My Stepbrother’s Dangerous Touch

CHARLIE pov “Ough…argh…” "Where do you want it? Tell me." My lips parted. "Matteo…." My fingers curled into the bedsheet, breath snagging somewhere between sleep and something I couldn't name. Feeling Matheo long slender fingers on my c**t. He pressed in, circled it and moved his fingers through until it went deep….in and out. “How about I tell your father about your naughty thoughts on me, your bodyguard.” “You…you would….. wouldn't dare argh…ough..fuck.” His mouth descended. Sucked my n****e hard, then the other, back and forth, no pattern I could predict, just sensation building, building up and getting all wet. "Already wet." His thumb traced my slit through the fabric I suddenly wasn't wearing. "Dreaming of me. Good girl." I tried to speak. "Matteo…please…" *Beep. Beep. Beep.* I slapped the alarm silent so hard my palm stung. The ceiling stared back at me, white, indifferent, mercilessly real. I lay there, waiting for my chest to stop being ridiculous about this. It didn't. I threw the covers off and pressed my feet to the cold marble floor. Let it shock some sense back into me. It worked. Barely. “A dream…..A wet one. Fuck.” Just a dream. The same one hunting me for two weeks straight, ever since Matteo Rinaldi walked through our front doors and positioned himself between me and the rest of the world like he'd been doing it his entire life. I cursed under my breath and reached for my robe. The balcony called me the way it always did when the walls felt too close. I stepped outside. 6:04 AM. Rome's sky hadn't decided what it wanted to be yet, bruised purple at the edges, pale light bleeding over the hills like a wound slowly closing. I wrapped my arms around myself and breathed. The gardens below were quiet. Then…..movement. It was barely dawn and someone was already walking. He was already awake. Of course he was. Matteo stood at the far edge of the stone pathway, arms folded behind his back, scanning the perimeter with that unsettling stillness he carried everywhere. Dressed in all black. Spine straight as a blade. I gripped the railing. Even from up here something about him snagged at me. The line of his jaw. The way he held his shoulders. I had stared at my father across the banquet table my entire life and never thought twice, but standing here in the grey morning light, watching Matteo below, the similarity moved through me like cold water. Same jaw. Same posture. I blinked it away. Told myself it was the early hour. He looked up…just moments he would have seen my existence and immediately squatted. Crawling back in like a rabbit. ★★★ Ding DING ding!!!! The bell rang exactly one hour later. Every Thursday. Without exception. The ancestral ritual had survived three generations of Benedetti blood and my father's iron will ensure it would survive three more. The main hall was already filling when I arrived. My siblings moved through the space the way they always did, loud, comfortable, owning every inch of it. I slipped into my usual position at the edge of the room. Close enough to participate. Far enough to be forgotten. Twenty-three years had made me very good at that distance. Grandmother Benedetti's portrait loomed above the altar, stern-eyed, watching all of us. White candles lined the marble shelf below. Unlit. Father stood at the head of it all. Fredrick Benedetti. Sixty years of calculated brutality wearing a pressed suit and a patient expression. He nodded once. The ritual began. One by one my siblings stepped forward. One by one flames caught. It moved down the line with a quiet ceremony and for a moment, just a moment, it almost felt like a real family. I felt Matteo step into position behind me. I didn't turn. His presence announced itself before he ever made a sound, that shift in the air, that particular gravity. Then his cologne reached me and every rational thought I owned took a quiet step backward. ‘Don't.’ I fixed my eyes on the altar. Lycan stepped forward. The eldest. Broad-shouldered, sharp-eyed. He'd been tense all morning, I'd noticed it at breakfast, the tight set of his jaw, the way his fingers drummed once against the table before he caught himself. I'd filed it away the way I filed everything. Quietly. He reached for the unlit candle. Then stopped. Turned to face our father instead. The room didn't change. But something in it did. "The key." Lycan's voice was conversational. Almost pleasant. "Hand it over, Father." Fredrick didn't blink. "This is not the time or place, Lycan." "I disagree." Lycan tilted his head slightly. "We discussed the ancestral script yesterday. You made a promise." "I made no promise." "You gave your word." "I gave nothing." Father's voice dropped half a degree, the way it always did before something irreversible happened. "Step back and light your candle." Lycan smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "The script belongs to the firstborn. That is the law of this house. *Your* law, Father. Or has that changed?" "What belongs to whom is decided by me." Fredrick unclasped his hands slowly. "As it has always been." "Then you've decided to break your own word." Lycan let that sit in the air for a moment. "In front of everyone." Mother stepped forward, her voice thin and careful. "Lycan, this can be discussed after…" "No." He didn't look at her. His eyes hadn't left Father's face. "It gets discussed now. In front of all of them." He gestured broadly at the room. "Since Father seems to prefer his decisions witnessed." Fredrick said nothing. That was somehow worse than anything he could have said. The silence stretched. Then the click. Small. Almost polite. I knew that sound. Every person raised in this house knew that sound. The gun appeared in Lycan's handase it had always been there. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. "The key, Father." Still that same pleasant tone. "I won't ask again." Mother's voice cracked at the edges. "Put that down. *Lycan.* Put it down right now, what is wrong with you…" "Stay out of this, Mother." "You are pointing a gun at your father in your grandmother's ancestry..." "I am pointing a gun at a man who breaks his word and calls it leadership." His jaw tightened. Just slightly. The only crack in the composure. "The script. The key. Now." Fredrick looked at his eldest son for a long moment. Something passed across his face, not fear. Never fear. Something colder than that. Calculation. "You will regret this," he said quietly. "Maybe." Lycan raised the gun slightly. "The key." Bang