The Price of Touch
911 Words
The safehouse was nothing more than a crumbling cabin tucked into the Italian hills, hidden behind thick forest and silence. A place where ghosts could hide from the world. A place where people like them came to disappear.
Lena stood barefoot on the dusty wooden floor, wrapped in a stolen hoodie that smelled like him—cedarwood, smoke, and something darker she couldn’t name. She hadn't spoken in hours. Not since they'd crossed the threshold.
She kept expecting a bullet. A betrayal. Anything to shatter this fragile... whatever this was.
But Matteo didn’t speak either.
He moved like a shadow—quiet, deliberate. The gun never left his hip. And yet… he’d lit a fire. He’d given her food. Water. A blanket.
And something far more dangerous.
Hope.
Lena curled up on the threadbare couch, knees to chest, eyes tracking him as he checked the locks on the windows, the hinges on the door. Every few seconds, he glanced back at her—like he was making sure she was still real.
She didn’t know what to say.
So instead, she asked, “Do you regret it?”
Matteo froze.
She swallowed. “Saving me.”
His back was still to her, but she saw his shoulders rise and fall.
“No.”
“You should.”
“I know.”
She stood, stepping closer. “You killed people back there. Your people.”
“I know.”
“Then why aren’t you angry?”
He turned finally, eyes wild with emotion he refused to show.
“Because for once,” he said, voice rough, “I didn’t feel like a f*cking weapon. I felt like a man.”
She exhaled—staggered by the weight of it. She wasn’t used to men like Matteo being soft. She wasn’t used to anyone being soft.
Her whole life had been steel, war, walls.
But with him—there was a crack. And light was leaking through.
“You scare me,” she admitted.
His jaw clenched. “I should.”
She moved closer, heart thudding like thunder. “But not in the way you think.”
Matteo tilted his head, confused.
“You don’t scare me like a killer. You scare me like… like someone I could fall for.”
Silence stretched like a wire between them.
Tight. Fragile. About to snap.
Then he closed the distance between them in one sharp breath.
“Don’t say that,” he murmured.
“Why?”
“Because I already have.”
Her chest caved. “What?”
He lifted a hand—hesitant, reverent—and tucked her hair behind her ear.
“I don’t know when,” he whispered. “Maybe the first time you told me to kill you. Maybe the second time you didn’t cry.”
She laughed—soft, broken. “You have a twisted taste in women.”
“I never had a choice,” he said, and kissed her again.
But this time—
It wasn’t rough.
It was slow. Heavy with meaning. He tasted her like a sin he didn’t want forgiven.
Her hands clutched his shirt, pulling him closer. His lips trailed down her throat, teeth grazing her pulse. She gasped. Arched into him. Fire bloomed low in her stomach.
“I should stop,” he whispered against her skin.
“But you won’t,” she breathed.
“No.”
And then his mouth found hers again.
Clothes fell to the floor like confessions.
He lifted her, carried her to the mattress with bruising hands and a reverence that broke her open. She wrapped her legs around him, nails dragging down his back. He groaned into her neck.
Their bodies moved like poetry—ragged, desperate, hungry.
But beneath the heat, there was something else.
Need.
Loneliness.
Two broken people clinging to the one person who hadn’t walked away.
He entered her slowly—watching her face, her breath, her every sound.
She held onto him like he was the only thing keeping her tethered to earth.
And when they came undone together—gasping each other’s names—it wasn’t lust that echoed in the room.
It was trust.
Afterward, she lay on his chest, fingers tracing the scar above his heart.
“What is this?” she whispered.
“A mistake,” he said quietly. Then added, “The best kind.”
She smiled faintly. “Are we going to die?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you care?”
“Not anymore.”
She looked up at him, her lips brushing his jaw.
“Then let’s make it count.”
---
By morning, the fantasy cracked.
Matteo’s burner phone buzzed.
He didn’t answer it. Just stared at the screen.
“It’s Ricci’s men,” he said finally. “They’re looking for us.”
Lena sat up, sheet clutched to her chest. “How soon until they find this place?”
“Two days. Maybe less.”
“And then what?”
He looked at her.
“We run.”
“To where?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’ll get you out. I swear it.”
Her eyes burned. “Why do you care so much?”
“Because,” he said softly, “the night I didn’t kill you, I started feeling again. You gave me something I didn’t think I deserved.”
She crawled into his lap, kissed him slow.
“You deserve everything,” she said.
- Writer
