Page 156 of Brutal Revenge

Matteo cocks a brow as a devilish smile crosses his face. “How about we start with my torso, and if things go well, we’ll look at other options. I don’t want to rush you.”

Stealing my chance to reply, he sits on the couch, leans back, then watches me with an eagle eye that makes me sweaty.

Opening the sketchbook, I pick up a pencil and start. The lines come slowly at first since my hands are a little shaky, but the longer I draw, the clearer everything becomes.

Over the next hour, I pay extra attention to his cut jawline, the curve of his mouth, and the shadows of his collarbone. I’ve never drawn a live subject before. I usually worked on objects or the movie stars that Hattie and I had clipped from magazines.

It feels almost too personal, like my tongue hasn’t traced the bumps I’m currently shading or seen the way they contract and release when he uses every muscle he owns to bring me to ecstasy. I’ve never felt so hot and bothered, and it’s not connected to how, stroke by stroke, I find parts of myself I lost years ago.

My grief was ugly, but this—him—is so beautiful it hurts.

The ache announces it’s time to stop running from old memories and start making new ones.

“You need to lose the pants.”

“Excuse me,” Matteo says, head angled as if he’s hard of hearing.

He heard me. I know he did. Not only did his breath hitch, but the crotch of his sweats became snug.

“Pants, Ruso. Lose them.Now.”

I take a mental note to go back and add more white shading to his eyes when they sparkle brightly as he murmurs, “Yes, ma’am.”

I’ve seen him naked more times than I have fingers and toes, but when he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his sweatpants and drags them down his thighs, my pussy clenches. One man shouldn’t possess so much sexiness. It should make him the most arrogant, insensitive jerk in the world, yet that logic skipped Matteo.

He’s gorgeous, his body is divine, and his cock should come with its own zip code, but his heart is the biggest and most beautiful thing about him.

I can’t let him know that yet, though. He doesn’t need words to hear my thanks. He needs to feel my appreciation.

“Now wrap your hand around your cock.”

“’Cuse me?” He either genuinely didn’t hear me this time, or he’s in shock. “Have you heard of manners?” he says, and I realize it’s a bit of both.

“Wrap your hand around your cock…please.”

His hand barely moves for his cock before he drags it back away. “Can’t. If I touch my cock, I’ll think of you. If I think of you, I’ll want to touch you. If I touch you, even a little, I won’t stop anytime soon. You’re not ready for that yet.” I scoff, but he acts ignorant. “You’re close. My little tiger is in there, waiting to break free, but you’re not there yet?—”

I stuff the remainder of his reply down his throat by crossing the room in three quick strides, propelling onto my tippy-toes and kissing him hard on the mouth.

“Fuck… no… taste so good.”

I frown during his first two words, then smile over his lips during his final three.

With his hand flattened on my back, he pulls me closer, but he leaves my mouth to do all the work. Undeterred, I slide my tonguebetween his lips, deepening our kiss. He tastes like the breakfast we shared and a palate that will always solely belong to him.

This is as far as we’ve gone in days. I couldn’t get the images of Hattie’s assault out of my head to ever think I’d enjoy something like this again, but heat flashes through me so fast it burns my neck.

As I drag my tongue along the roof of Matteo’s mouth, tasting every corner, I thrust my hips forward, hissing when I feel how hard he is.

I lean in close, my erect nipples scraping his chest, and whisper, “Please… fuck me.”

“La mia?—”

“I need you.” His forehead drops to mine, and he growls. “And you need me too.”

The horrible images of my best friend’s assault aren’t the only ones that have been playing on repeat for the past five days. Matteo’s expression when I spun to face him for the first time and the pure fear in his eyes have burned themselves into my retinas.

He believed he was going to witness the death of a loved one again.