Page 84 of Phantom Mine

“Fun?” I question, looking up at him.

The air leaves my lungs when I see the way he devours me with his eyes, clearly enjoying the sight of me swimming in his clothes.

“Yeah. Fun,” he rasps. “This tension between us is a year and a half in the making. Ignoring it clearly didn’t work, and fucking you twice hasn’t done the trick either,” he adds, flicking a pointed look down his body. I blush when I notice the way his hard cock strains against the fabric of his briefs. “I say we don’t get in the way of what Mother Nature intended and just keep fucking. No strings, nothing more serious than having fun. You’re hiding your identity and everything about who you are from me, and I’m…”

Matteo looks out the window at the bright lights of the city at night, seemingly searching for the right words to say. They seem to escape him.

“You’re engaged,” I finish flatly. His eyes fly back to mine. “Or about to be.”

He doesn’t question how I know. His hand rubs slowly over his mouth and down across his jaw as he pins me with an assessing stare.

Finally, he simply says, “Yes.”

Something insidious and ugly knots my insides together into a tight ball of anger. I’m sure it’s just leftover emotion from the earlier trauma of tonight.

The reality is he’s engagedish, and I plan on disappearing once I figure out what happened to Adriana.

He’s related to the person who murdered my sister.

He’s a Leone of the Italian Mafia and I’m a da Silva of the Colombian cartel. That alone means a future between us is categorically impossible, even if there weren’t a dozen other obstacles.

“You've felt it from the beginning Valentina, don’t even try to deny it.” Matteo prowls unhurriedly towards me, sucking up a little more of the available oxygen with every step, consuming it with the ease of a blazing inferno. “We’re like two magnets drawn to each other without a say in it. I can’t seem to stay away from you.” He’s towering over me before I realize it, his chest pressed against mine, his fingers finding my chin. “And maybe it’s because I’m not supposed to,” he whispers. “I know you feel it too.”

There’s no use denying it. The fact that I’m still standing here, entertaining his suggestion is confirmation enough. “You’re suggesting we sleep together until one of us is done?”

“Yeah.”

This is complicated.

It’s everything I need it not to be.

“No strings? No expectations?”

I should never have kissed him, much less slept with him. Now twice. And still it’s not enough. Still there’s that itching in my veins, that restless clawing in my blood needing, nodemanding,more.

His thumb brushes over my jaw. “Yeah.”

Matteo’s distended pupils tell me he doesn’t miss the change in my breathing, the way each breath comes quicker and shallower than the last.

His eyes fall to my lips and darken. He bends unhurriedly and presses a soft kiss to my mouth. He lingers a moment—an insolently long moment which announces loud and clear that he considers my mouth his to do with as he pleases—then pulls away, licking his lips lazily as he does so.

“Okay,” I hear myself say breathlessly.

Selfish.

He rewards me with a slow, cocky smile. “Okay.”

This man is dangerous to my emotional and physical health, and giving him more of me is a mistake, I know it.

And yet, the alternative—never touching him again—seems like it might belethalto my health.

Matteo clears his throat.

“Just one thing though.” His eyes drop to my mouth. He breathes in sharply before his gaze comes back to mine. “I have to be clear about it so there’s no illusions between us. You can’t fall in love with me. There is no happy ending to be found with me.”

My face flames red. “This coming from the man who’s staring at my lips like they hold the key to his greatest desires.” I cross my arms over my chest. “I don’t fall, Phantom. You needn’t be worried.”

The corner of his lips curves upward like he finds the concept of a woman not falling in love with him laughable.

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