Matteo
I don’t know what time it is when I finally blink my eyes open, but the room is bathing in soft light coming through the beige curtains, so it’s already morning. The night has come to an end and Liss is still in my arms.
My heart immediately responds to the thought at a fast and steady pace, and I can’t help but tighten my hold on her small, warm body. The
scent of sex is strong in the bedroom, and god, how many years has it been since I had a night like that? How long has it been since I met a woman who pulled at my desires so easily? It must’ve been ten years, no less.
I smile to myself and stroke Liss’s arm, thinking about the waves of arousal that washed over me again and again throughout the night. I almost felt like a teenager again, getting so easily turned on by the girl in my arms. But Liss turned out to be so needy and pliant in bed I just couldn’t resist her.
Even though I had an inkling that Liss would be into some dominance play, I couldn’t even imagine how well our desires would align.
God, even thinking about it now makes me horny again. She was clearly enjoying it just as much as I did, and it filled the whole night with so much pleasure I can still feel it thrumming in my bones.
I move closer to Liss to press a kiss to her bare shoulder and tighten my embrace, allowing the nagging affection to fill me from the inside. After Sienna died, I didn’t think that I’d find someone who would make me feel so much again-but here she is, so delicate, needy, and wonderful in my arms. Liss hums under her breath from the motion and smacks her lips
sleepily, readjusting her position in my embrace.
She’s still very much asleep, but my mind is already awake, and no matter how much I want to spend the rest of the morning with her, I have to pick up Romeo at a reasonable hour. When I talked to him yesterday, he sounded very excited to spend the night with Max, but who knows if they’ve gotten bored of each other yet. Besides, Riccardo and Elena didn’t sign up to be nannies for the weekend, so the sooner I get there, the better.
Still, I linger under the sheets, memorizing the moment, before
carefully pulling my arms from around Liss and slipping out of the bed. My clothes are scattered all over the floor and I pick them up, doing my best to keep it quiet-but I guess that doesn’t work out.
“M’tteo?” Liss murmurs in a thick voice, pushing herself up on her elbow, struggling to focus on me with a sleepy frown. “Are you leaving?”
“I have to pick up Romeo,” I say in a low voice, straightening up
with my clothes bunched up in my arms. “Stay in bed if you want to sleep.”
“No, it’s alright.” Liss yawns and rubs her eyes, sitting up. The blanket falls off her shoulders, and the sight of her naked body sends a wave of heat through my veins. Goddamnit. “I’ll make you coffee.”
A part of me wants to protest and tell her to go back to bed-but the other is too tempted to spend just a little more time on my own with Liss.
Besides, it does look like she’s already awake. She moves to the edge of the bed with the grace of a kitten, rubbing the back of her head, and something in me tightens with fondness. God, has she always been so lovely?
As soon as Liss gets up, I catch her shoulders and pull her in for a quick kiss. She whines, still disoriented from her sleep, but leans into my touch and kisses me back. She’s so soft and pliant in my hands, and I’m so tempted to push her back on the bed, pull down her panties, tell her to be as loud as she can, and-
No, no, I really have to go. Besides, despite my mind being all up for another round, my muscles are sore after the vigorous night, and I don’t want to make it awkward if my body refuses to keep up with our pace. So I press another kiss to Liss’s lips and pull back, watching her blink her eyes open with a smile.
“I adore you,” I murmur, looking into her eyes, and Liss immediately looks away, hiding her shyness behind a mask of amusement.
“Oh, don’t be cheesy.” She swats my chest, pushing me away, but I catch a glimpse of blush on her cheeks before she turns away, and it’s enough of an answer for me.
I take a shower first while Liss is dealing with the coffee machine, and when she enters the bathroom to shower after me, I can’t help myself. I trap her against the door, push my hand into her shorts-that are too short
to be decent, really-and rub her until she comes, moaning into my lips and clinging onto my shoulders.
God, it feels like heaven.
After a few lazy kisses, Liss finally decides to push me out of the bathroom and claim her privacy, so I go to the living room with a mindless grin on my lips. I have so many things in mind that I want to do with her, and it looks like she’s just as willing to give herself into my hands. Isn’t it
great? Isn’t it perfect? I can’t believe how lucky I am to have her! The only thing left is to explain it to Romeo, but he loves Liss so much I’m sure it won’t be a problem.
I hum with a smile, giving way to my excitement, and take a seat on the sofa. The coffee machine is quietly brewing in the kitchen, so instead of going there, I decide to linger in the living room and look around. I’m
curious to learn more about the place Liss calls her home.
Her living room is rather small, probably because of the wall separating it from the kitchen, but I like it as it is. It has the feeling of a girl’s room, you know? The door to the balcony, the big plant in the corner, the intricate coffee table, and a few small paintings on the walls give the room its own charm. Are these Liss’s paintings?
I lean back on the sofa, studying the paintings and the walls, until my gaze circles the room and comes back to the coffee table in front of me. There’s a stack of books lying on top of it, and I lean forward to take a better look. What is it that Liss is so diligently studying?
