Ache for You (Slow Burn Book 3)

by J. T. Geissinger

  “Ciao.” Dominic’s tone is curt. I guess he likes my ex-stepbrother as much as he likes my ex-stepmother.

  The two men size each other up for a beat, until Matteo says darkly, “A pleasure to see you again.”

  It’s both a lie and a dismissal. Dominic can tell, too, because he bristles like a cat. He says something sharply in Italian. Matteo snaps a response. Then they stand there glaring at each other like two pistoleros about to whip out their guns and shoot.

  “Well, this has been fun. Glad to see I’m not the only person you annoy. Bye!”

  Matteo’s eyes cut to me. They’re brilliant, blistering blue, two lightsabers slicing the air with a whiz. It’s all I can do not to step back from the electric force of their impact.

  He says stiffly, “You really should learn to speak Italian.”

  Intrigued, I glance at Dominic, who’s scowling. “I will. I mean, I am. Soon.” Shut up, Kimber! I straighten my shoulders and pretend nonchalance, while Matteo watches me with his crackling light-beam eyes. After only a moment under his scrutiny, I want to jump out of my skin.

  Making a show of solidarity with Dominic, I walk over to him, then stand shoulder to shoulder with him as I coolly regard Matteo. “Was there something in particular you wanted? Because I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  Matteo roasts me with his look. I’m a pig turning over hot coals, getting a nice crackly crunch to my skin. “Yes,” he says, holding my gaze. “There is something I want. And you know exactly what it is.”

  Quivering, I think the word is. Yes, that’s what my vagina is doing right now. Quivering.

  When I swallow, heat scorching my cheeks, Matteo’s gaze turns ruthlessly satisfied. He lifts a hand, indicating all the dresses around us. “You know this shop should be mine.”

  I hate him. I hate him with the heat of a thousand suns. I hate him with the force of gravity on—what’s that planet that has all the crushing gravity? Jupiter. Yes. I hate him with the gravity of Jupiter.

  “This shop will never be yours,” I say, enunciating each word. Just to get back at him for making my lady bits resemble Jell-O, I add, “Neither will anything else of mine.”

  Oh so softly, Matteo answers, “We’ll see.” Then he smiles.

  The smug SOB smiles.

  As if he can sense I’m about to rip the cash register off the counter and commit murder with it, Dominic drapes his arm over my shoulder and lightly squeezes me closer. Drawing strength from his support, I draw a breath through my nose, then point at the door. “Out.”

  I should’ve known Matteo isn’t one to take direction. He strolls over to the mannequin in the pink dress on the dais and touches the skirt. He traces his finger along a seam and muses to no one in particular, “I wonder what Luca would think to hear the way his daughter speaks to me.”

  He couldn’t have found a more tender spot if he searched with a bloodhound. I’m stabbed in the chest by a knife of pain, not only because Matteo used my father’s first name so casually, indicating how close they were, but also because I know he’s right.

  My father would be appalled at my hostility. He raised me to be considerate of others, even if I didn’t like them.

  But that was before I was publicly humiliated and decided to hate all men under the age of sixty. Especially gorgeous, arrogant, rich ones who treat women like everything they’re good for is between their legs.

  I turn to Dominic. “Will you please excuse us? Matteo and I need to talk privately.”

  Dominic cuts a stony glare at my archnemesis, then gives me a hug. He murmurs into my ear, “I can tell you don’t like him. Smart girl.” He pulls away, eyes me meaningfully, then turns his back on Matteo and leaves.

  As soon as the door closes behind him, I turn to Matteo. “I owe you an apology.”

  He inspects my face in narrow-eyed silence, his expression assessing.

  I know this crow I’m about to eat is gonna taste really shitty, but it’s what my father would want. He always told me that anything could be forgiven in a person’s character except lack of kindness. So I grit my teeth and get it over with.

  “For how I talk to you. I’m normally not this . . . ragey.”

  After looking at me for a long moment, he says, “You’re hurting. I’m just a convenient target.”

