Page 116 of Phantom Mine

My hand moves around to loosely clasp her throat. She shivers when my fingers brush against her pulse point.

“She sounds special, Leni,” I murmur. “I won’t forget her.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Valentina

Iclasp Matteo’s face and kiss him, trying to convey to him everything he makes me feel.

The force of it is enough to topple him over. He takes me down with him, the forearm he has wrapped around my body keeping me glued firmly to his chest as he hits the bed.

A volatile look flashes through his eyes when I pull away.

“I shouldn’t kiss you,” I say, sniffling. The back of my throat feels sandpapery. “You’ll get sick.”

A slow smirk curls Matteo’s lips. His playful eyes grow heavy as they drop to my mouth and linger. “I’m already sick.”

I place my hand on his forehead, feeling to see if he has a fever. “What’s wrong?”

“No official diagnosis yet. My only symptom is my unrelenting obsession with you.” He blinks those gorgeous eyes at me, thick lashes sweeping across his cheeks. “Think I’ll live?”

Unrelenting.

My heart tries not to trip over the word.

“Sounds terminal,” I hum thoughtfully.

He nods somberly. "That’s what I thought." Then that charming, lazy smirk is back. “Grant a dying man his final wish and kiss me again?”

I bend towards him with a smile. “If you ever do get a final wish, I recommend you use it to ask for something a little more vital.”

Matteo reaches to cup the side of my neck, tracking my approaching mouth with heavy-lidded eyes. “There’s nothing more invaluable to me than dying with the taste of you on my lips. Now kiss me.”

I feel my cheeks heat as I press my lips to his. He’ll be sick tomorrow, but he doesn’t seem to care.

He flips me easily, trapping me into the mattress as his large body comes to loom above me. I shove my hands into his hair and pull him closer. He kisses a path from my mouth, along my jaw, and down to my neck where he buries his face into my throat with a groan.

“Do you know how incredible you are?” he demands, voice muffled against my skin. “How fucking strong and fearless you are?” My pussy clenches in response to his heated, insistent words. I shake my head, incapable of forming any type of response. “I’m in awe of you,cara. I admire you so much.”

I moan when his lips close around the skin along the column of my throat and he sucks it into his mouth. His teeth score the sensitive flesh, sending goosebumps fluttering all over my body.

“Fuck, I missed touching you, I missed feeling you,” he growls, frustration bleeding into his words. “I just fuckingmissedyou.”

My arms close around his neck, pulling him closer, always closer. I should be pushing him away, creating distance, protecting my heart, but there is no protecting myself fromMatteo. He’s already kicked through the doors, destroying all ten padlocks I had securing the latch in one go, and he’s storming in to claim every part of me.

His frantic hands shake with need as he pushes my t-shirt up my torso and over my head. He sits up only long enough to rip his own t-shirt off and then he’s back over me, his hands on my breasts and his mouth tracing a famished path along my collarbone and down my chest.

“Touch me,” I beg.

Matteo tilts his face up, his gaze dark with destructive arousal. “Touch you where?”

I writhe beneath him and whine, “Anywhere.”

An agitated look appears in his eyes. “Tell me you missed me too and I will,” he demands throatily.

“I missed you,” I reply instantly. “Of course I missed you.”

A harsh, low sound jerks from his lips. His pupils contract, turning his eyes so obscenely possessive it takes my breath away.

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