“You did all of this just to see if you could make me talk? You… raped me as part of a plan? As a means to a fucking end? To make me hate you—which I had every right to!—to…to…?”
“Yes,” he says, not allowing me to finish the in-progress implosion of my brain. “And despite having every motivation to, you didn’t talk. You passed. Congratulations.”
“Do I get a fucking ribbon?” I ask, dumbfounded.
He smiles. “Better. You get your freedom.”
That knocks the fight right out of me. I don’t think I heard him right—or I misunderstood him somehow. “What?”
“I’m never the most trusting guy in the room, but… you’ve shown me I can trust you not to say anything against my family. You don’t have to be afraid of Vince leaving you anymore. If he does, you’re free to move on with your life, removed from the Morelli family. Or, if you’re hooked, you can give me a call,” he says, winking.
“Vince… he was in on this? Sunday night…?”
“No,” Mateo says, his smile disappearing. “No, that…” He pauses. “I did not anticipate that he would… That was a surprise. I mean, it certainly helped, but no, that was all him.”
“So, you’ve only been toying with me for this? It was never real, it was… you were just… manipulating the circumstances until you did enough damage to test me?”
He takes a few seconds before he answers. “Well, yes and no. Obviously, it really happened, but my main motivation was this. I didn’t think you’d enjoy rape, but I thought you’d probably enjoy murder far less. Made a judgment call.”
I don’t know what to feel anymore. There’s logic to what he says, but I don’t know how to process the implications. I don’t know how to file away everything that’s happened to me, or my observations about him as a person. He’s tormented me and Vince, all in the name of testing some theory—an admittedly solid theory, but… wow.
I don’t even notice he’s caught my hand until he presses it against his cock. He’s hard beneath the soft fabric of his pants, and though I’m foggy with confusion, it registers.
“I can think of a way for you to thank me,” he says playfully, his lips brushing my earlobe, sending shivers of pleasure all along my nerve endings.
“Mateo…”
“Don’t worry, I can take away your choice,” he says, tugging me close. “I prefer not to. I confess, while I didn’t hate myself for a single time I fucked you, Mia, I would like to experience you fucking me because you want to, actually knowing it’s my cock inside you.”
I release a breath, knowing I need to get the hell away from him. That goddamn dirty mouth does things to me it shouldn’t, and I don’t want him, I want Vince.
“You said it was all a game. Game’s over,” I remind him.
Rubbing my hand against his cock, he tells me, “There are always other games.”
“With you, yeah, I bet there are,” I say, with a shaky, unconvincing laugh.
I haven’t pulled my hand away, though, and I probably could have. He’s still holding my hand, but if I tried to break his hold, I don’t think he’d stop me.
So why am I still stroking him?
Why can I feel myself getting excited?
“I need to go,” I say quietly.
“I’ll take you home after the game’s over,” he says, moving between my legs.
“Mateo,” I say, my heart pounding with a mix of panic and something else. It’s the something else that’s the problem. “You have to stop.”
“Why delay the inevitable?” he asks, his hand sliding up the inside of my thigh. “Vince is a good kid, but he’s a kid. You need a man.”
“No,” I say, yanking my hand from his cock to grab the one moving between my legs. “What I need is to get away from you.”
“To go back and live at my house, where you’ll see me day in and day out. I will fuck you, Mia, it’s just a matter of when.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, and even though I’m me, and I have control over this situation, I can’t help but believe him.
I don’t know how to explain what I feel for Mateo. It isn’t yearning, it isn’t want. I wouldn’t even call it lust, but he calls to me in some way. I don’t want him, but I’m ensnared all the same.
Feel isn’t even the right word. It’s not an emotional response, it’s a force of nature. Mateo Morelli is a black hole, and no matter how I feel, no matter what I want, I can’t escape from being sucked into him.
As I think that, his finger moves inside my panties.
“Stop.”
He doesn’t, sucking on my neck before saying, “No, don’t tell me to stop. We’ve already played that game. I want to play a different one.”
“It wasn’t a game to me,” I remind him, soberness piercing whatever fuckery he’s practicing on me right now. “It was real to me.”