Chapter Twenty-Five #2
Pushing to my feet, I arch a brow. “I’ll be out that door faster than you can haul yourself out of that pool.”
He doesn’t even blink. “How far do you think you’d get?”
Well, hell. He’s not wrong. Compared to the villa, there are only a handful of guards stationed here. But that’s because his enforcers are planted all over this neighborhood like roots. All of them watching.
Nope, I wouldn’t make it very far.
When I resignedly sit back down and pick up a strawberry instead, he flashes me a wicked, self-satisfied smile, then pushes off the ledge and glides back into the water. Effortless, graceful, entirely in control.
After another several minutes of swimming, he disappears beneath the surface and doesn’t come back up.
The quiet stretches on too long, prompting me to get up and go peer over the edge of the pool. He’s sitting cross-legged at the bottom, meditation style.
Impressive breath control.
“Show-off,” I mutter as I return to the table, half-jealous. My lungs would revolt at the mere idea of doing that for fun.
I nibble idly on a scoop of almond butter, wondering not for the first time what, exactly, I’m doing here.
Eventually, Stefano emerges, hauling himself up out of the pool. And...wow.
It’s not polite to stare, but…wow.
There goes the last 0.0001% of restraint I was barely clinging to. Why is it always the things we can’t have that are so impossibly hard to resist?
Those abs…that ridiculous Adonis belt…that defined chest…that very noticeable bulge behind his swim trunks—
“Don’t stare my skin off.” A sly grin slants his lips. “I need it to stay warm.”
I’m not a blusher. I’m not. But there’s definite heat blooming under my cheeks and along my neck, that I can only hope isn’t obvious.
His eyes doesn’t leave me, but it’s that little smile sitting on his sexy lips that makes me wary. And his mood, it’s…different. That dark, coiled, dangerous energy that emanates from him at all times is…nowhere to be found.
In its place is something unsettlingly soft. Light. Relaxed. Content.
I don’t trust it. Not for a second.
He snags a towel off one of the lounge chairs and starts drying his hair, never taking his eyes off me, that damn smile still dancing on his lips.
Unnerved, I push to my feet. “Why did you send for me?”
“Because I wanted to see you.”
“Why?”
“Because I like looking at you.”
“Like I’m your toy?”
The mischief in his eyes ignites. “Yeah. Like that.”
There it is. The truth. Or at least the version he wants me to believe.
He’s been toying with me this whole time. And I let him. Fell for the lie that he might actually be interested in me. That a man like him would ask to kiss me. Would care about “getting it right” with me.
Usually, I’m the one pulling the wool over everyone else’s eyes. But if there’s anyone who could trap me, strip me down, and expose everything I’ve worked so hard to hide…
It’s Stefano Castello.
My Achilles heel.
“Go to hell,” I spit, grabbing my bag and turning to leave.
But he catches up to me, hooks a finger through a loop on my jeans and yanks me backward until I slam up against his chest. His breath hot against the shell of my ear as he whispers, “So you do want to be chased after all.”
“I’m not your damn toy,” I hiss.
“What are you, then?” he murmurs, pressing in closer. “Do you even know?”
“I’m—”
“When I tell you you’re beautiful, you reject the words like they’re poison.” He dusts the tips of his fingers down my arm. “I tell you you’re royalty, you reject that, too. So tell me, Delilah…what are you?”
“A human being?” I bite out.
“What kind of human being?”
My stomach dips. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“When I call you a worm, when I call you nothing, you don’t even flinch,” he continues, voice low. “You accept scorn and belittlement, but reject praise.” He leans in, voice like velvet-wrapped steel. “So tell me. What kind of ‘human’ do you believe you are?”
What the hell kind of question is this?
My throat tightens. “Let me go.”
He chuckles lightly, the sound brushing against my skin. “You’re not as helpless as you pretend to be, little liar. If you really wanted to be free of me, you would be.”
Still, he lets go and steps back.
For a moment, I just stand there, finding my equilibrium and steadying my breathing. Slow, measured. Reclaiming whatever pieces of myself I can.
And then I turn.
Stefano watches me with impassive eyes now, hands gripping both ends of the towel slung around his neck, as though he’s restraining himself.
“Am I free to leave?” I ask.
A muscle ticks in his jaw. Whatever he’s feeling, it’s turned inward. Punishing. But he gives a sharp nod.
“No one will stop me if I do?”
He snorts. “You’re not that important, ‘human.’ Go.”
He turns and walks away from me. Long, unhurried strides toward the back of the house.
I claim I’m not his plaything, righteously indignant about being toyed with. And yet, instead of storming out to protect what’s left of my fragile heart, I…jog after him. Like I’m tethered.
Pathetic. Spineless. That’s me now.
I get close enough to catch his pinky finger. Just barely. A loose, tentative grasp. But it’s enough. Because he stops. Instantly. Like he has to.
And as if pulled by a force neither of us can resist, he turns to face me.
“Why am I here, Stefano?” I ask.
“I already told you,” he snips with a bite of frustration. Though it seems to be more with himself than me.
“Tell me again.”
Softness seeps into his dark eyes as they sweep over my face.
That darkness in him dims to something deeper, quieter.
“I’m addicted to looking at you. To being near you.
To breathing your air.” He brushes his knuckles across my cheek and I lean into the touch, helpless.
“You’re fucking exquisite, my little liar.
I look at you and every inch, every curve, every line, every strand of hair on your skin… all of it…all of it feels like mine.”
Because I am.
God, why am I so weak for his lies? I search his face for signs of artfulness, any hints of manipulation, any cues that I’m being played like a fiddle.
But there’s…nothing. Because he’s Stefano.
The one man I’ve never been able to accurately read.
Because he’s too good. Too cunning. Too skilled at misdirection.
And I’m too undone by him.
Dubious as I am, my so-called restraint is on E now. Running on fumes. Leaving me unguarded, exposed, vulnerable. And I hate myself for it. He could do whatever he wants to me right now.
Like a fool, starved and desperate, I lap up his words and melt at his feet.
“Okay,” I whisper. “I’ll stay.”
His gaze drops to my mouth, and his hand comes up to trace the curve of my bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. So soft, so slow, borderline reverential.
Weak in the knees, weak in will, I tip my chin up. Hoping he’ll ask to kiss me again.
Ask me. Kiss me. Please.
“I lied,” he confesses, voice hoarse. “I wouldn’t have let you leave.”
Of course not. He merely left the rope just long enough to see if I’d run. If I could.
Because he knew I wouldn’t. He knows I’m into him. Want him.
And my pathetic ass didn’t use an inch of that rope. I just caved on the spot like a punctured bounce house.
A sudden crack of thunder explodes overhead, sharp and guttural, as if the sky itself is splitting open. It’s immediately followed by a phone ringing from somewhere deeper in the house.
“I’ve been waiting for that call. I’ve got to go take it,” Stefano says, already turning toward the sound, walking off. “There are things for you in my room upstairs. Make yourself at home.”
Before I can ask what the hell he means by things, he’s gone.