Page 45 of Untamed

Matteo kicks off his sandals and dives smoothly into the pool, disappearing beneath the surface with barely a splash. When he pops back up a few feet away, his hair is plastered to his forehead, water streaming down his smooth, bare chest.

He floats closer, arms outstretched lazily, like he’s letting the current drift him toward me.

I tilt my head, studying him through the rippling water. He’s beautiful in that golden, boyish way that should make my heart skip.

It doesn’t. Still, the idea of forgetting, even for a little while, is very tempting.

I also drift closer, the water lapping at our shoulders. There’s only a foot of space between us now, and the tension thickens, humming between our bodies like an electric wire.

“What are you doing up here all by yourself?” Matteo questions, his voice light but laced with something rougher underneath.

I shrug, dipping my chin into the cool water, peeking up at him through my lashes. “I couldn’t sleep. Needed some air.Etu?” The words feel strange but satisfying on my tongue. We circle each other slowly, like planets caught in each other's gravitational pull, our eyes locked, the tension crackling between us.

Matteo’s mouth curves into a lazy, wicked grin. “Stesso.”Same.

I bite back a smile. After almost a month living at the Russo estate, the flow of Italian words is starting to sink into me without even trying. I cock my head at him, curiosity flickering inside me. “And what dare I ask has been keeping the golden boy of the Russo manor up?”

“Do you really want to know?” I nod mutely and his grin deepens into something darker. Something more...intimate. “I’m looking at it.”

The breath catches in my throat.

The distance between us feels suddenly too small, too charged. I drift back instinctively, the water slipping between us like silk. Matteo follows, his strokes slow, deliberate, prowling after me like a lion toying with its prey.

He’s dangerous, sure, but not in the way Ares Russo is. Matteo’s danger feels softer...sweeter. It promises stolen kisses and whispered lies. It promises escape. And right now, the way I’m feeling and the way he’s looking at me?

Escape sounds a little too tempting.

You’re being reckless, Jordyn.

I know this could very well be another heedless decision on my part. Matteo is my sister’s stepson. By marriage that makes me his aunt, if you squint and ignore how completely wrong it feels to even think of it that way.

And yet, standing here, breathless and aching under the weight of his heated gaze, the technicalities seem a million miles away. Because, right here, in this moment, I don’t feel like his aunt. I feel like a girl clinging to anything that might stop her from crumbling into a thousand jagged pieces.

Matteo moves around me, stopping just behind me. I feel the heat of his body, the way the water laps against my thighs as he draws nearer. He leans in closer, his mouth brushing the shell of my ear, his breath hot against my damp skin.

“Thoughts of you and the things I want to do to you keep me up most nights, Fossette.” he murmurs, his voice a low, sinful whisper that skates down my spine like a caress.

A shiver rips through me, not from the cool night air, but from the dangerous intimacy of his words. My eyes squeeze shut for a heartbeat as I steady myself against the onslaught of emotions tightening inside my chest. God, what am I doing? I shouldn’t want this. I shouldn’t wanthim.

But right now, drowning under the weight of too many hurts, too many loses, the temptation to lose myself in something orsomeonewho actually wants me feels almost impossible to resist.

I tilt my head slightly, feeling the whisper of his lips just above my skin, feeling the way he waits, perfectly still, perfectly patient, for me to either close the distance... or move away. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he murmurs, his voice thick with restraint. “How hard it is to have you this close and not be able to touch you the way I want to? To taste you, to make you mine?” His breath brushes my neck, hot and shattering. “Ti voglio così tanto.”I want you so much.

The words slide over my skin, seeping into my bones, and with them, the last of my shaky self-control crumbles.

Matteo’s chest brushes lightly against my back, the heat of his body searing into my damp skin. His hand slides around my waist, fingers splaying across my stomach with a touch so slow,so deliberate, it leaves a trail of goosebumps in its wake. I draw in a sharp breath, my heart hammering violently against my ribs as he pulls me closer until there’s no space left between us.

“I know it’s wrong to want you the way I do,” he murmurs, his voice a low rasp that scrapes across my nerves. His nose nuzzles behind my ear, sending a shudder skittering down my spine. “But I can’t stop, Fossette.” His lips ghost along the shell of my ear, teasing and warm. Then, I feel the scrape of his teeth. A playful, wicked nip that makes my knees shake.

I bite down on a whimper as he trails his mouth lower, his tongue flicking lightly against the sensitive spot just beneath my ear before he drags it slowly along the column of my neck. His hand, still resting against my stomach, slips lower, tracing slow, lazy circles just above the waistband of my soaked underwear. Every brush of his fingers, every heated whisper against my skin, unravels me a little more.

“I think about you when I shouldn’t,” Matteo breathes against my throat, the tip of his tongue stroking a slow line up to my jaw. “Late at night. In the shower. In my bed. Ti sogno, Jordyn. I dream about the sounds you’d make for me... the way you’d come apart in my hands.”

A soft, desperate moan breaks free from my lips before I can stop it. My head tips back instinctively against his shoulder, baring my throat in silent surrender. He chuckles, low, dark, satisfied and I feel the vibration of it rumble through his chest into my back.

“Ogni parte di te è sacra, dolcezza mia,”Every part of you is sacred, my sweetness. He murmurs, lips brushing my ear. “Let me worship you the way you deserve.”

His hand glides higher, skimming over the curve of my hip, the side of my ribs, inching closer to my breast. I turn my head slightly, catching a glimpse of his face, the heat in his eyes, the wildness.

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