Page 79 of Phantom Mine

“Thanks for stitching me up,cara.”

“Thanks for taking a bullet for me.”

Easy grin. “Anytime.”

Never again.

Matteo’s mouth crashes down on mine, surprising me. A hungry tongue forces my lips open, and then he’s plundering my mouth with a feverish intensity that borders on ferality. He cups the back of my neck and angles me up towards him.

A frustrated groan leaves his lips at our height difference. His hands span my waist and then he picks me up and drops me on the island, parting my legs and stepping between my thighs. I moan happily as my hands twine through his hair and arch into him, seeking the contact with his bare chest, wanting his body heat to envelop me whole.

Matteo rips his lips from mine but doesn't pull away. His mouth remains against mine, separated only by our frantic breaths. The expression on his face is rabid, quickly veering towards tortured.

“Do you know you moan every single time I kiss you?” he questions hoarsely, urgently. “It’s this throaty little whimperthat falls desperately from your lips and it drives me fucking crazy.”

“You say that like I’m the only one. You also groan every time we kiss,” I answer feverishly.

“That’s the sheer disbelief I feel that I get to kiss you again after all this time.” He stares at my lips, his eyes darkening. “Who was the last man to kiss these lips?” he questions again. When my mouth parts, his eyes flash in warning. “And don’t you dare saypavona.”

Frustration simmers inside me. “I’ve already answered that question.”

“You said it was me. But before we met again, who was it? Who did you kiss last?”

“Why do you keep asking?”

Matteo’s hand finds my throat and tightens. His unfounded possessiveness should be a massive turn off. Instead it’s like an accelerant added to an already blazing inferno, snowballing it into a cataclysmic explosion of heat.

“I want to know who you kissed in the year and a half between our two meetings. I want to know every single man and every single name, but I’ll start with the last. He’s the one I’ll find first.”

“You.”

Matteo’s features twist in anger. “Valentina—”

“You!” I exclaim. “You wanted me to be honest? I have been. I kissed you the night ofCarnivaleand I kissed you last week.” Matteo’s eyes fly between mine, the territorial anger in them now colliding with confusion. “Youare the only man I’ve kissed in the past year and a half.”

His fingers loosen and fall away as surprise etches itself across his features.

“You haven’t—?”

My answer is clipped. “No.”

A strangled groan rumbles up his chest and erupts from deep within him. It comes from such depths that the sound lasts seconds before it ever makes it past his lips. My eyes fly up to his to find the darkest look of possession I’ve ever seen on any man before, let alonethisman.

“You fucked up,” he mutters before claiming my mouth in a scorching kiss.

Chapter Twenty-One

Matteo

Valentina hits the mattress and bounces in a jumble of limbs. Once she settles, she lifts herself up on her forearms and stares dutifully up at me with those guarded hazel eyes that drive me fucking nuts.

“Bed, Valentina. Valentina, bed,” I say as my hands drop to the band of my trousers. Her eyes follow and turn hazy with lust when I unbutton and shove my slacks down my hips.

She licks her lips, but plays along. “Nice to meet y—”

Her words cut off with a shriek when I grab her ankle and yank her down the bed to me. I drop over her, caging her between my arms, and claim her lips with mine. That same wanton little moan falls from her mouth and into mine, shooting an arrow of lust straight to my throbbing cock.

She’s worse than a drug, more addictive and, if tonight is any indication, potentially more lethal. My typically racing thoughts quiet as my mouth moves greedily over hers, reveling in herintoxicating taste, near delirious at the knowledge that her lips have known no other man but me since we met.

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