a string of expletives.
Could be Italian. Could be scumbag. It doesn’t matter.
I proved my point.
I took back control.
Only now do I feel like myself again.
And I finally got the release I needed.
“Don’t ever touch me again,” I say quietly. “And don’t fool yourself into thinking that I’m not a worthy opponent.” I step closer to where he’s bent over. I can’t be sure, but I think the psycho is laughing. I hope to God it’s tears of pain. I know I didn’t break anything, but I’m hoping I caused a world of hurt that will stay with him. “I always win, Villani. At the end of the game, it’s always me with the fucking trophy. Just remember that if you think you’re going to screw around with things that don’t belong to you.”
I turn my back on him, ready to yank open the door, and then I turn back around, tapping a finger on my cheek.
“Oh, shoot, you know what?” I say, not bothering to bite back a self-satisfied smile as a mask of anger shadows his features. “I didn’t ask permission to touch, now did I? Guess I broke the rules.”
“You have no idea,” he says, straightening up.
“I know I didn’t come here to get fucked. I came here to do the fucking.”
Mission accomplished.
Well, almost.
“And if you don’t want me to break your wrist next time, and you’d like to keep your cock and balls, I’d suggest you stay far away from my family.”
The man moves fast. And his hand, the one I hurt, slams against the door as I reach for it. I almost wince at what that must have cost him. But I remind myself I don’t give a shit.
“Out of my way, Villani.”
“You think you’ve won, Heaven. But you might not like the prize.”
And then he steps out of the way and I leave, slamming the door behind me.
I’ve got a horrible feeling he just might be right.