  Shit. I was expecting a snappy comeback, not understanding. And especially not insightfulness. If he’s going to be this observant all the time, I won’t be able to be around him. No one likes to feel as if her soul is hanging out for everyone to see, like an untucked shirt.

  I arrange my face into an emotionless mask and focus on a spot on the wall over his shoulder so I don’t have to contend with those soul-piercing eyes. “I suppose you’re right. The sketch pad situation didn’t help, but it was more than a fair trade. That plane ticket is probably the best gift I’ve ever been given.”

  I have to stop because my voice cracks and water is welling in my eyes. I turn away before Matteo can see and mock me for my lack of dignity. I refuse to be anyone’s kicking bag.

  But he surprises me again.

  “I envy you,” he says quietly.

  When I jerk around in surprise, I find Matteo staring at me with a strange expression. It’s something like longing, only darker.

  “What do you mean?”

  He turns his attention back to the pink dress. In profile, he’s even more appealing, all ruler-straight lines and sculpted angles, impossibly long lashes swept downward to a smudge on his golden cheeks.

  “My father died when I was very young.”

  His voice is hollow, edged with regret. There’s something he’s not saying. Though my curiosity is intense, I won’t ask what it is.

  “At least you knew him. My mother died when I was born.”

  He turns his head. His gaze locks onto mine and doesn’t let go. I feel exposed and vulnerable and have to fight the strong urge to flee. We stare at each other across the small room while my heartbeat goes haywire and the walls seem to grow closer.

  “Your father showed me a picture of her once,” says Matteo in a hesitant voice, as if he’s afraid to spook me, or kick-start another bout of anger. “You look so much like her.”

  There’s a bitter taste in my mouth. Must be all the tears I’m swallowing. “I know. I mean, from all the photographs I’ve seen, we’re like twins. As I got older, sometimes I’d catch Papa staring at me with this haunted look, like he was seeing a ghost.”

  Matteo moves closer. Slowly, as if drawn by a force he’s fighting against. “Do you think that’s why the only pictures of you in the house are from when you were a child?”

  Whoa. The man notices everything. I look at the floor, hiding my eyes, and nod. I think of the Polaroid of me laughing tacked to the corkboard in the back of the shop and wonder how often Papa looked at it and saw someone else in the shape of my face. How often he put it away, only to take it out and tack it up again.

  How much pain it must have caused him.

  “Hair as black as night. Skin as white as snow. Lips as red as blood.”

  When I look up, startled, Matteo says, “That’s how your father described you. Like Snow White, he said, only too smart to take a poison apple from a witch.”

  How can someone smell so good? How can someone be so beautiful? Look at him. He’s like a walking piece of art.

  Then it’s like a switch gets thrown. Remembering how I let Brad’s good looks and pedigree blind me to reality, my voice hardens. “If there’s one thing fairy tales have taught me, it’s that the most tempting, perfect-looking apples are always the ones that are rotten to the core.”

  He stops. We’re feet apart. His tone, so soft only moments ago, turns cutting.

  “Question: How much of your dislike of me is actually about me, and how much of it is about your ex-fiancé?”

  I feel as if he can see through me, like every thought I have is floating in a bubble over my head and there’s a gauge stuck on my nose that’s broadcasting my temperature. Hot
, cold, boiling, freezing, want you, hate you, about to cry. He sees it all, and it drives me crazy.

  “My ex has nothing to do with anything.”

  “Really?” His eyes do their laser beam thing again. “Because I’m starting to think you decided to hate me before we ever spoke a word to each other. I’m starting to think that look of disgust you gave me at the airport lounge when you first saw me had nothing to do with me and everything to do with you getting dumped at the altar.”

  An atomic detonation of fury blasts through me. If I were Wolverine, this is the part where my long steel claws would unsheathe from my knuckles with a violent clang. “I never said I was dumped at the altar.”

  Here comes that condescending eyebrow arch. I’d like to slap a blob of wax on that thing and rip it clean off.

  “You didn’t have to. There are plenty of stories about it on the internet.”

