Chapter 38 Thirty eight
Elena’s POV
I ran. My bare feet slapped the cold marble, the sound echoing my frantic heartbeat. I slammed my bedroom door shut and leaned against it, gasping. My skin was on fire. My whole body hummed with a dangerous, unfamiliar electricity. Everywhere his eyes had lingered earlier now burned.
I had never felt like this. This wasn’t just attraction. It was a deep, aching need that scared me with its intensity. It made my stubbornness feel like a thin paper shield. I wanted to forget every rule, every consequence. I just wanted him. I wanted him to chase me, to claim me, to make me forget my own name.
A soft knock at the door.
My breath hitched. Every part of me froze, then screamed. Don’t answer. Be strong.
My hand turned the knob. I pulled the door open.
He stood there. His eyes were dark, his chest rising and falling with a rhythm that matched my own. The evidence of his wanting was clear, straining against the fine fabric of his pants. The sight sent a fresh, hot wave of need crashing through me.
I didn’t think. I grabbed the front of his shirt, yanked him inside, and pushed him back against the closed door. My mouth found his.
His kiss wasn’t gentle. It was a takeover. A fierce, consuming answer to the chaos inside me. I hated how much I loved it. His hands were everywhere, moving with a certainty that felt like ownership, and a shameful part of me wanted to be owned.
When his mouth left my lips to trail down my neck, biting just enough to make me shiver, my resolve splintered. Then he took my breast in his mouth, right through my shirt, the wet heat searing me. A broken sound escaped my throat.
“Matteo,” I breathed. It was a warning and a plea all at once.
He didn’t listen to the warning. He pulled my top over my head, my bra following. The cool air was a shock, then his mouth was on me again, hot and demanding. His tongue swirled, his teeth grazed. Sensation arrowed straight to my core, making my legs weak.
He caught me, lifting me easily, carrying me to the bed. He laid me down, his gaze holding me pinned. There was no sly charm now. Just raw, predatory focus.
His mouth was relentless, worshipping my skin, drawing sounds from me I didn’t recognize. When his touch moved lower, past the waistband of my shorts, I stopped breathing. His fingers found the heart of my need, and I was already lost, soaked and aching for him.
He touched me with a skill that shattered thought. My world became his hands, his mouth, the building, coiling pleasure. When the first release broke over me, it was sharp and shocking. But he didn’t stop. He drew out another, and another, until I was trembling, begging, my fingers tangled in his hair.
“Please,” I gasped, the word raw. “I need you. Please.”
He rose above me then, his body a silhouette of power in the dim light. He was magnificent, and he was all mine in this stolen moment. When he finally joined us together, it was a revelation. A filling, stretching completeness that erased everything else. I cried out, my body arching to take all of him.
He moved, and it was a language we wrote together deep, frantic, tender. It was a surrender so complete it felt like freedom. In the storm of sensation, my stubborn pride melted away. There was only this. Only him.
After, as the tremors subsided, he held me. My body was sated, buzzing, but my mind was quiet for the first time in weeks. The guilt would come later. The fear would return with the dawn.
But tonight, in the dark, I had surrendered. And it felt like the most powerful choice I had ever made.
Matteo’s POV
She ran, but I felt her pull like a wire around my chest. That stubborn fire, that terrified need in her eyes—it was the most enticing thing I’d ever seen. She wasn’t running from me. She was running from the truth her own body was shouting.
I followed. I stood at her door, every muscle tight with anticipation. My control was a thin veneer. When she opened the door, flushed and breathless, that veneer cracked.
She was the one who pulled me inside, who pushed me against the door and kissed me with a fury that matched my own. Perfect. Her fire met mine, and for a moment, I let her believe she was in charge.
Then I took over.
Touching her was a revelation. Her skin was so soft. The sounds she made, little gasps and moans, were honest. She wasn’t performing. She was feeling. Unraveling. And I was the cause.
I took my time. I mapped her body with my hands and my mouth, learning what made her shudder, what made her cry out. I brought her to the edge once, twice, feeling her come apart under my touch. Each time was a victory. Each shattered breath was a song.
Her begging was the sweetest sound. “Please.” Not a demand from the stubborn woman, but a raw need from the one who had finally stopped fighting herself.
When I finally entered her, the fit was perfect. She was tight, hot, welcoming. Her eyes locked on mine, wide with shock and a dawning, profound rightness. This was no longer a game. This was a claiming. A joining.
I moved, setting a rhythm that was both possession and worship. She met me, move for move, her body a perfect mirror to my own hunger. In her arms, the sly calculations, the careful strategies, all fell away. There was only sensation. Only her.
Her final surrender, the way her body melted into mine as she found her peak, was the most powerful moment of my life. I followed her over, my own release a deep, shuddering conclusion.
After, holding her trembling body close, I felt a strange, quiet peace. The chemistry between us had been a constant, humming current. Now, it was a settled, deep connection. I had set out to seduce the stubborn bride. I had ended up utterly disarmed by the woman in my arms.
She thought she had surrendered. But as I lay there, her breath evening out against my chest, I knew the truth.
I had fallen right along with her.