Page 21 of His Savage Ruin
"Pillows. Down the middle of the bed." I'm beginning to find her defiance dangerously attractive. "You stay on your side, I stay on mine."
The image of Alessia constructing a barrier between us with my Egyptian cotton pillows is so absurd it almost makes me smile. Almost.
"If that makes you feel safer," I say, heading toward the bathroom.
"It's not about feeling safe," she calls after me. "It's about maintaining boundaries."
"Of course, it is,principessa," I murmur, closing the bathroom door behind me. "Of course, it is."
But as I strip out of my bloodstained clothes and step into the shower, I can't shake the image of her in my shirt, her bare legs crossed with casual elegance, building walls that we both know won't survive the night.
Some boundaries, I'm beginning to realize, are meant to be crossed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Alessia
I've built many walls in my life—emotional ones, mostly, designed to keep pain at bay and predators at a distance. But I'd never built a wall out of pillows and sheer stubborn will.
The bed is enormous, easily large enough for four people, but somehow it feels claustrophobic with Matteo Romano lying just three feet away from me. The pillow barrier I've constructed down the center looks ridiculous—a child's fort built by desperate hands—but it's the only defense I have against the man who's made it clear that I belong to him now.
"Comfortable,principessa?" His voice drifts through the darkness, low and amused, as if my makeshift wall is the most entertaining thing, he's seen all day.
"Perfectly," I lie, clutching the silk sheet to my chest. Without underwear beneath his shirt, every movement of the fabric against my skin feels intimate, dangerous.
"Really?" There's something predatory in his tone now, something that makes my pulse quicken despite my best efforts to remain unaffected. "Because you seem... tense."
"I'm fine."
"Are you? Because from where I'm lying, it looks like you're wound tighter than a spring." I hear him shift on his side of the pillow wall, the mattress dipping slightly under his weight. "Tell me, what has you so on edge? The fact that you're in my bed, or the fact that you're not wearing anything under my shirt?"
Heat floods my cheeks. "I don't know what you mean."
"Don't you?" His voice is closer now, as if he's moved toward the center of the bed. "You keep shifting around like the sheets are on fire. Are you thinking about what I can picture right now?"
"Stop," I whisper, but my voice lacks conviction.
"Stop what? Acknowledging that you're practically naked in my bed?" I can practically hear his smile. "You built this little wall to keep me away, but it won't work, you know."
"It's working fine."
"Is it? Because all it's really doing is making me think about how easy it would be to tear it down. How easy it would be to reach over these pillows and touch you."
My breathing quickens despite my attempts to control it. "You said you don't hurt women."
"I don't. But I never said anything about not touching them." His voice drops to something barely above a whisper. "About not making them feel things they've never felt before."
The words send electricity through my veins, pooling heat low in my belly that I don't understand and don't want. This is wrong. He's my captor, my enemy, the man who's holding me against my will.
So why does part of me want him to tear down this wall? Why does the thought of his hands on my skin make me burn instead of freeze?
"You're vulnerable here, Alessia," he continues, his voice like velvet in the darkness. "Defenseless. At my mercy. Doesn't that frighten you?"
"Yes," I breathe, but it's not entirely fear that's making my heart race.
"It should. But I don't think it's fear I hear in your voice."
Before I can protest, I feel the mattress dip as he moves closer to the pillow barrier. Not crossing it, not breaking the boundary I've set, but close enough that I can feel his presence like a physical weight.