  My mouth drops open. I stare at Matteo in horror. “You googled me?”

  His lips curve into his signature ruthless smile. “I like to know all there is to know about my business rivals. ‘The Lovelorn Seamstress’? ‘The Cast-Away Couturier’? So many clever headlines. Maybe you can use one of them for the name of your new shop.”

  I’m so embarrassed I can’t talk. I stand there staring at him, my cheeks blazing with heat. I’m living that awful moment all over again. I can’t escape it, even thousands of miles away. In another country halfway around the world, I’m still the girl who wasn’t good enough.

  I think I’m going to be sick.

  “Maybe I did decide to hate you before we spoke a word to each other, and maybe I had good reasons. The way you walk around like the world should throw itself at your feet. The way you smirk at everyone, so superior. The way you look at women—”

  “You,” he interrupts, his voice gruff. “The way I look at you, you mean.”

  “You’re splitting hairs again. I’m sure I’m just one of millions of women you’ve given that look to.”

  “Which look?”

  He steps closer. Now we’re inches apart. Breathing each other’s air. Feeling each other’s body heat.

  This guy has serious space issues.

  I moisten my lips. His eyes follow the motion of my tongue. The smug smile is gone. All that’s left on his face is blistering intensity.

  “You know which look. And step back. You’re crowding me.”

  “No. I want to talk about this look you’re so upset by. I want you to tell me what you think it means.”

  I become mesmerized by the pulse beating in the hollow of his throat. It’s hard and fast, and shocking. Is his heart pounding as hard as mine is?

  “I don’t know what it means,” I say primly.

  That makes him laugh, low and throaty, a sound that for some strange reason sends a flood of heat between my legs.

  “Such a terrible liar,” he murmurs. He takes a lock of my hair between two fingers and tugs on it.

  It’s a tease, like a schoolboy pulling a ponytail, but the heat in his eyes is anything but boyish.

  I’ve never been looked at like this by a man. Never. I think he wants to devour me. I think he wants to do really bad things to me.

  I think my ex-stepbrother wants to fuck my brains out.

  When my uterus starts doing cartwheels, I have to remind her that not only is it gross to have sex with a relative, it’s probably illegal. She shoots back that we’re no longer relatives, so all bets are off, and all signs point to Go.

  The cheeky bitch.

  Matteo murmurs, “I’d love to be part of whatever conversation you’re having in your head right now, bella.”

  My uterus sighs and melts into a pool of liquid. At least she shut up.

  “I was thinking I have a lot of work to do. I was thinking you should leave now.”

  He brushes the ends of my hair over my cheek and jaw, trails it slowly down my neck as his gaze follows. My pulse kicks up a few thousand notches.

  “I don’t accept your apology.” He leans closer, fogging my brain like a humid car window. “I don’t think it was sincere. I think you should show me how sorry you are for the way you talk to me, bella. And I think you should do it like this.”

  He takes my face in his hands and kisses me.

  THIRTEEN

  His mouth is heaven. I’ve died and gone straight to heaven. I’m floating on clouds. Somewhere off in the distance, cherubs pluck harp strings and unicorns sail over rainbows.

  He’s gentle but firm, slow but dominant. His hands around my face are almost rough, but his mouth is as soft as cotton candy. He parts my lips with his tongue and makes a sound in his throat when he does it, a sound that instantly hardens my nipples and makes every nerve in my body glow with lust.

  All thoughts of personal space are out the window. All thoughts about anything else but his mouth and hard body against mine are toast. I stand there and let him give me the hottest kiss of my life, not caring at all that I know after it’s over, I’ll be horrified with both of us.

  It’s too damn good to care about that right now.

  I arch into him, grabbing at his suit. He slides one hand into my hair and makes a fist at the scruff of my neck, holding my head in place as his tongue probes deeper into my mouth. His other hand moves from my jaw to my ass. He grabs a handful of it, dragging me closer.

