Matteo
Ten minutes earlier…
“Get in the shower, douchebag.” In the bathroom doorway, I eye the shower like it’s an escape hatch. “Get in the fucking shower and stroke one out like you should have done last night instead of climbing into bed with a passed-out woman and spooning her like a soft cock.”
Azra was too drunk for me to touch, but instead of walking away, I gave Dante every excuse to lynch me.
It’s not my fault. That woman… Jesus. Her mouth tastes like heaven, and I’d pay a million dollars for the privilege of eating her pussy again, but fucking an intoxicated woman is the lowest of the low, and I’m still a boy dying to see his mother one last time.
I should have walked the instant I backed away from her kiss. Our exchange should have ended there, but no, I had to stay and watch Azra perform a sex act on herself like a perv who’s never had his dick sucked.
You’d think my smarts would have kicked back in when alcohol and exhaustion pulled her under in less than a second, and they did, until I woke to her grinding against my thigh and murmuring my name in her sleep.
It was obvious she was having a sex dream, and although she was no longer intoxicated, I slipped out of bed rather than slipping my hand between her legs like I really wanted to.
And I need to walk away again now before it’s too late and I ruin her.
The way she said my name… fuck.
She moaned it not once. Not twice. Over and over again, like the begs she was desperate for me to answer last night had nothing to do with alcohol.
Every time she whimpered, my resolve cracked more.
I grip the vanity sink, knuckles white. “Get in the fucking shower,” I mutter to myself again. “Walk away.”
I don’t move because the truth is stronger than me. I’m not protecting myself. I’m trying to protect her. I’m the bad seed of the family, the rotten roots that eventually kill everything from the inside out. If you side with me, you side with the devil. I can’t put it any simpler than that.
Someone as angelic as Azra doesn’t belong in the ashes of hell.
She has no idea what she’s doing or what she’s asking for.
I am not a man she should tie herself to.
She thinks there’s good beneath the surface of my evil.
She’s wrong.
Evil resides in my veins. It lives in me.
I close my eyes, and her voice echoes again—soft, breathy, and half-asleep.
Matteo…
It thickens my cock as fast as it did last night when she traced the outline of her delicious-smelling cunt with her fingers. Her pussy is the prettiest I’ve seen, but her face in ecstasy trumps everything. Her cheeks darken, her lips slightly part, and her eyes glaze over with more than lust.
She comes alive.
I shouldn’t have the honor of seeing that. I’ve done things—dark things—that stain a man from the inside out. Things that make people cross the street when they see me coming and make mothers pull their children closer.
I’ve spent my whole life carving out a place in the underworld where mercy gets you killed and hesitation gets the people you love killed.
My mother’s untimely death is the clearest proof of this.
Doctors say you can’t die from a broken heart, but they mention nothing about disappointment being the biggest killer.
I pushed against the ropes for years, and although she ended every sentence with three words I’ve never heard from another woman, I know my antics hurt her.
She was bright where I was dark. Soft where I was jagged. Hopeful where I was hollow.
She didn’t belong in my world—just like Azra doesn’t either.
Pushing off the sink, I pace the bathroom. My hand freezes halfway through my hair when I hear Azra’s breathing from the bedroom. It’s light and uneven, wordlessly announcing she’s still dreaming about someone she shouldn’t be.
She’s dreaming about me.
Against the screaming protests of my head, I step into the bedroom doorway and prop my shoulder against the frame. Azra is curled on her side. Her hair spills across the pillow, and her lips part as she murmurs something I can’t make out.
Then…
“Matteo…”
My chest tightens as pre-cum leaks into my boxer shorts.
I should put distance between us before I make a mistake I can’t undo.
Instead, I inch closer to her bedside.
Hearing her say my name like that—soft and unguarded—unravels me.
I whisper into the dark, voice rough. “Do you have any fucking idea what you’re doing to me, micina? How crazy you are making me?”
She moans as if she hears me before her head thrusts back and her swollen lips part to suck in desperate breaths. Her nipples pucker against the bra I silently prayed for her to remove last night, and I reach out my hand, too overwhelmed to remember I’ve never touched without consent before.
Karma scalds me for a previous mistake before I can make another.
The phone I put on the nightstand last night buzzes with a reminder that Azra isn’t my personal plaything. She’s heating my sheets because she wants to marry another man.
I stare at the glowing reminder until it fades, leaving the room darker than before. Then I enter the bathroom faster than I exited it.
