Chapter 17 Seventeen
Elena's POV
I had a routine. A small rebellion of order in my chaos. A morning walk along the eastern cliff path, just as the sun fully cleared the sea. The air was clean there. For twenty minutes, I could pretend I was just a woman on a hike, not a prisoner on a ledge.
He knew. Of course he knew.
The next morning, he intercepted me where the path narrowed between two jagged rocks. He wasn’t in a suit. He was just… finished. Shirtless. Sweat gleamed on the hard planes of his chest and stomach, tracing the lines of muscle that tightened as he breathed. Low-slung gray sweatpants hung from his hips. He was a vision of raw, physical power, still steaming in the cool air.
My steps faltered. My breath caught. And then my eyes, traitors that they were, flicked down. The evidence of his arousal was blatant, pressing against the thin fabric. A hot wave of shame and pure, undiluted want flooded me, burning my face. I forced my gaze back to his, but it was too late. He’d seen me look.
He stepped closer. The heat coming off his body was a wall. I could smell him: salt, clean sweat, and him. My heart hammered against my ribs, a wild bird trying to escape.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked. His voice was rough, unused. It scraped over my skin.
I couldn’t form a word. I just stared at him, trapped.
He bent his head. His lips didn’t touch me, but they were so close to my ear I felt their shape in the air. His hot breath fanned my skin, and a violent shiver racked my body.
“I haven’t slept well since a night in a penthouse,” he whispered, the words a dark, intimate secret for me alone. “I keep dreaming of green silk.”
Then he was gone. He stepped around me and walked back up the path toward the house, moving with a lazy, powerful grace that made my throat tight.
I stood rooted to the spot. The crash of the waves below was nothing compared to the roar in my ears. My skin felt hypersensitive, every place his breath had touched screaming. The image of him all sweat-slicked, wanting, haunted by our night together, was burned behind my eyes.
He wasn’t just playing a game anymore. He was showing me his hand. And it was a hand that held me, even in his dreams.
I was in so much trouble.
MATTEO
The training was necessary. A purge. I’d spent a night restless, her taste on my tongue, the memory of her shove tingling in my hands. I needed the physical exhaustion to quiet the need. It didn’t work.
I knew her path. I timed it perfectly.
Seeing her round the corner, her face still soft with morning solitude, was a punch to the gut. The stubborn set of her shoulders, the focused line of her mouth. I wanted to muss that focus. I wanted to be the only thing in her world.
I didn’t cover up. Let her see the animal. Let her see what her defiance woke in me.
The flicker of her eyes down my body was a victory sweeter than any business deal. The blush that followed was even better. Honest. Unpracticed.
When I stepped close, the heat between our bodies was a living thing. She didn’t retreat. She held her ground, breathing fast. A warrior facing a beast.
My question was pointless. We both knew why we were here. The rough sound of my own voice betrayed me. The control was thinner today.
Leaning down to her ear was a test of my own willpower. I wanted to bite that delicate shell. I wanted to pull her against the evidence of my need and let her feel every hard inch.
Instead, I gave her the truth. A stripped-bare piece of it.
I keep dreaming of green silk.
It was the most vulnerable sentence I’d ever spoken. It wasn’t a calculated line. It was just true. The green silk was a ghost in my sleep, a phantom feeling of her wrapped around me.
I left before I did something we’d both regret. Like take her right there against the sun-warmed rock, with the sea as our witness.
Walking away was agony. Every cell in my body was tuned to her, screaming to go back. I felt her eyes on my back. I hoped she was looking. I hoped she saw the tension in my shoulders, the barely-leashed want in my retreat.
Back in the cold silence of the compound, the sweat cooled on my skin. The sly part of my mind was absent. The man was front and center, aching and obsessed.
She was under my skin. A beautiful, maddening fever. The game was supposed to be about control. But in that moment on the path, with her wide eyes on me, I wasn't sure who was controlling whom.
The next move was hers. I’d shown her my hunger. I’d given her a piece of my insomnia.
Would she use it as a weapon? Or would she feed it?
The not knowing was a new kind of torture. And I was starting to crave it.