Page 35 of Kissing the Villain

He reached over, and for a second, I thought he would touch me. A part of me wanted him to climb on top of me. To dominate me, conquer me. Instead, he flicked off the lamp beside the bed, bathing the room in darkness.

“What the hell?”

My throat just about closed up. I hated the dark, desperate for even a sliver of light. As I reached for the lamp, Marcello shoved my hand away.

“Go to sleep,” he ordered.

“Can you light a candle or something?”

The right side of the mattress dipped beneath his weight. He moved around until comfortable and fluffed the pillows behind his head.

“I need music to fall asleep, Marcello. It helps with my nightmares.”

He sighed and reached for something on the table beside him. Sweet orchestra music floated through the speaker on his cell phone.Swan Lakeby Tchaikovsky was my favorite ballet. The story was so heartbreaking that I sometimes compared myself to Odette, the swan maiden. I wished a handsome prince would save me.

Marcello set his phone on the bedside table and rolled onto his side to face me, his arm curled around a pillow. “Happy, princess?”

“Yes. Thank you,” I whispered, the soothing music instantly calming me. “But I find it disturbing that you know what helps me sleep.”

“Alex,” he muttered. “Close your eyes. We’ve both had a long day. You will need your rest for what my brother has planned.”

16

LUCA

I hadno clue why Alexandrea Wellington turned me into a fucking psychopath. But she did. Beneath all of our hatred, there was a burning desire.

The first time I saw her, I wanted to kiss her pretty pink lips. I also wanted to wrap my fingers around her throat and choke the fucking life out of her.

I hated the way she made me feel.

Like I was losing control.

Falling headfirst off a cliff.

Even as a child, I knew I was not normal. My need for blood, hidden beneath the rage and doused in years of pain and suffering at my father’s hands, had turned me into a sick fuck. I had one good thing in my life—my mother. She was a famous painter, the most incredible woman to grace this shithole planet, and the only person who grounded me.

I lost everything the day my mother died.

My soul. My humanity.

Every. Fucking. Thing.

Until I met her.

Alexandrea Wellington.

The beautiful blonde balanced out the darkest parts of my soul while feeding them. Like my mother, she was an artist, a free spirit who reminded me of everything I had ever loved and lost.

That was the problem.

I leaned back in the leather executive chair with my phone in one hand, my cock as hard as fucking steel as I watched Alex from the security feed in her bedroom. She slept with her face mashed into the pillow and her curvy but toned ass sticking up in the air. It had been too long since I’d last seen her in that exact position, her fingers gripping the sheets and screaming my name.

I fucked up with Alex. But wasn’t that how shit went down with us? Whenever I tried to pull her closer, I only pushed her away.

I never once envied Marcello, not for a second of my life. But rage bubbled up inside me when I noticed my younger brother sitting in the corner by the window, his eyes on my sleeping queen. He licked his lips and adjusted his dick.

Fucking asshole.

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