The shower did nothing to clear my head. My blood remains as hot as lava, and my cock is as firm as a baseball bat. I refuse to pretend that what I almost did last night doesn’t matter, so I didn’t let myself ease the tension with a quick, unsatisfying shower stroke.
I leave the bathroom with a towel slung low around my hips and water dripping down my back. Even with the early-morning light slipping through the curtains, the room is dim.
Azra is awake.
Restlessness weighs heavily in her eyes, and her hair is tangled. She doesn’t look as vulnerable as the woman I imagined while ignoring the throbbing of my cock, which told me the next week might be easier for everyone if I let go of the tension. She doesn’t look violated. She looks human. Real.
She stalks my cross of the room, then begins her greeting with a groggy smile. “Morning,” she murmurs, voice rough with sleep.
When I return her greeting with a smirk, she tries to hold my gaze, but her eyes drop to the rivulets of water trickling multiple times over the bumps in my midsection. She’s not at all embarrassed to eye-fuck me as if I’m her favorite dessert on the menu.
The reminder of her ruse should ensure I don’t enjoy her attention.
I do, though.
Very much so.
Confident I’ll never have a decent thought with all the blood in my body rushing to my cock, I force myself into the walk-in closet. For a second, I consider closing the door. Then I curse my stupidity under my breath.
I stroked my cock mere inches from her face only hours ago.
She’s already seen everything I have to offer.
Acting coy now would be pointless.
Leaving the door open and dressing slowly, I relish every spiked breath of my roommate. As I re-enter the bedroom, Azra watches me with the same sleepy softness her eyes held last night when she brought herself to climax.
I cough to clear my throat. “How’s the head?”
Pulling the blanket up to hide her erect nipples, she grimaces. “A little achy.”
I sit on the edge and cover my toes with socks. “That’s expected.”
For a novice, she drank too much too fast and sampled too many varieties. I should have stopped her sooner and taken her home before she hit a point where stupid ideas seem rational.
I snap my eyes up when Azra murmurs, “And my memories are a little hazy.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” I ask, needing to know if I should load my gun now or wait for Dante to show up with his weapon of choice already loaded.
Last night, I didn’t just kiss her.
I watched her come while stroking my cock to the extremely satisfying visual.
Uncertainty flickers in her eyes before she answers. “I remember dancing at the club.”
“And?” I probe, confident she’s being coy to save face.
She freezes before pulling the earth out from beneath my feet. “The rest is a little blurry.”
I nod slowly, struggling not to blow my top. “Do you remember dancing on the table?”
Her breath catches as her eyes widen.
Fuck.
She must have been more intoxicated than I realized when I suggested we go to the nightclub before calling it a night.
Her swallow is audible. “Did I… do anything embarrassing?”
“No,” I answer immediately, shaking my head. “You were perfectly well-behaved.”
Me, on the other hand…
Azra’s shoulders relax, but her expression is on the opposing team. A disappointed crease mars her forehead.
Did she want me to tell her that her confidence is so high when she’s drunk that she’ll happily ring the devil’s doorbell with an audience?
Confident I’m misreading her, I climb out of the trench I recently dug for Dante to bury me in. “We can’t all get arrested our first night out, micina.”
The tension slips away when she drops her lower lip. “Pity. I look cute in orange.”
Grateful her playfulness is killing the tension suffocating the air, I twang her lip before standing. “I have no doubt you’d look just as sexy in handcuffs.”
Dropping my head back, I glare at the ceiling. I should not have said that.
“I don’t need to get arrested for you to see me in handcuffs.”
Her mouth gapes, as mortified as I was about her severe case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. “I’m so sorry… That was inappropriate.”
“Why?” I ask before I can get ahold of myself.
She considers my question for a beat before she eventually shrugs. “I don’t know.”
I could push, but how can I force honesty if I’m unwilling to do the same?
Instead, I get this train back on the tracks.
“How’s the stomach? Are you up to eating?”
I smile like a lovesick chump when she does a little jiggle, wiggling her nonexistent stomach side to side like a belly dancer, before she jerks up her chin. “It’s good to go.”
“Good.” I nod my head toward the bathroom. “Shower. Then we’ll join Vanni and Valentina for brunch in the atrium. The new rules his wifey-to-be encouraged him to implement forced me into blue-balls territory, so it’s only fair he joins me.”