It appears that the books are all about children’s behavior and elementary school studies, and I can’t help but smile. Has she been reading these to help Romeo? I fidget closer to the table, studying the titles, when an unusual one catches my attention. A Tale of Murder. What’s this?
I frown and pull the book from the very bottom of the stack-when suddenly I see something else sliding along with the book. It looks like a
corner of a photo and, following my curiosity, I pull it out as well and raise my eyebrows. Oh. Is that Liss?
The photo shows two children playing in what looks like the backyard of a house. There’s an older boy with unruly hair and the long limbs of a teenager standing next to a swing and smiling at the camera.
Next to him, on the swing itself, is a little girl with brown hair, round glasses, and a wide grin of a happy child, waving at the camera and waiting for the boy to push the swing. They look similar in a way that can only connect two siblings.
Even with round childish features and tiny proportions, I recognize Liss in the girl right away-but who is the boy next to her? I frown, taking a better look at him. The boy seems distantly familiar to me, although I
can’t remember when or in what situation I’ve seen him. “Hey, I think the coffee is ready.”
Liss’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts, and I look up to see her at the doorstep of the room. She’s looking at me with a warm smile, drying her dark hair with a towel, and her clothes cling to her wet skin, making the outline of her body that much clearer. Goddamnit, she’s such a beauty-but no matter how distracting she is, my gaze darts back to the photo.
“Is this you?” I say, standing up from the sofa, and from the corner of my eye I notice Liss going still with the towel still pressed to her hair.
When I look at her face again, there’s not a trace of the smile or the warmth that it carried on her lips. The look in her eyes is distant and almost cold, focused on the photo in my hands, and for a moment it feels as if she forgot that I’m here. Shit. I guess it wasn’t the best idea to bring it up, but how could I know? And it’s too late to turn back anyway.
“Yes,” Liss says after a tense pause, still looking at the photo. “Yes, it’s me.”
“You haven’t changed at all.” I chuckle, hoping to lift her mood, but Liss doesn’t even look at me. I clear my throat and point at the boy. “Is this your brother? You look similar.”
She takes another pause before replying in an even lower, tenser tone than before. “Yes, it’s my older brother.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever told me about him.” I hold out the photo for her to take and catch her gaze-but even in the spare moment that I hold it, I catch a note of something grim and almost hostile. Goddamnit. Did I bring up something really bad?
“I don’t talk about him a lot,” Liss says in a somewhat lighter tone, finally gaining some of her usual colors, and turns around to the hallway. “I haven’t seen him since I was a teen. Cookies?”
“Sure.”
I’m not sure what to make of Liss’s sudden change of mood, so I just follow her lead and pretend like nothing has happened. I mean, it’s true, nothing has happened-yet it feels like something in Liss has changed completely in those few seconds that it took her to look at the photo.
While we share the coffee, I keep catching Liss spacing out or looking away from me all of a sudden, her hands avoiding my touches. Her smiles don’t feel genuine, and her frown grows deeper whenever she thinks I’m not looking at her. It looks like she used to be very close with her brother, even if she tries very hard to pretend like the photo hasn’t affected her, but I don’t want to ask any more questions and disturb her memories that clearly hurt.
When Liss “accidentally” steps away when I reach out to hug her, it’s a clear sign that she needs some time alone, so I decide not to push it. I’ve never seen her so deep in her own thoughts, and I don’t want to make it worse. Besides, I do have to pick up Romeo-Riccardo has already texted me twice.
“Well, I’ll see you on Monday.” I turn to Liss in the doorway and, ignoring her tension, catch her hand to hold it in mine. She glances into my eyes then and smiles, but I still see the same invisible wall that doesn’t let me see her true emotions.
“Yeah, sure. Tell Romeo I said hi.”
I nod and move to leave-but no, I don’t want this to feel like a one- night stand.
No matter where her mind is, I want her to know that last night was important to me, so I turn back to her and move forward to catch her lips in a kiss. I can feel her freeze immediately, but I don’t pull away and kiss her again and again until she finally kisses me back and her hand relaxes in my hold.
“I know we just had our first date,” I murmur, pulling back just enough to look her in the eyes-and my heart swells with affection when I see a genuine smile on her face. “But I want to ask you for another one.”
Liss raises her eyebrows with a chuckle, finally looking more like herself. “Already?”
“What can I say, I can’t get enough of you.”
“Oh, you are so-” She doesn’t finish it and only swats my shoulder, shaking her head with fake exasperation. But I hear a giggle on her lips, and when she looks up at me again, I see a glint of mirth in her eyes. “I guess I don’t have a choice now, huh?”
I shrug with a theatrical sigh. “No, you don’t.”
Liss chuckles again, looking as beautiful as ever, and before I can think about it, I pull her into my arms and hold her closer to my chest. I can’t tell why it was so important for me to see her smile again before leaving, but my heart feels at peace now. We’re good. Everything’s good.
I press a kiss to her hair and murmur, “I adore you, Melissa.”
I don’t even have to look at her to know she’s scrunching her nose at the name before she breathes out and leans into my embrace a little more.
And when I finally leave Liss there and take the elevator down to the parking lot, I still feel her warmth in my arms-and I can’t wait until I get to hold her again