Page 43 of The Cost of Corruption
“It will be warm in the car,” he promised as he opened the passenger door for me, noticing my shivers.
He was right. Comforting heat poured out the vents of his car almost instantly after he’d turned the ignition. While my outward shivering stopped, my reaction to his closeness did not.
He looked as handsome as ever, dressed in a suit that was every bit as nice as the one he’d been wearing the night before.It took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to stare at his body as he pulled out into the street.
Instead, I turned my head and focused all my attention out the side window at the passing buildings and pedestrians.
“How do you like the new clothes?” Matteo asked after a minute of silence had passed.
“They’re not what I’m used to.” It was a diplomatic answer and the best I could come up with.
“But do youlikethem?” he repeated.
“I like some,” I answered honestly. “This dress, for instance, is lovely and not overly revealing. But some of them are a bit…much.”
I glanced over just in time to catch a wicked smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “And by too much, you mean too little.”
Exactly. “Some of the hemlines are very short.”
“I like short hemlines,” he stated frankly.
Ha! That was the understatement of the year.
“What you like is to look at naked women,” I said, calling a spade a spade.
But if I thought I could shame him with the truth, I was mistaken. He took his eyes off the road just long enough to shoot me a heated look that singed straight down to my core.
“I like to do a hell of a lot more than justlookat you when you’re naked.”
“Matteo!” I tried my best to sound shocked, but the noise that came out of my mouth was far too breathy.
“I also like it when you scream my name.” His smile grew. “I’ll have to figure out a way to make you do it more often.”
Forget about the goosebumps. Suddenly, the interior of his car was far too hot. Not only were my cheeks burning, my whole damn body was on fire.
“Are you going to spend every second trying to get a reaction out of me?”
He shook his head, turning fully toward me as we pulled up to the valet stand outside the restaurant. “The only reaction I’m interested in is the one you had this morning when you?—”
Oh, hell no.
I opened the door before he could finish that sentence. The last thing I needed to be reminded of was my shameful behavior.
And not just because every time I thought about the scandalous desires I’d succumbed to in his bed, I was gripped by the uncontrollable urge to do it again.
But also because I still had some pride left.
Not much, maybe, but stillsome.
And while it might be prideful to want to save face, somehow I doubted that particular sin even made it onto the Top Ten list of the ones I’d committed in the last twenty-four hours.
I slammed the car door shut before his words had a chance to follow me out onto the sidewalk.
The respite from Matteo’s presence was brief, though. In a matter of seconds, he was out of the car and back at my side, escorting me inside the restaurant.
Even though the place was packed with customers, a hush still came over the crowd as we entered.
At first, I thought the diners had mistaken Matteo for his older twin, but then I saw more than a few of them clearly mouthing his name to their friends.
