I should hate Matteo for locking me up, but my icy heart is slowly melting away for him. I know I shouldn’t have these feelings. I know I shouldn’t ask.
But I still can’t help myself because I know how badly he wants revenge. “What did you do?”
“I took his fingers.” Matteo clenches his jaw while still breathing ragged breaths from the unchained anger. “He will never hurt you again. I swear until my last dying breath.”
He wants Lucio to suffer just as badly as I do, yet he did this all for me.
“You did that for me?”
Is it wrong to smile?
“I did it because it was the right thing to do,” he replies.
But it isn’t just the right thing. He knew this would set off a chain reaction that’s impossible to put out. Hemutilated Lucio. His whole family will get up in arms.
He just started a war for me.
Matteo closes his eyes and grumbles to himself before he turns around and marches toward his shower. “I need to cool off.”
“Wait, but aren’t you hurt?”
I can’t help but slowly take steps toward the bathroom, lured in by the mere idea of him.
No one has ever done something like that for me before.
Absolutely no one.
He rubs his hands so roughly under the water in the sink that I fear he might get abrasions, so I grab his hands and stop him. He glances at me from over his shoulder, blood and war marring his face. But I’ve seen enough of this man to know he will always find a way to win.
And something about that is just so damn alluring.
I grab a towel lying next to the sink and dip it into the water, then softly brush away the blood off his cheeks, nose, and lips, lingering as they pull down with every stroke I apply. He doesn’t resist, but the stares, God, those needy stares are going to eat me alive.
Stay focused, Stella. You can do this.
I dip the towel under the water again and slide it down his neck, carefully removing the blood until there isn’t a trace left of his crimes. But when I get to his shirt and unbutton the top one, he grabs my wrist and stops me from going any further.
He clears his throat. “Don’t.”
When I was at my lowest, with all my pain on full display, he didn’t try to put me down any further. He helped me breathe through my panic attack until it subsided, and that’s something no one has ever done for me before.
And now it’s time for me to thank him for that.
I throw him a look. “Let me help.”
His lips grow thinner as if he doesn’t trust my offer. “Why?”
“Because you helped me.”
After a stare down, he finally releases me and lets me continue unbuttoning his shirt. It slides off his thick shoulders with difficulty, blood caking the fabric, but that’s not the reason it’s hard for me to focus. It’s the thick slab of abs revealed underneath when the shirt drops to the floor.
I pat the bloodied and tattooed skin down with the wet towel, trying not to be affected, while his breath picks up speed. His eyes lower along with mine, following every trace I leave, as if every single one of my touches makes him hungry for more.
Whatever you do, don’t fall for the man who keeps you locked up in his home.
I slip my hand down his tattooed chest and the ridges of his abs, all the way to his pants, where I dab off the remaining splotches of blood until nothing is left of the scene of the crime.
My eyes clamor up to his, but the moment our eyes connect, I have trouble looking anywhere else. It’s like I’mdrowning in an endless vortex of his life, and there’s no stopping it, nor do I know if I can stop my own heart from throbbing faster and faster the closer he gets.
