"Yeah? Well, you can kiss that goodbye," he laughed, a dark, hollow sound that grated on my nerves.
"What does that mean?" He was silent for a moment, and I began to wonder if he would bother answering me or if I'd just wake up to some surprise restriction without asking my consent. He shoved the sleeves of his shirt up one by one, frustration written in every feature of his face. His bone structure was unique, sculpted, and radiated strength with his chiseled square jaw, and that always made him look intimidating to some extent, but the way he pursed his lips in that moment only aggravated it.
"Things are changing. You'll see what I mean once I make the arrangements." I considered asking but decided against it. If Matteo didn't want to tell me something, give me preparation, then he wouldn't. I could beat my head against a wall, or just accept that we would argue whenever he made those arrangements.
My eyes went to the tattoo on his forearm opposite me, watching the way the muscles corded as he gripped the wheel. "Why do you have that tattoo?" I asked.
His eyes darted down to it, and he veered off the road to pull into an empty parking lot of one of the many businesses lining the streets as we made our way out of The Loop.
"What are you—?" I stopped when he threw the car into park. He stripped off his seat belt, his body turning to face me ominously.
He took my hand in his, touching my fingers to the tattooed flesh of his forearm. I traced the lion's face with my fingers, circling the clock face that hid the face of a lamb in its intricate details. "I got it the day I broke up with you," he admitted, shocking me. "As a reminder."
"A reminder of what?" I whispered. I suddenly knew that I didn't want to have this conversation. My apprehension over it had made me procrastinate in asking, because why would I want to know why Matteo had immortalized the worst moment of my life on his skin.
"That the lion should never get involved with the lamb, because it's only a matter of time before the lamb is hurt." I huffed a laugh, pulling my fingers away suddenly. If I'd expected a sweet answer, something to hint that everything had been a lie, that had been anything but. "Not because I broke your heart, Angel. My life is complicated. It's dangerous, and it always has been. Walking away was the best way to protect you from the consequences of it. Every time I thought about going to you, about taking you back, that tattoo reminded me why I had to stay away."
Tears pooled in my eyes, and I shook my head. I wouldn't let him in again, and I worked to rebuild those walls between us, the shaky ones that seemed to fail every day. "Don't."
"It was always you, Ivory. Always," he whispered, pressing his forehead to mine. "You're the only thing that could hurt me. The only thing they could use to break me. That is why you need to do what I tell you. You must stay with Scar. It's the only way I can keep you safe."
I nodded, numbness flooding my system as I fortified my walls. Matteo sighed, aggravated. He'd always known when I worked to build up my walls, always sensed them the second they went up.
It was what made him so effective at tearing them down.
"Fuck it," he grunted, shoving open his car door. My eyes opened, staring around us. The lot was dark, not a car or a person in sight. I flinched when my door opened, and Matteo unbuckled me hastily.
"What are you doing?" I asked as he pushed me to lie over the center console. Maneuvering my legs, he twisted me about until I knelt on the seat. "Teo?"
"Hush, Ivory," he whispered, sliding my dress up my thighs and over my hips to reveal my black thong. "Fucking Christ, you're beautiful." His hand came down on the cheek of my ass in a loud smack that made me cry out, and I felt the searing pain immediately. He repeated it to the other side, and I whimpered. "You do not let another man touch you. Never again, Ivory. I gave Duke a pass because he won't be a problem again, and because I know you would hate me. I will not be that generous going forward." His hands stroked over my hot, burning skin, and I resisted the urge to squirm when that heat shot straight to my core and transformed into a deep, dark arousal that should have humiliated me.
>
Instead, I thrust my ass back at Matteo, letting him know just how I felt about his spanking. "Shut up and fuck me."
He chuckled, "my little angel likes being spanked? I'm not surprised. You'll take everything I give you, Cara mia."
I nodded, whimpering when his hand gripped the waistband of my thong and pulled it down my legs as far as he could until it got caught at my knees. He left it there, two fingers thrusting inside me and finding me already wet and waiting. The sound of his zipper broke the silence behind me, and only a few seconds passed before his fingers withdrew and the smooth, velvety head of his cock replaced them. A hand wrapped in my hair, making me arch my back to take him deep as he surged inside in a single, hard thrust that I felt bottom out against the end of me.
"Teo," I gasped, the fingers of his other hand bruising my hip with the force of his hold on me.
"You'll take it," he ordered, using his grip on my hair and my hip to tug me back until I fell out of the car. With his cock still planted firmly against me, he positioned me so that my hands supported me on the seat. My heeled feet hit the ground, feeling all too shaky to support myself, but Matteo didn't give me any reprieve. He pulled out and snapped his hips back in quickly, releasing his hold on my hair finally in favor of keeping my ass tipped up the way he wanted it. The skin of my ass tingled, something more than the recovering sting from his strike against me. A glance over my shoulder confirmed his eyes were fixated on where we connected, watching himself sink in and out of me in a fast rhythm. I knew I must have looked obscene, standing and bent at the waist to the point I nearly folded in half, and it wasn't easy to hold still and let Matteo take what he needed. His palm slapped down on my ass again, and I screamed, tossing my head back. "This pussy is mine."
"Yes, Teo," I whimpered, and in that moment, it couldn't have been a lie. I clenched around him, my body loving the domination in his voice and the way he gripped me.
She was a traitor when it came to Matteo.
Just like my heart.
"Your mouth is mine. You will never let another man put his lips on you again. Understood?" he barked an order, shifting his hips so he dragged over that spot inside me with every thrust.
"Yes, Teo," I repeated on a whimper. My body tightened, my orgasm crashing over me. He never stopped, never even paused, just forced his way through my orgasm with punishing thrust after thrust.
"This ass is mine," he whispered, and one of his hands abandoned my hip in favor of pressing his thumb to the part of me that no one had ever touched. I whimpered, wiggling against his grip on me. "I'll claim it soon, Angel. All of you belongs to me. I was the first man to take your mouth, the first man to take that sweet little pussy, and I'll be the first man to claim your ass too."
He slowed his pace, and I glanced back to watch him stare at the dirty way he touched me, claimed me while he fucked me with his monster of a dick.
"Shit," I moaned, not wanting to reveal that the strange, foreign pressure against me felt good. It was dark, forbidden, something I'd never thought to like.