“Let me take you home,” I say. I don’t raise my voice. I don’t beg. I simply give her the truth as it falls—steady, certain, inevitable.
She hesitates, every argument flickering behind her eyes. Then she nods.
I don’t give her the chance to change her mind. I tighten my hold on her hand and lead us out of the lounge, her heels clicking behind me as if she’s being pulled by a force neither of us knowshow to resist. The night air is cold, sharp, irrelevant; I’m too consumed by the woman walking beside me.
A taxi pulls up and the moment we slide inside, our hands stay linked, as if letting go would undo everything we’ve been fighting for weeks.
The silence is thick, electric. I look at her—and she’s already looking at me.
Heat coils low and brutal in my spine.
She wets her lips with a slow, unconscious sweep of her tongue, and the movement hits me like a punch to the chest. Her gaze catches mine, darkening with something she tries—and fails—to hide. The air between us tightens, thick enough that I can almost feel it pressing against my skin.
I lift my hand and trace my thumb along her bottom lip, dragging lightly, savoring the softness, the warmth, the way she stills beneath my touch as if her entire body has been caught in a quiet, dangerous spell. Her breath trembles out of her, shallow and uneven, her chest rising a little too fast, her pulse fluttering at her throat like it’s trying to give her away.
I’m hanging on by threads. Fragile, fraying threads.
“Bella…” Her name leaves me in a rough whisper, shaped by longing and something deeper, something lethal.
She looks at me like she’s answering a question I haven’t voiced aloud.
And then the last thread snaps.
I pull her into my lap, one hand gripping the curve of her ass, the other sliding up her thigh. Our breaths collide, warm and urgent, before her mouth crashes into mine.
“Matteo…” she moans against my lips, and I’m lost.
Hands tangle. Teeth graze. Her body melts into mine with a kind of hunger that tears every ounce of restraint out by the roots.
When the cab slows, I throw cash at the driver without looking. We stumble out, still kissing, still grabbing at each other like the world’s about to end and we want to burn together.
I don’t care who sees.
In this moment,she belongs to me and I belong to her. No hesitation. No masks. No lines left unbroken.
Our mouths devour each other as we move through the lobby and into the dim utility corridor where no one lingers. I push the door open with my shoulder, pull her inside, and the world narrows to heat and want and the quiet, inexorable truth neither of us can outrun.
“I need you,” she whispers, tearing her lips from mine.
Her eyes are hazy with want, unfocused and wild, but she manages to glance toward the utility closet beside the elevator as if she’s already made her choice and I’m simply expected to follow. I turn just enough to see the narrow door, then look back at her, taking in the sight that nearly drags a groan out of my chest.
Her hair is mussed from my hands, her lips swollen from my mouth, and her pupils are blown wide with a hunger that borders on feral. She looks at me like the only thought left in her head istake me, like she’s seconds away from coming apart if I don’t touch her again.
“You’re taking too long,” she says, voice low and impatient, before she plants both hands on my chest and shoves me toward the door with a force that nearly knocks me off my footing.
It’s all the invitation I need.
We stumble into the closet, a tangled collision of mouths and hands, and the moment the door slams shut behind us she pushes me again, harder this time, pinning me against the back of it with the sheer intensity of her need.
My back hits the wood with a deep, hollow thud. Before I can say a word she fists my shirt, drags me down, and crushes her mouth to mine. The kiss is a mess of heat and teeth and instinct, no rhythm, no hesitation, no thought—just pure, unfiltered want. Our mouths collide like we’re trying to consume each other, like every second apart has been starving us.
Her kiss is a warning. A challenge. A declaration of exactly how far she’s willing to go.
I answer by gripping her ass with both hands and lifting her clean off the ground, her legs locking around my waist in a single, fluid motion. I walk us backward until her spine hits the opposite wall. The metal shelves rattle, one box clattering to the floor, but neither of us so much as flinches.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, bella,” I murmur against her mouth, my voice dark and ragged with restraint that’s hanging by a thread.
“I’m not scared of you,” she whispers, biting my lower lip hard enough to send heat shooting down my spine. “I should be. But I’m not.”
