Chapter 64: LXIV. “You don’t scare me.”
Matteo's words cut through the haze of anger and desire like a slap, one that hurts even more than if he had actually hit me in the face. And for a moment, one that feels longer than it really is, the words vanish from my tongue.
Heat rises in my cheeks, but I can't tell if it's from anger, embarrassment, or arousal.
He watches the way my silence folds in on itself, his chest heaving as if he just ran through hell, and maybe he did, because that’s what I am to him—hell, salvation, punishment… a sick loop he can’t crawl out of, no matter how hard he claws at the walls.
I suck in a slow breath, blinking once, trying to swallow the heat clawing its way up my throat, but it’s no use. Matteo sees it, smells it.
His hand slips from my jaw to my throat again, and his thumb brushes along the side, slow this time, almost tender but not quite. Every part of me screams for more, for relief from this need that clouds my mind and makes me forget everything.
Forget that Matteo shouldn’t be here.
That he shouldn’t be kissing me again or touching me…
Because I swore it was over, damn it.
I swore it was just anger, just resentment, that the hurt he planted in me had taken root so deep it drained every feeling I had for him. And yet, when he breathes over my lips again, my body betrays every promise I made to myself.
My hips shift against him, chasing the heat, the pressure, the twisted ache only he knows how to pull from me.
“Go ahead. Try to lie. Tell me you’re not just a bitch who uses people.”
Matteo’s thumb presses into my throat just enough to make me swallow harder, his eyes locked on mine like he’s waiting, daring me to speak again, to deny him, to lie.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I grit out. “Don’t you stand there and act like some wounded saint, Matteo. I’m not the only one who uses people—”
“You don’t get to fucking twist this,” he snarls, his voice so low I feel it more than hear it. “You know damn well what you did.”
My mouth opens, but I don’t have a defense. Because he's right, isn't he? I did use him. I used his love, his obsession, his rage… every weapon he handed me, and in the end, I turned back on him. I sank my claws into his devotion and twisted it whenever I needed to feel like I still mattered to someone.
But it’s not like Matteo is a victim, either. That’s what makes my blood boil. He’s acting as if the fault is mine, even though I just lit the lighter he handed me.
“You used me, Marina. That’s how you are. You use people, and when they’re no longer useful, you toss them aside like spare parts,” he says, voice low but sharp.
“That’s rich,” I scoff, “coming from a man who treats life like it means nothing.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I immediately regret them.
They make Matteo’s jaw twitch and his mouth twist as if he’s biting down on something bitter. There’s a flicker in his eyes, but it’s not hurt or shock… something tight and mean, like I’ve touched a nerve I shouldn’t have.
“Oh, is that right? After everything I’ve done for you?”
He laughs, but there’s no humor in it… just that cold, hollow sound that makes the air feel heavier in my lungs.
“You know what… You can say whatever you want about me, Marina. But I have something you don’t.” He drags the silence out, watching my face like he’s waiting for something to crack. “Loyalty.”
“Fuck you,” I spit, the words trembling out, not from fear, but because rage and guilt don’t sit well in my chest—they burn, they choke, they rip through the throat like broken glass.
I push at his chest, hard, but he barely moves. Matteo’s body is a wall, and I hate how my fingers curl into his shirt instead of trying to push him away again.
“No, fuck you.” Matteo grabs my hair now, not entirely painfully, but firm enough to tilt my head up, making sure I can meet his eyes, even if that’s the last thing I want. “Fuck you, and Cesare’s plan. Fuck this fucking town, and that fucking Bianchi family.”
His mouth inches from mine again, but this time, he just stares at me, hard, brutal, like he’s trying to rip the truth out of my soul with his eyes alone, making my chest rise and fall with shallow, broken breaths.
I want to shove him. I want to slap him, claw at that perfect, infuriating face of his. But more than that, I want him to pin me down and fuck every lie out of me until I can’t remember why I ever said I didn’t need him.
That’s the damn effect Matteo Romano has on me.
“You think I’m done with you?” Matteo growls, his voice low and shaking with barely restrained fury. “That I’ll just watch you sell yourself to Bianchi while I sit in the shadows pretending I don’t want to fucking kill him?”
I hate how those words twist my stomach, how my thighs clench so tightly it almost hurts. I should fight back. I should spit in his face and scream that I’m not a thing to be claimed.
But my body doesn’t care about pride right now—it only cares about the heat pulsing between my legs, about the roughness of his voice, about the filthy promises behind it.
“You don’t get it, do you? I will gut him, Marina,” he hisses. “I don’t care about peace treaties… I will burn this city to the ground if he so much as touches a hair on your fucking head.”
“You don’t scare me,” I whisper, knowing it’ll only dig deeper, light the fuse already hissing between us. “I think you’re full of shit, Matteo.”
He chuckles, a sound too deep, almost truly amazed that melts me for a bit.
“Brave little bitch,” he whispers, almost fond. “You wanna burn? You want me to lose it?”
Matteo tilts my head more, angling my head so he could take my lips at any moment— “You want the fucking monster?”
I look into his eyes, my lips parting to answer him… but before any words slip from my mouth, Matteo slams his mouth onto mine with a groan that sounds more like a growl. This time there’s no restraint, no holding back. His tongue pushes past my lips as he owns them, trying to erase every word I’ve ever said, every filthy confession I threw in his face just to hurt him.
And now I can feel it. Matteo tastes more like himself than ever—like fury and tobacco and the sharp, dark taste of everything I should be running from.
He growls into the kiss, rough, wild, making me lose the last shreds of reason, grabbing my hip even harder, dragging, pulling, shaping me to him…
Then, slowly, with each brush of teeth, his anger starts to dissolve. Each aggressive gesture, every shove, every squeeze loses its fury and turns into something else—need, torturous, and desperate need.
And when he pulls back, tugging my swollen lower lip between his teeth softly, we both gasp, eyes dark with complicated, shadowy, overwhelming things.
“…Then, you will have it.”