Page 30 of Read This Before the Villain falls in Love with You

I pushed lightly against his shoulder, though my fingers remained bunched in his jacket. "I can walk on my own, Luca."

He pulled me flush against his side. "I know you can walk. I am holding onto you anyway."

He spun me around and steered me toward the exit corridor, matching my stride while keeping his arm locked like a vise around my middle. Enzo shouted something behind us about security tapes and body bags. Luca kicked the double doors shut with the heel of his boot and kept marching us down the dimly lit hallway.

"Stop dragging me around like a sack of potatoes," I hissed, my shoulder bumping his ribs with every rapid step. "I told you I am fine!"

Luca snapped, his arm tightening around my ribs as he hauled me forward. "You looked like you were going into shock. I am getting you somewhere safe."

I looked up into his tense face. "I was not in shock, I was just trying not to vomit. Watching someone get stabbed right in front of me is not exactly part of my normal workday."

"You talk way too much when you are scared," he muttered, yanking me sideways into a dark stone corner.

"I talk because you people are insane!" I countered, grabbing a handful of his shirt.

He shoved me back into the arched recess, planting his hands on either side of my head against the cold stone. His chest pressed directly over mine, trapping me between the solid wall and his furnace heat. His dark eyes drilled into mine, hot and dangerous.

"You were three feet away from a man with a knife," he said, his voice dropping into a harsh rasp that rattled through my ribs. "Your whole body is shaking. Your lips are pale. And you are still trying to argue with me. Shut up and breathe."

I gripped his lapels and pulled him down close, my breath shallow. "Arguing is the only thing keeping me from falling apart right now, Moretti. If you wanted a sweet girl who faints when she sees blood, you should have grabbed the right woman from the street."

"I do not care about her," he whispered against my mouth, his warm hand slipping under the edge of my sweater to press against my skin. "I care that you are safe. I want you away from the blood. And I want you to stop driving me crazy before I lose my temper."

I lifted my chin and pressed my hips straight against his front. "Then stop talking and do something. Or can you only bark orders from behind a desk?"

His jaw clenched, and whatever leash he held snapped clean in two. He took my mouth with a rough, hungry brutality that stole the oxygen straight out of my lungs. His tongue pushed past my lips, demanding and possessive, and I parted for him instantly because fighting his gravity was useless. His hand slid higher up my chest, thumb brushing across the sensitive underside of my breast. A broken gasp caught in my throat, and he swallowed the sound, nipping my bottom lip hard enough to draw a sharp whimper before licking the sting away.

"Luca." My nails dug through his shirt into his broad shoulders as I gasped against his jaw. "Your brother just killed someone in the next room and you are pinning me against a wall. You are totally crazy."

Luca pressed his mouth against my neck, lifting my leg up around his waist. "I am making sure you are awake and alive." He rolled his hips hard against mine, making my head spin. "Feel that? Look at me. Forget the dead man on the floor. Focus on me."

I clung to his coat as heat rushed all the way through me. "I can feel you. Do you do this every time someone tries to break into your house?"

He let out a rough laugh against my skin, driving his hips forward until my knees went weak. "Keep talking like that. See what happens when I get you behind a locked door."

"Is that a promise? Because I still hate you for bringing me here in the first place." My breath caught as the fear melted into a dark, heavy ache.

He nipped at the spot where my shoulder met my neck. "You can hate me all you want." His hand squeezed my chest, fingers drawing a soft cry against his ear. "Later. When we are safe. Right now I have to get you out of this hall before more men show up."

I gripped his jaw in both hands and pulled his face down into another searing, filthy kiss, refusing to let him hold all the leverage. He groaned deep in his chest, pressing his heavy erection relentlessly against the seam of my jeans until my whole body ached with want. For ten seconds there was only heat, friction, and the scent of gunpowder and citrus on his skin. Then he pulled back, chest heaving as he stared down at me with dilated eyes.

"Enough." He lowered my leg back to the stone floor, his breathing ragged. His fingers slid from my chest back to my waist, settling in a firm, unyielding clamp. "Walk with me."

He steered me down the corridor, and this time I did not offer any witty objections. My lips stung from his stubble, and my pulse beat hot and erratic against my ribs. Behind us in the greenhouse, Enzo was scrubbing out the reality of our new war. Ahead of us, the estate echoed with guards shouting orders and doors locking down. Luca's grip never loosened from my side, holding me firmly against him as if he had no intention of ever letting me go.

Alarm began to chime softly in the distance. The Moretti family was locking down for battle, and Luca held me against his flank like the one asset he refused to lose under any circumstances.

Chapter 11

NORA

Sofia slipped into my room early with a tray of fresh tea, her eyes dark with fatigue. When she set the cup down, she mentioned that the conservatory was already clean, delivering the news the same way someone might casually mention the morning paper had arrived.

I walked down the east hall fifteen minutes later to see for myself. Through the arched glass doors, the whole room gleamed. The shattered glass panel had been replaced with clean panes, the stone floor smelled sharply of bleach and lemon oil, and the citrus trees stood upright in their pots as if no one had died under their leaves twelve hours ago. There was no blood, no scuffed tile, not even a single terracotta crumb left behind. The Moretti cleaning crew worked like ghosts, which told me everything I needed to know about how often people bled in this house.

Enzo showed up at my door at nine sharp, hair damp, a bandage taped along his ribs under his shirt, looking like a man who had slept exactly zero hours and regretted none of it.

"You busy?" He rolled right past me into the room like my consent was a legal fiction, dropping a scuffed leather binder onto the side table.