Chapter 18 Matteo
MATTEO
Imake three long loops through town while the ovens cool, drift past the square twice, and cut along the river once.
Lila knows how to reach me. If she pulls the rig, I am on the back step before the sound dies.
By ten, the sidewalks are empty. Frost threads the cracks in the pavement, and the streets settle into quiet.
I take one last circle around the block, park beneath an apple tree stripped bare, and walk to the bakery.
I knock once and step inside. The room hums with the low sound of the fridge and smells faintly of soap and vanilla.
Lila sits at the table, glasses low on her nose, an old accounting book open before her.
The board across the front window turns the bakery into a dark box with a warm heart.
She turns a page with the tip of one finger, eyes tracing neat columns of numbers as if they still make sense in a world that no longer does.
A strand of chestnut hair slips loose and brushes her cheek.
She looks up over the rim of her glasses.
The lamplight softens her hazel eyes to the color of toffee.
Her mouth moves toward a smile but stops halfway, caught between thought and hesitation.
The mug between her hands sends up a thin ribbon of steam that curls toward her face, touching it like a whisper.
Something shifts in my chest before I can stop it.
I clear my throat. The sound feels too sharp in the hush.
“Any chance of a warm cup for me?” I ask, aiming for easy.
She tilts her head, that half-smile still there. “If you think you’ve earned it.”
It almost feels like coming home. Only I am a guest here, and we both know it.
I take off my jacket, roll up my sleeves, and wash my hands and face at the sink.
The water runs cold and wakes me. Then I pull out a chair and sit.
Lila rises without a word, moving with the practiced calm of someone who grew up behind a counter.
She pours oolong, toasty and faintly floral, and sets it beside me with a plate of small things she must have kept from the day, brown butter biscuits that flake at the touch, a slice of apple cake soft from butter and spice, two slices of hearth bread glossed with honey.
The smells of cinnamon and warm fruit fill the room, chasing off the cold that presses against the windows.
I eat slowly, more for the quiet than the hunger. The tea warms my hands. The sugar steadies the edge inside me. When I glance up, she is watching, her eyes moving from the mug to my hands. The knuckles are still rough, the skin marked.
She speaks softly, not accusing, not afraid. “Those lines,” she murmurs, chin tipping toward the script along my inner forearm, “what do they say?”
“La fortuna aiuta gli audaci,” I answer. “Fortune favors the bold.” I turn my arm so the ink reads true, then touch the bands on my bicep. “Debts paid. Not in money. Lives. Promises.”
Her eyes flick to my chest, then away, a flush she does not give to many men.
“And the crest?” A lion stands on its hind legs, one paw on a sword, the other raised.
Beneath it, a narrow banner I no longer honor.
The colors have faded with age. The gold is now more bronze than bright.
It looked like pride once. Now it is more like memory.
“Family,” I admit. “Not romance. A warning label.” I tap the old scar along my ribs. “Knife when I was young. I learned to keep my distance and my feet.”
She presses a thumb along a white line across my knuckles, not quite touching. “How young is young?”
“Too young to choose,” I tell her. “Old enough to obey. Naples. Work that looked like errands until it was not. I was efficient. That made me useful. Vincent trusted me with things that needed clean hands and a steady head.”
“Clean,” she repeats, amused and sad. “You hit like a storm and still call it clean.”
“I do not involve civilians. I do not make a mess I cannot own.” I hold her gaze. “It is a code. I kept it before I knew the word for it.”
Silence sits with us, easy for once, and the board on the window turns the lights into a small circle around the table. She tucks her hair, though nothing is loose. I tell myself not to watch her mouth. I fail.
“Do you ever think about stopping?” she asks, voice low.
“I think about being done with some kinds of nights,” I answer. I leave the rest in the air where it belongs, then let the edge drop from my voice. “I think about kitchens that smell like this.”
Her smile is small and real. “You make it sound simple.”