  We stand there in front of the counter in my father’s shop and feast on each other for what seems like hours. He kisses me for an eternity, licking and sucking, taking gentle nips of my lower lip, pinning me against him with an arm like a vise when I slide my hands up his chest and wind my arms around his shoulders so I can get even closer.

  God, I needed this. How did I ever think I’d been kissed before? This kiss makes every other kiss I’ve ever had feel like a dry peck on the cheek from a granny.

  This kiss makes me feel like a woman.

  He says something roughly in Italian, breaking away from my mouth to drag his lips over my jaw and down my throat. Pulling my head back with that hand in my hair, he sucks on the ragged pulse in my neck, making me moan.

  His voice hot at my ear, he whispers, “I want to hear you make that sound when I’m inside you.”

  My eyes roll back in my head. I’m starting to sweat. My heart pounds so hard it might be in danger of bursting. My body glows with heat, especially in the damp space between my legs, which is also howling with need.

  We stagger back a step or two and bump into the counter. Matteo’s erection presses into my crotch. I whimper, panting and delirious, and hear him make an animal noise, a growl, like a bear.

  It’s the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard.

  Then he opens his mouth and ruins everything.

  “You see? We don’t have to be enemies. Let me buy the business, and we can be the best of friends.”

  I freeze. All the blood that was pumping through my veins so hotly falls to a complete standstill. I stare at him, at his beautiful face so close to mine, and wonder how strict the laws on murder are in this country.

  “Wait. Wait—did you just kiss me to try to get me to sell you my father’s business?”

  He glowers at me from under dark brows but doesn’t respond.

  I push him away, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “Answer the question.”

  He inhales a slow breath, drags a hand through his hair, and straightens his jacket. Then he tosses his head back and stares at me down his nose.

  “Oh my God. You . . . you . . . mercenary!”

  A muscle flexes in his jaw. His eyes could make a cold pile of kindling explode into flame. “The company will be better off in my hands. If you want to honor your father’s memory, let someone run it who can make it the success it deserves to be.”

  This is the second time he’s made me feel like I’ve taken a punch to the gut. I’m determined it will be the last.

  I straighten my shoulders, lift my chin, and dredge up what little dignity I have left. Then I stare him right in the eye and let him have i
t.

  “Fuck you, Matteo Moretti. Fuck you and that high horse you rode in on, and fuck your ego, and fuck your fake kiss.”

  “Which you loved, by the way.”

  “And fuck that stupid smirk on your face,” I say through gritted teeth, willing myself not to lose control and start screaming. “Now get out of my shop. And don’t ever come back, or I’ll make you wish you were never born.”

  He stares at me in blistering silence, his gaze raking over my face. He looks as if he wants to say something else, but instead he shakes his head, turns around, and stalks out. He slams the door behind him.

  I lean on the counter, breathing hard, still dizzy from his kiss. How many more times will I let myself be humiliated before I learn my lesson?

  Men can’t be trusted.

  Neither can my uterus.

  From now on, I’ll only allow logic to run the show.

  Still shaking, I lock the door to the shop and get to work.

  Nine hours later, I’ve conducted an audit of the books, catalogued and repriced the inventory, reorganized most of the work space in the back of the shop, and managed not to think about Matteo more than once every four or five minutes.

  My mind keeps wandering back to that kiss. The adrenaline levels in my bloodstream still haven’t returned to normal.

  I make a list of things to buy—first being a computer—turn the lights off, and lock up. Then I walk down the street to the square, where I find a taxi to take me back to Il Sogno.

  The house is dark when I arrive. I don’t have a key, so I’m forced to knock on the front door, hoping Lorenzo will still be awake so I don’t have to sneak through a window. I’m relieved when I hear a quick step approaching.

  The door opens. “Sorry I’m so late, Loren—” I stop short because the man who opened the door isn’t Lorenzo.

  “Don’t look so surprised to see me. My mother lives here, remember?”

  Smirking, Matteo leans against the doorframe. He’s dressed casually, in dark slacks and a white dress shirt rolled up his strong, tanned forearms. He looks like a billionaire supermodel posing for a spread in Billionaire Supermodel magazine.