“Luca doesn’t need encouragement, believe me.”

“You make me sick. All of this does.” I turned and stalked away but Matteo caught up with me and barred my way with an arm against the wall.

“Your sister will be fine. Luca isn’t cruel to women.”

“Is that supposed to reassure me?”

Matteo shrugged. “I know my brother. Aria won’t get hurt.”

I searched his face. He seemed serious. I wanted to believe him but from what I’d witnessed, Luca was anything but a kind man. He was brutal and cruel and cold.

“I really want to fucking kiss you,” Matteo said in a rough voice, startling me.

My eyes widened. He didn’t move. Just stood in front of me with his arm propped up against the wall and his dark eyes boring into mine. We weren’t engaged, thank God, so speaking to me like that was more than inappropriate. Father would have gone nuts if he’d heard. I should have been anxious, embarrassed at the very least, by his words, but instead I found myself wondering how it would be to kiss someone. The girls in my class had all kissed and done far more already. Only Aria, I and the other girls from mob families were sheltered by bodyguards. How would it be to kiss someone forbidden? To do something a good girl didn’t do?

“Then why don’t you?” I heard myself say. Alarm bells went off in my mind but I ignored them.

This was my choice. If we weren’t who we were, if we hadn’t been born into this screwed up world, if Matteo wasn’t a Made Men and a killer, maybe then I could have fallen for him. If we’d met as two normal people, then maybe we could have become something.

Matteo moved closer to me. For some reason I backed away until I bumped into the wall, but Matteo followed and soon I was trapped between cold stone and his body. “Because there are rules in our world and breaking them has consequences.”

“You don’t seem like a stickler for rules.” I wasn’t sure why I was encouraging him. I didn’t want his attention. I wanted out of this fucked up world and its fucked up people. Getting involved in any way with someone like him would make that impossible.

Matteo smiled darkly. “I’m not.” He reached for my face and slowly raked his fingers through my hair. I shivered at the light touch. I didn’t even like Matteo, right? He was annoying and arrogant and never knew when to shut up.

He’s like you.

But my body wanted more. I grabbed his vest, my fingers crinkling the soft material. “Me neither. I don’t want my first kiss to happen with my husband.”

Matteo let out a quiet laugh and he was so close that I could feel it more than hear it. “This is a bad idea,” he murmured, his lips less than an inch from mine, his eyes dark and devoid of the usual playfulness.

My insides seemed to burn with need. “I don’t care.”

And then Matteo kissed me, lightly at first as if he wasn’t sure if I was being serious. I tugged at his vest, wanting him to stop being careful, and Matteo crushed his body to mine, his tongue slipping between my lips, tangling with mine, giving me no time to wonder what I was doing. He tasted of whiskey and something sweeter, like the most delicious whiskey truffle I could imagine. His body radiated heat and strength. His hand cupped the back of my neck as his mouth set my body alight with need.

God, no wonder Father didn’t want us to be around men. Now that I knew how good kissing felt, I never wanted to stop doing it.

There was a gasp, and Matteo and I pulled apart. I was still dazed when my eyes settled on my sister Lily who stood frozen in the hallway, probably on her way to her room. Her eyes were wide. “Sorry!” she blurted, then took a few hesitant steps in our direction. “Does this mean you’re going to marry?”

I snorted. “No, it doesn’t. I won’t marry him. This means nothing.”

Matteo shot me a look, and I almost felt bad for my rude words, but it was the truth. I had no intention of marrying a Made Men, no matter how good he could kiss, or how much he could make me laugh. The men in our world were killers and torturers. They weren’t good men, they weren’t even decent men. They were bad, rotten to the core. Nothing could change that. Maybe they occasionally managed to imitate normal guys, especially Matteo had that act down to a T, but in the end it was only a mask.

Matteo turned to Lily. “Don’t tell anyone what you saw, okay?”

I slipped away from him, needing to bring some distance between us. How could I have let him kiss me? Maybe I was lucky and he was more intoxicated than he let on. Maybe he wouldn’t remember a thing tomorrow morning.

“Okay,” Lily said with a shy smile.

Matteo gave me a knowing look before he walked past Lily and turned the corner. The moment he was gone, Lily rushed toward me. “You kissed him!”

“Shhh,” I said as we walked down the hall.

“Can I sleep in your room tonight? I told Mother I could.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“How was it?” she asked in a hushed whisper. “The kiss I mean.”

At first I wanted to lie but then I opted for the truth. “Amazing.”

Lily giggled and followed me into my room. “So are you going to kiss him again?”

I wanted to, but I knew it would be a majorly bad idea. I didn’t want to give him any ideas. “No. I won’t ever kiss Matteo again.”

I should have known that it wouldn’t end that easily.

***

The next day, a couple of hours before my family had to leave for Chicago, Matteo caught me alone in front of my bedroom. He didn’t try to kiss me but he stood very close. It would have been easy to bridge the distance between us, to grab his shirt and pull him against me. Instead I put my guards in place and glared. “What do you want?”

Matteo clucked his tongue. “Last night when we were alone you didn’t give me the cold shoulder.”

“I’d hoped you were too drunk to remember.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” If he didn’t stop smiling that arrogant smile I’d wring his neck, or kiss him, I hadn’t decided yet. Choice number one was the better option, no doubt.

“It was a one time thing. It didn’t mean anything. I still don’t like you. I only did it because I wanted to do something forbidden.”

“There are plenty of other forbidden things we could do,” he murmured, stepping closer and enveloping me with his scent.

“No, thanks.”

“Why? Losing your courage? I could ask your father for your hand in marriage if you’re tired of forbidden things.”

“Right,” I said sarcastically. “I will never marry you, that’s a promise. And now that Aria’s already trapped in New York, Father wouldn’t send me away anyway.”

Matteo smiled. “If you say so.”

His overconfidence made me snap. I jabbed my finger against his chest. “You think you’re irresistible, don’t you? But you aren’t. You and Luca and every other man in the fucking mafia think you are oh-so-great. Let me tell you something: if you weren’t fucking rich and didn’t carry a fucking gun wherever you went, you wouldn’t be better than anyone else out there.”

“I’d still be good-looking and I could still kill most of the wimps out there with my bare hands. What about you, Gianna? What would you be without the protection of your family and the money of your father?”