Page 38 of Phantom Mine

I wait for the killing blow, but it never comes.

My eyes fly open when Matteo makes a soft sound. He’s still looming over me, his gaze fixated on my throat. His free hand moves and he cups the underside of my jaw, shifting it back to further open up my neck to him.

“The bruising is gone,” he notes, his voice tinged with satisfaction.

I can’t see anything with the way he has my face shoved to the side. My heart ticks in increasingly frantic beats, then comes to a screeching halt when his tongue makes contact with the soft area at the base of my throat. He flattens it against my skin, the move hot and wet and hungry.

A strangled whimper rips from the depths of my throat and he groans. He trails his tongue up my neck and over my jaw to nip at my chin.

“Matteo—oh.” His teeth rake wetly down the entire column of my throat before he bites me.Hard. A loud sucking noise follows as he draws my flesh into his mouth.

I’m dazed, beyond confused and overwhelmed by how I went from the brink of death to deliciously inflamed by his obvious loss of control.

“She won’t touch you again,” he vows, lips kissing a path up the line of my throat. The tip of the knife is still there digging into the other side of my neck, and that adds another dimension to the physical sensation that’s making me near delirious. “She never should have in the first place. This skin isn’t hers to bruise, it’smine.”

Through the haze of arousal, I realize that he thinks Arabella is the one who tried to choke me. I was convinced he was aware that it was Guido who hurt me. Does that mean he doesn’t know about the abuses the other girls are suffering?

I frown even as my hands dig through his hair. Distantly, I realize I’m drawing him closer instead of shoving him off to try and get away.

When my palms move down to his shoulders, Matteo grabs both my wrists and pins them above my head with one hand. I arch against his hold, inadvertently pushing my breasts into his face as he moves from my neck down to my chest.

“What are you doing?” I squeak, overwhelmed.

The noises falling from his lips are unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. Rough, uncontrolled sounds of delight. Primal and carnal grunts that send needy pangs straight to my pussy. All he’s doing is kissing and licking the available skin at my throat and chest, but you’d think he was fucking me seven ways to sunday with the way he’s snarling his obvious pleasure.

“Answer me. Tell me who you are, why you’re here, and why you’re digging around this office,” he demands, words whispered in frustration against my skin. “I really don’t want to have to kill you.”

My eyes squeeze shut.

He sounds almost angry to be so affected, his growls erotically aggressive.

“I can’t,” I reply desperately.

“And I can’t hurt you,” he mutters angrily.

Matteo wrenches himself off me, but only partly. His hand is still clamped on my waist, the other pinning my wrists above my head. He’s breathing heavily, his chest working as he brings his face right over mine.

“I won’t let you leave this room without answering one question,pavona.”

“What?”

His eyes drag slowly down to my plump mouth. “Who was the last man to kiss these lips?”

Whatever I thought he might ask, that wasn’t it.

A shiver runs down my spine and turns into a raw ache once it reaches my pussy. My gaze drops to his mouth. It’s one of the first things I noticed about him. No man has any business having a mouth that perfect.

His eyes darken when my lips part and then he’s lowering his head, his face getting progressively closer, his gaze pinned to my lips with the single-minded focus of an animal of prey.

Tiny, breathy pants fall from my mouth. He’s going to kiss me. He’s going to—

“What kind of kinky shit am I interrupting here, brother?” a cold voice drawls from the doorway.

Matteo’s body turns to stone. It’s such a very visible, visceral reaction that it makes my stomach bottom in response, the arousal instantly washing away. Fear closes its barbed fingersaround my heart once more. The emotion is back fueled by Matteo’s obvious dislike of the intruder.

The knife at my neck disappears, smoothly tucked into the folds of his jacket like it was never there. He bends his head slightly and pretends to nuzzle me once more.

“If you want to live, you’ll follow my lead and do as I say,” he whispers urgently. “Trust me.”

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