Chapter 16 #3
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” But now I’m curious, and want to poke some more. “You have a place you can call home. You have a base that’s permanent, and even though your relationship with your father is prickly—”
“Prickly?” He chuckles softly. “Never heard it called that before.”
“You have five brothers,” I remark. “Do you know what I would have given to have siblings? A family? To feel like I belong. To know that I have my people.”
My voice rises, filling with emotion, and I rein it in fast. I hate unraveling, and this seems to happen a lot when I’m around this man. Matteo doesn’t realize how much he has to be grateful for.
How blessed he is that he has so many people around him.
That he has family.
Before I met Vlad, and Arthur and Irene, I was mostly alone. I knew very early on in my life that no one was coming to save me, and that I had to take care of myself.
We sit quietly for a while. My trying to keep my composure and Matteo? I have no idea what he’s thinking.
“You learned everything you know by going to an after-school computer club?”
He’s completely changed the topic. Doesn’t like talking about family much.
So, being careful not to mention a word about my hacker background, I tell him how I joined various online channels and groups and lurked in computer forums where I started to post code as solutions to specific problems.
I tell him how someone noticed and invited me to a private online channel, and I started to do small jobs with them.
I tell him how later, as I aged out of care and needed to stand on my own two feet, I did more jobs.
I learned to do penetration testing and fix small business security.
I learned how to build security tools. After that I had lots of little contracts come my way and I was able to slowly build up my reputation.
And then I started my small cybersecurity firm about a year and a half ago.
What I don’t tell him is how before all the small contracts, I became part of a grey hat hacking group. I don’t tell him how I exposed company vulnerabilities and leaked data to embarrass them. How I hacked corrupt corporations.
How I got caught and interrogated.
He looks at me, his face a picture of admiration. “That’s incredible. Now I understand exactly why you’re so sharp and observant. You catch a lot of things others haven’t. I can tell you’re brilliant, and that’s why the old man hired you. He only wants the best.”
I feel my cheeks blush. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It’s a fact.”
I'm suddenly hyper aware of everything. The chatter in the background. The laughter from a few tables behind us. The clink of bottles and glasses. People relaxing on stools by the bar. The soft tones of music.
“You also don’t trust easily,” he says.
“Neither do you.”
The corners of his mouth lift. “Fair.”
We sit in silence again. Each of us sipping our drinks, at the same time. Then looking at each other. Then faintly smiling.
Mirroring.
My gaze falls to his tattoos again, because it’s impossible not to look at them. “Are you always the last one to leave?” Thinking about it now, I don’t stay late at work much, but I’ve heard Alex mention that Matteo is always the last to leave.
“I don’t see the point of going back to an empty apartment.”
“But you have five brothers.”
“Most of whom are busy with their girlfriends.”
It becomes quiet again. Something in my heart flutters. I glance at my watch. “I should go. It’s getting late.”
“How about I drive you home?” he offers.
My insides pop and fizzle with excitement. “That would be great,” I manage to say. It occurred to me to protest and tell him I’d take the subway, but a part of me doesn’t mind him taking me home. We split the bill and head back to the office, down to the underground car park.
I expect something obnoxious, something loud and impractical.
Instead, Matteo stops beside a dark grey Porsche Taycan.
And in that moment, I see that this is perfect for him.
With sleek lines and understated design, it is more him than a flashy sports car ever could be.
He unlocks it and I slide into the passenger seat.
The interior smells faintly of leather and cedar. Everything is black, and sleek. Soft lighting. It's clean and expensive. My body sinks into the seat as I slide into it, letting it hug me.
I'm not sure I want to ever get out.
“Nice car.”
He chuckles. “It's just a car.”
I run my hand over the stitched leather dashboard. “This is definitely not just a car.”
“It does its job,” he says, like he's driving a battered-up tin can.
I tell him where I live, and we spend most of the journey in silence.
He seems deep in thought, which throws me a little.
I'd expected us to talk more, but there's something oddly intimate about being alone with him like this.
Just the two of us in a confined space, the silence stretching between us, making me far too aware of his presence beside me.
I watch his hands on the steering wheel, gripping tight, knuckles white, his tattoos visible.
To my dismay, the journey is over just as I was starting to get comfortable enough to start a conversation.
Matteo pulls into the parking lot outside my apartment complex, cuts the engine off and turns to me.
I'm about to ask him if everything’s okay when my gaze falls to his tattoos again.
He catches me staring. “You can touch them if you want.”
“Touch what?” I cry in exasperation.
“My tattoos. You know you want to.”
I fold my arms, defiant that I will do no such thing.
His mouth turns up at the corners. “Don’t be shy, Elizabeth. Touch me.”
He splays out his wrists for me to look at. There's no point in me even denying it because this man knows me too well.
Every cell in my body vibrates. He’s doing this deliberately.
Turning me on. Setting my insides on fire.
My mind is in full turmoil. It’s the way he says it, and how his voice reverberates inside my chest. When he says my name like that, soft, teasing and seductive, my breasts turn heavy, and a throbbing starts between my thighs.
I press them together, and obey him, anyway, lightly running my fingers along his wrists.
“Family and truth,” I croak out, my fingers lightly tracing the inked inscription.
“Hmmm.” He murmurs. “That feels nice.”
I look up to find his eyes dark and glistening, on me. It's so intimate here, shut away from the world, but not trapped. Just sitting, inches away from him while light rain trickles down the windscreen, blurring the outside world away.
“How did you get that?” he asks. He reaches out with his hand, as if he’s about to touch the scar just above my eyebrow, but he doesn’t lay a finger on me.
I wish he had.
“This?” I lightly brush my finger over it. “I got it when I was climbing onto a garage roof to steal a better Wi-Fi signal from a neighbor. I had to finish a coding assignment for school, but I slipped and hit the gutter, and split my eyebrow open.” I wince just thinking about it.
“It must have hurt real bad.” This time his finger lightly touches it, and my breath stills.
“I-it could have been worse,” I say, while my insides suddenly ignite at his brief touch.
He quickly moves his hand back to the safety of the steering wheel. “You nearly cracked your skull for homework?”
“I got top marks, so I have no regrets.”
He has a curious grin on his face. “You’re something else, you know that?”
I smile, but it fades when I catch his expression. For a second, he's not laughing anymore. His gaze lingers on me, intense and unreadable, and my pulse stutters. I wonder if he's seeing me the same way I've started seeing him.
I'm not panicked or scared now, cocooned in the intimacy of the moment. In him. His scent. His warmth. My lips part, and I exhale a shaky breath.
“You might want to get inside your apartment,” he says, his voice rougher now, as if he's having problems getting his words out.
But I don't want to move from here, and I can't believe he wants me to. So I stay exactly where I am, suspended between hope and uncertainty, my pulse thundering in my ears. Every fiber in my body pushing me toward him.
“Elizabeth,” his voice is so husky now, I feel a throb between my thighs. “If you stay in my car, I can't guarantee that I won't touch you back.”
I hear a sound, I think it came from me. A soft mewl. My name sounds different on his lips. A warning. A plea. A last shred of restraint. The look in his eyes steals what little common sense I have left.
Slowly, reluctantly, I pull my hand away and reach for the door, my gaze lingering on his mouth for a few more reckless seconds. I'm either going to do something stupid or—
“Your neighbor's curtains are twitching.” He lowers his head, and looks up beyond my shoulder.
Arthur.
“I'm going.” I open the door and pause before I get out. “Thank you.”
“You're welcome.”
I rush to get inside but he doesn't drive off. He waits until I'm safely inside.