“Only you,” he spits. He sounds like he hates the words as they leave his mouth.
I sag into the leather. It’s a win. A dark, pathetic win. This man isn’t capable of love, but a small part of me hopes that maybe he is.
“Do you want to feel touch? Real touch, Valerio?”
He scowls, looking at me like I’ve asked him to speak in tongues.
“I want to touch you,” I confess, trying to voice the request in a way that doesn’t trigger him. “Key word iswant. You aren’t forcing anything. I’m consenting. I want to give you this. I promise I showered. I know the filth is a trigger, but—”
“That’s the issue,” he snaps. “I hate the thought of anyone touching me. I see them as filthy, leaking, disgusting things. But I’d let you piss in my mouth, and I don’t know why.”
I try not to show how much I like that and wait patiently for his answer. He gives a stiff, jerky nod that makes my heart soar.
I slide across the sofa. I don’t stop until my thigh is inches from his. I reach out, waiting for him to flinch. He doesn’t—but he does go rigid.
I wrap my fingers around his bare hand.
Valerio lets out a sound that isn’t a breath—it’s a broken, animal hitch in his chest.
I move my hand up his arm, my thumb tracing his bicep. He’s shaking. His nervous system is being overloaded for the first time in its existence. He closes his eyes, his head falling back.
“Charlotte,” he whispers.
I move my hand to his shoulder, my nails lightly dragging over the skin. He winces, then leans into it. His grey sweatpants tent at his groin as he processes the sensation.
He’s a psychopath. He’s a monster. But under my hand, he’s just a man who has been cold for three decades.
And I’m the only thing in the world that’s warm.
Chapter Eleven
Valerio
Electricity.
That’s the only way I can describe it. A jolt of something so foreign that I flinch away instinctively. No one has touched me like this since before—not without pain.
“Shhh,” she murmurs. “It’s okay.”
The sensation is overwhelming. With each touch, the dormant organ in my chest stirs, one I’ve long believed was dead.My heart. It’s fluttering. Dancing.
Her other hand moves to my bare stomach. I tense, expecting revulsion, expecting the familiar urge to snap her wrist. Instead, warmth spreads through my midsection, pooling low in my gut.
“Relax,” she whispers, her breath warm against my ear. “Let yourself feel.”
Feel.As if I know how.
She traces the line of my thighs through my sweatpants.
“Can I suck it, Valerio? Can I be the first to show you pleasure?”
The notion of anyone else doing this—anyone else touching me, putting their mouth on me—would fill me with disgust. I would rip their throat out without a second thought.
But with Charlotte…
With Charlotte, all I feel is need. A desperate, primal hunger that overwhelms every defense mechanism I’ve ever constructed. I pull down my sweatpants at a speed that shocks even me.
I’m hard. Painfully so. And huge.