“It’s the truth.” My voice thickens with something unfamiliar, but it does not scare me anymore. A crumb clings to her skirt. I lift it away and leave it on the table. “I’ll sit here until dawn if that’s what you want.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks. The silence fills, dense and alive, matching the beat under my skin. I can feel the room narrow to the space between us.
I rise, slow enough for her to step back if she wants, and she stands too.
Her hand finds mine. Heat moves through me, quick and impossible to escape from, like a current closing a circuit.
I draw her closer. She does not pull away.
Her pulse runs under her skin, fast and sure.
Her leg brushes the chair, the chair leg whispers against the tile. The tea cools in the cups, forgotten.
“Matteo,” she breathes, and the sound lands inside my chest like a claim. I touch her jaw with two fingers. She lifts her face. The first kiss is careful, a test. The second is not. She tastes like mint and stubbornness and a life I did not plan for and cannot refuse.
“Upstairs, my room,” she whispers, fingers finding my shirt. “Before the night thinks again.”
Her fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt, bunching it at my chest, the pull steady and insistent.
The bakery's quiet wraps around us, broken only by the faint hum of the fridge in the corner and the soft creak of the floorboards under our shifting weight.
Upstairs. Her room. The words hang in the air like smoke, curling toward the stairs that lead from the shadowed hallway.
I don't answer with words. My hand slides to the small of her back, pressing just enough to guide her, feeling the warmth of her body seep through her blouse.
She steps first, leading the way, her hip brushing mine as we move.
The scent of her follows—vanilla from the day's baking clinging to her skin, mixed with the sharp edge of her breath, quickening now.
The stairs narrow as we climb, wood worn smooth from years of footsteps, each one echoing softly in the tight space.
Her hand stays in mine, palm damp, fingers interlacing tight.
At the landing, she pauses, key turning in the lock with a metallic click, the door swinging open to a room lit by a single lamp on the nightstand.
The space is small, lived-in, a bed with rumpled quilts in deep blues, books stacked uneven on the dresser, a window cracked to let in the night's chill.
She releases my hand, crosses to the lamp, and dims it lower, the light pooling golden on the floorboards.
Shadows stretch long across the walls, turning the room intimate, like a secret shared.
I close the door behind us, the latch catching with finality.
She turns, glasses still perched low on her nose, and reaches up to slide them off, setting them on the dresser with a quiet clink.
Her eyes meet mine, hazel darkened in the low light, pupils wide.
No hesitation now. She steps into me, hands rising to my shoulders, and I catch her waist, pulling her flush against my chest. The kiss starts slow, lips brushing hers—soft, testing—the taste of mint from her tea lingering, cool and sharp.
Her mouth opens under mine, tongue flicking out tentative, and I deepen it, sucking her lower lip between my teeth, nipping just hard enough to draw a gasp that vibrates against my mouth.
My hands roam, sliding up her sides, thumbs tracing the curve of her ribs through the thin blouse.
Fabric bunches under my fingers, and I tug it free from her skirt, palms slipping beneath to meet bare skin—warm, smooth, the faint tremor of her breathing making it rise and fall.
She arches into the touch, a low hum escaping her throat as my fingers splay across her back, nails dragging lightly down her spine.
The skirt's waistband sits low on her hips.
I hook my thumbs there, pulling her closer, feeling the heat radiating from between her thighs press against my growing hardness.
She's soft here, yielding, but her hands are urgent, fumbling with the buttons of my shirt, popping them open one by one, exposing my chest inch by inch.
I break the kiss to lift her blouse over her head, the cotton whispering off her arms, leaving her in a simple bra, lace-edged and white, cups straining against her full breasts.
Her nipples peak through the fabric, dark shadows begging for attention.
I cup one breast, heavy and warm in my palm, thumb circling the hardened tip through the lace in slow circles that make her hips jerk forward.
"Matteo," she breathes, voice husky, fingers digging into my bare shoulders, nails leaving half-moon indents on my skin.
I lean down, mouth hovering over the swell of her breast, breath hot against the lace, and she whimpers, pressing closer.
No touch yet. I blow a stream of cool air, watching goosebumps ripple across her chest.