Page 33 of Ache for You (Slow Burn 3)
“Look at me.”
“Go to hell.”
“Stop acting like a child. Look at me.”
Heat pulses in my cheeks. I close my eyes and take a brimming lungful of air, then do it again because I’m trembling all over and feel like I might pass out.
He mutters some kind of Italian oath under his breath, then puts his thumb under my chin and tilts my head up. I open my eyes to find him staring at me with thinned lips and a tight jaw, those thermonuclear eyes still blazing.
We breathe angrily at each other. I try not to smell him but it’s impossible. He’s a gorgeous noseful of cedar and smoke and male musk, with a crisp top note of clean linen. I give in and inhale like a perfumer, flaring my nostrils so my weird little fetish might pass for outrage.
If he’s nose porn for me, I’m eye candy for him. He looks like he wants to peel off my clothes with his teeth.
“You’re my stepbrother. You shouldn?
?t be looking at me like that.” I was aiming for disdain, but my breathy voice probably gives me away.
He doubles down and stares at my mouth as if he’s about to make a meal of it. “Stepbrother,” he muses, his face all hard angles and dangerous speculation. Unexpectedly, he laughs, but it lacks any trace of humor. “What an interesting development.”
He releases me suddenly, as if I’ve burned him, and turns away. He drags his hands through his hair, then props them on his hips, muttering again under his breath. He stands with his back to me while I try desperately to regain control of my breathing. I’m shaking so hard I should probably lie down on the floor for a while.
I sit on the sofa instead. Wiping my sweaty palms on my thighs, I watch as Matteo starts to pace back and forth over the Turkish rug. Even angry he’s elegant. He’s as sleek and gorgeous as a thoroughbred, and I wish I had a riding crop handy because damn. I’d like to ride that pony hard.
I drop my face into my hands and gnash my teeth.
“Where is your husband?” he asks, agitated. “Didn’t your father tell me you were getting married? You’re not wearing a ring.”
Oh great. Yeah, let’s get all up into this now. I speak into my palms. “There’s no husband.”
When the silence stretches too long, I glance up to find him staring at me with narrowed eyes, like he thinks I’m lying. That pisses me off all over again.
“I pushed him off a cliff,” I say, wishing it were true. “He took something of mine and wouldn’t give it back.” I’m talking about my trust, but I might as well be talking about my sketch pad.
Matteo’s smile could burn a hole through steel it’s so acid. “Ah. So that’s what happened to your dignity.”
Blood creeps up my neck and floods my cheeks, but I refuse to look away. “That’s right. He humiliated me completely. But he did it because he’s immature. You just did it because it made you feel good. Which is worse?”
He’s not happy with my question. He starts to pace again, all flashing eyes and an angry jaw, his perfect hair rumpled from running his hands through it.
I like him better like this. Undone. Imperfect. It makes him seem a little more human.
The heartless bastard.
He says abruptly, “You can’t be serious about keeping the company.”
I cock a brow at him. “And why is that?”
He sweeps me with a look, up and down, dismissive. Before he can open his mouth, I say, “If you’re about to make a nasty comment about my gender, my brains, or my style, I’m about to neuter your smug ass.”
His eyes are cutting. His lip is curled. Him looking at me is like being assaulted by a volley of flying arrows. “What is it with your hostility?”
“What is it with your arrogance?”
“There’s a big difference between self-confidence and arrogance.”
“Yeah, there is, and any man who propositions a woman in an airport lounge after a thirty-second conversation lands squarely on the arrogance side of that equation.”
“I didn’t proposition you. I said I wanted you.”
