Page 28 of The Cost of Corruption

“Matteo…” I started—but quickly trailed off.

What was there to say? My fantasies about him had been my deepest shame for years now. Openly admitting to them felt like confessing to a crime. A mortal sin.

One there could be no forgiveness for.

But still, I had to saysomething.

“I had a crush on you back in school.” It was the best I could come up with. And, technically, it was the truth. “But that was years ago. We were just kids.”

His inscrutable dark eyes stayed on mine as he slowly lowered me down the length of his body until my knees rested on the edge of the bed. “We’re not kids anymore.”

No, we weren’t.

The proof of that was standing right in front of me.

A decade ago, Matteo had been long and lanky. He might not have grown any taller in the last ten years—not that I could tell, at least, but he’d certainly filled out.

This close, the broad expanse of his chest filled my view. His muscles had grown and defined.

He’d become the true definition of a man.

Powerfully masculine and brutally protective.

Not to mention possessive.

Drawing in a deep breath, his chest expanded even further. I shuddered in anticipation as he caressed his hands down myarms. Even through the thick wool of my habit, I swore I could still feel the heat of his touch.

“So what happened to this obsession?” he asked.

“Crush,” I corrected him. “I got over it.”

“Did you?” A flash of a smile teased his lips, making it clear he didn’t believe the blatant lie. “What a shame. I like the idea of you keeping yourself warm with thoughts of me all these years. Of amusing yourself during boring days with forbidden fantasies of everything we could have done to each other.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I said, but my voice shook under the weight of the falsehood.

“Then what was it like?” His touch grew harder, more insistent. Light caresses changed to deep pressure. “Tell me, Chastity. Did you wait until night? Until it was dark, and you were alone in your room?”

“Matteo, please.”

“Please,what?” he asked with a smirk. “Stop? Or keep going? Ten years is a long time to live on nothing but fantasies. But if you tell me what pictures played in your head, I could help you bring those dreams to life.”

Did he know what he was offering? I wasn’t sure I could handle that level of pleasure.

Or intimacy.

Opening my private inner thoughts to him was too frightening. Far more terrifying than simply submitting myself to whatever hedonistic plans he’d dreamed up.

“Just kiss me again,” I practically begged, leaning into him again.

But he gently pushed me back. “Oh, I will…afteryou tell me how you stoked the fires of this obsession for years.”

“Crush,” I tried again.

“Obsession.” He shook his head, no longer humoring my lies. “A woman who is willing to trade her meticulously planned lifefor two weeks of sin with a man she hasn’t seen in a decade isn’t nursing a crush. Admit it, Chastity. Your father was right. You’re obsessed.”

Was I?

How was I supposed to know what normal desire was when everything in my life was soabnormal? I’d grown up surrounded by sin but was expected to keep myself pure. My family’s blood ran thick with vice, but I was punished for even allowing a single wicked thought.

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