Ache For You

50

He works his fingers between my shoulder blades, coaxing the knots until they relax. Then he squeezes my neck and rubs the base of my skull with his thumbs. I groan again, more faintly.

“Feel good?”

“I hate you,” I mutter into the pillow.

He says softly, “I know.”

His fingers work their way down my spine. His touch isn’t s****l, only soothing, but of course my reproductive tract engages in an elaborate mating dance complete with drums and chanting. My head throbs in time with the pounding of the drums.

“How did I get here?”

“I carried you.”

I try to picture that but can’t. He doesn’t appear to have any major muscle strains, so maybe when he says “carried” he means “dragged.” Maybe he had one of the nice kitchen ladies bring up a cart so he could take me to . . .

Wait. Oh no. “Is this your bed?”

He must feel the sudden tension in my muscles because he chuckles. “I’ll say no if it makes you feel better.”

Oh my God. I’m in my stepbrother’s bed. Ex-stepbrother. Bastard ex-stepbrother. Smoking hot, insanely sexy, arrogant, THIEF ex-stepbrother.

Shit.

I should’ve known. The pillow smells like him. Stupid pillow.

I bury my face into it and suck in a deep breath. Delicious.

The bed dips again. An arm slides under my neck. A broad chest warms my back, and a pair of strong thighs pulls up behind mine.

“Don’t freak out,” he says as I start to freak out. “I don’t take advantage of incapacitated women. I just need to rest my eyes for a minute. I was up most of the night watching to make sure you weren’t dying.”

He stayed up to watch over me? That’s either the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard or a fabulous line of bullshit.

I get distracted from my contemplation of which one it might be due to the strong, steady thudding of his heartbeat between my shoulder blades. Then his other arm winds around my middle, and he pulls me gently against his body, fitting us perfectly together like a pair of Russian nesting dolls.

My swallow must be audible because he chuckles again.

“Bella. You think too much.”

“I’m trying to decide how weird this is.”

“On a scale of one to ten, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Zero,” he says confidently.

“But I’m mad at you.”

His sigh is a big gust of warm air down the back of my neck. It gives me goose bumps.

“You’re not mad. You’re hurt. There’s a difference.”

“Believe me, Count Egotistico, I’m mad.”

He starts to gently massage my neck again. The bastard.

When I grumble into the pillow, he says quietly, “It’s all going to work out. I promise.”

“Don’t ever say the P word to me again. The next man who says the P word to me is gonna get a major beatdown.”

“So violent,” he whispers. I can hear the smile in his voice.

“You should believe me. I’m super scary.”

“Oh I know. I saw what you did to blondie’s face.” His voice darkens. “It’s an improvement.”

We’re quiet for a while. When he doesn’t do anything alarming, I slowly begin to relax. It’s deeply strange to be cuddling with Matteo, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is I’m determined he’s my enemy. I never would’ve given him my sketch pad at the airport if I’d known who he was. And now he’s blackmailing me to get it back, for the love of all that’s holy.

My uterus decides this is a good time to interject an opposing viewpoint: But look how supportive he was at the funeral! And how protective he was when Brad showed up!

My ovaries chime in: And he watched you while you were sleeping so you wouldn’t die!

“That was a very sad-sounding sigh. Care to share?”

I pick at the blanket, which feels like a cross between silk, velvet, and a newborn’s bottom. I’ve never felt anything as soft. I squeeze my eyes shut and take a breath for courage. “So this offer of yours about getting my sketch pad back.”

Matteo’s hand falls still on my shoulder. I feel a new tension in him, then I feel him suppress it and force himself to relax. He waits patiently, seemingly calm, but his body betrays him. Between my shoulder blades, his heartbeat has started to pound like mad.

I think he really, really wants me to take him up on his offer. A flush of heat creeps into my cheeks.

When I’m quiet too long, he prompts, “What about it?”

There’s a hint of impatience in his tone, and now the flush in my cheeks spreads to other parts of my body, far away from my face.

I clear my throat. “How do I know you won’t use the designs even if I do agree to your . . . terms?”

Twenty-four kisses. Hot-as-f**k, panty-melting, toe-curling kisses. I try not to shiver at the thought.

“I’ll give you a page back every time.”

I frown at the thought of him handing me pages ripped and wrinkled, torn from the pad. “You could’ve already made copies of everything.”

“I haven’t. And I won’t. And I’ll destroy any dress we’ve made when I give you its sketch back.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m supposed to believe that?”

“Short of saying the P word, how can I convince you?”

I try to think of something that would affect him as much as his using my designs in his collection would affect me. What would really get his goat? What would make him feel exactly as betrayed, angry, hurt, and powerless?

In a moment of brilliance, it comes to me. “I’ll tell your mother everything.”

Silence.

“She might not believe me, but—”

“She’ll believe you.”