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“How’s your head?” I asked, watching as a light warmed his eyes.
“You mean after you clocked me over the head with a toilet tank cover and every bit of strength in your body?” he asked, lips twitching.
“Yes, after that,” I agreed, making a low, throaty, way too appealing chuckle escape him.
“It’s better. I don’t think you broke anything.”
“You’d have deserved it,” I insisted, chin raising.
Another of those chuckles moved through him, and it was right about then that I realized his thumb was gently sliding over the inside of my wrist. It wasn’t an area I would have called overly sensitive before, but there was no denying I felt every delicious move of his finger right then. Or that the sensation sent a little shiver through my insides.
“You’re not wrong,” he agreed. If I wasn’t completely mistaken, I was almost certain his voice had dropped a bit lower, the sound something deep and rich and almost, I don’t know, intimate.
There must have been more of that short-circuiting in my brain.
It was the only explanation for what burst out of me next.
“Trying to seduce me isn’t going to make me go back on our financial deal.”
I’d never wanted a portal to hell to open up and swallow me whole. I was pretty sure at that moment that I would prefer Satan himself tap-dancing over my back in pointed steel cleats than having to face Matteo Grassi after uttering those words to him.
“Trying to seduce you, hm?” he asked as his thumb changed direction, sliding up and down the inside of my forearm. His gaze lowered, watching the motion, and I appeared to be completely frozen in place, staring at the side of his stupidly attractive face as all the air suddenly felt sucked out of the room. My chest felt tight and my head felt fuzzy from the deprivation. “Is that what I’m trying to do?” he asked in this barely-there voice that had goosebumps rising up over seemingly every inch of my body. When his gaze flicked back up to mine, I wasn’t prepared for the intensity I found there. “Is it working?” he asked as my belly just flip-flopped harder than it had ever flip-flopped before.
“I, ah,” I started, needing to swallow hard because my mouth was suddenly as dry as sand.
“I’ve wondered since the first time I passed you in the hall,” he said, leaning a little closer, his nose damn near brushing my neck. “What perfume are you wearing?” he asked, taking a deep breath, breathing me in.
And I swear on all that is holy, I never felt more turned on than I did right at that moment.
I’m counting full-on sexual encounters here.
Yeah.
That was how sexy this man was.
This very dangerous man.
A very dangerous man I needed to stay the hell away from because things were complicated enough as it was.
“It’s, um, blackberry vanilla body spray,” I managed to tell him even though my words felt tight and small.
I was not getting all hot and bothered over the man who’d kept me in his basement, was I? That was a whole new level of crazy.
I mean, fine, sure, I didn’t have the best dating track record. But it was full of fuckboys and do-nothing guys and the emotional illiterate. You know… douchebags, but not outright bad guys. Certainly not criminals.
I could forgive myself for giving Greg three months of my life even though he literally gamed through my birthday then was mad at me for being mad about it. I could even forgive myself for being hung up on Thomas, the immature mama’s boy who couldn’t have found my clitoris with a map and GPS.
But this?
No.
No, I absolutely would not be able to forgive myself for letting it go any further than it already had.
Thankfully, the Universe was hearing my cries for help. Because my phone started ringing in my back hand, surprising me enough to jerk away from Matteo.
I shoved the cash into my waistband, pulling my shirt over it, before looking at my phone, finding myself actually relieved to see our current demanding bride’s name on the screen.
“Client,” I said, waving the screen in his face, then making a wide berth around him as I made my way to the door and out into the hall while answering.
I mean, what the hell was that?
That was what was on my mind for the rest of the day, even after I saw Matteo collecting his things, and making his way toward the parking lot.
Yes, I watched him.
Like I said, I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me.
But I guess it was a good thing I’d been watching him.
Because no one would have known otherwise.
I wasn’t the only person watching Matteo Grassi.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Josie
I didn’t have Matteo Grassi’s personal cell phone number.
I mean, who did?
I didn’t even know if Cara did. But even if she did, I couldn’t exactly go up to her and ask her for Matteo’s personal number. She would want to know why.
