I tilt my chin up, refusing to break eye contact. "I understand."
A dark, feral satisfaction crosses his face. The rigid control he has been holding onto by a thread finally snaps. The restraint he showed earlier is gone. He warned me he was dangerous. He warned me he was going to consume me.
Both hands drop to my waist. He grips my hips with bruising force.
"Mine," he growls, right against my lips.
He hauls me off the counter.
A gasp tears from my throat as my feet leave the ground. I wrap my legs instinctively around his thick waist. My arms go around his neck, my fingers burying into the coarse hair at the nape of his neck. He supports my entire weight with terrifying ease, adjusting his grip to cup my heavy thighs.
He carries me out of the kitchen.
The penthouse blurs past us. Dark walls, shadows, the distant hum of the city outside the bulletproof glass. None of it matters. The only thing anchoring me to reality is the massive, solid wallof his chest against my breasts. His heart hammers against my ribs. It is a steady, violent rhythm.
He kicks the master bedroom door all the way open. It slams against the wall with a loud crack.
The room is cast in shadows. The king-sized bed dominates the space. He doesn't hesitate. He crosses the floor in three long strides and tosses me onto the mattress.
I bounce against the plush duvet. Before I can even scramble backward, he is following me down. He crawls over the edge of the bed, a massive predator stalking a very willing prey.
The contact is a live wire, grounding me to the mattress even as my blood begins to boil. He shifts his brutal weight, his heavy thigh sliding between my knees to firmly pin me in place.
"No more waiting," he says. The gravel in his voice is unapologetic. "No more dry humping in the kitchen like a goddamn teenager. I am taking you apart."
A violent thrill shoots straight down to my toes. "Then do it."
His eyes blaze. The challenge in my voice is the exact catalyst he needs.
He grabs the hem of my ruined tank top. With one swift, brutal motion, he pulls it over my head and tosses it onto the floor. My bra follows a second later. The clasp snaps under the urgent force of his fingers.
The cool air of the bedroom hits my bare skin. I arch my back slightly, suddenly hyper-aware of my curves. I am soft. I am rounded in places the magazines say I shouldn't be. Every ex-boyfriend I ever had made sure to mention it with a casual cruelty.
Matteo Costa looks at my naked chest like I am a religion he just discovered.
"Perfect," he breathes.
He drops his head. His thick, coarse beard scratches exquisitely against my collarbone. His mouth opens over my left breast. The hot, wet heat of his tongue swirls directly over the sensitive peak.
A sharp moan rips from my throat. My fingers tangle in his dark hair, gripping the strands tightly. He sucks hard, pulling the sensitive flesh into his mouth, his teeth grazing the peak with agonizing precision. He moves to the right, giving it the exact same worship.
His massive hands trace the shape of my body. He isn't trying to make me smaller. He spans the width of my hips, his thumbs pressing into the soft indentation of my waist, his palms covering the swell of my stomach. He squeezes my curves with a dark, territorial possessiveness.
"Every inch of this," he mutters against my skin. "Mine."
He moves down my body. His heavy hands grip the waistband of my sleep shorts and my soaked panties at the same time. He drags them down my legs in one aggressive pull. He tosses the clothes over his shoulder.
I am naked beneath him.
He shifts backward, kneeling between my spread legs. He takes a long, agonizing moment to look at me. His gaze tracks from my flushed face, down my full breasts, over the soft curve of my stomach, settling directly on the wetness gleaming between my thighs.
The hunger in his dark eyes is feral. There is no civilization left in this room.
"Matteo," I whisper. The sound is a desperate plea.
He leans forward. His hands grip the backs of my thighs, lifting my hips off the mattress and pulling me closer to the edge of the bed until I am exposed to his mouth.
"Open for me," he commands.
