Page 46 of Vicious Temptation
“I don’t like being touched,” she says softly, turning slightly to face me as I slide into the bed. “Not after—I just can’t stand it. Even just a slight touch—it makes my skin crawl, makes me nauseous. I can’t do it.”
“Then you don’t have to,” I reassure her quickly, and I see her relax a tiny bit. “Just try to sleep, Bella. And if you wake up again, I’m right here.”
“I’ll probably wake you up even more, like this,” she whispers guiltily. “It’s not like I wake up screaming every time, even though it probably seems like it. But I toss and turn a lot, especially without the pills, and I don’t sleep well. I’m going to disturb you.”
“I’m a pretty heavy sleeper,” I promise her. “But either way, it’s fine. And I think you might sleep better, like this.” I hesitate. “You’ve never slept next to anyone before, have you?”
“Clara, when she’d sleepover, sometimes. She was always given one of the guest rooms, but it was more fun to stay up late in my room until we both just passed out because we were so tired. But never—” She hesitates, but I know what the rest of that sentence is. Never next to a man.
Bella closes her eyes after that, the worst possible sentence she could have ended on, because it leaves my thoughts lingering on what else she hasn’t done. On the fact that I’m the first man she’s slept next to, and what other things could be firsts.
Or not, because of what happened to her, and what might have been taken from her, I chastise myself, mentally berating myself for even thinking that with her right next to me. I asked her to come sleep here to keep her safe, not to fantasize about her innocence, or think filthy thoughts while she lies trustingly next to me, falling asleep because I’ve promised to comfort and protect her if she needs it.
Not to imagine fucking her. Not to imagine how soft her skin must be under all those clothes, or how good any part of her would feel against my achingly hard cock. A few minutes of her lying there was all it took, the glimmer of inappropriate thoughts about a woman who I’m already crossing so many lines with, and I’m stiff as iron, throbbing and clenching my fists to stop myself from touching it.
I’m tempted to slip out of bed and go in the bathroom, if only so I don’t lie here next to her with a hard-on. It wouldn’t take long to get off. But the idea of jerking off a room away while she sleeps in my bed feels somehow worse. It makes me feel even guiltier, and I close my eyes instead, thinking of anything I can to ease the pressure and make my cock give up on its quest for relief.
I’d told myself I offered for entirely honorable reasons, that I could keep my thoughts on the straight and narrow while I slept next to her.
But it’s proving to be far harder—in every way—than even I imagined.
—
From what I can tell, Bella sleeps through the night. She’s still asleep when I wake up at my usual time, stirring a little at the sound of my alarm, but I quickly turn it off, and she sinks back into sleep. I move around the room as quietly as I can, dressing to go down to the basement gym and work out, and she doesn’t show any signs of waking again as I slip out of the room.
Down in the gym, I throw myself into the workout, verging on punishing myself for my arousal last night—and this morning. I woke up hard as a rock, forcing myself to ignore it. I go through my rounds on the boxing bag and lift weights, do crunches and push-ups until I’m breathless and sore and too tapped out on energy to focus on the ache in my balls. The desire has relented for now, but I know as soon as I see her in my bed, it’s going to come back in full force.
Instead, I slink off to one of the other showers, on the floor with all of the guest rooms. It’s cowardly of me, but I know exactly what’s going to happen if I go back to my room, and see her curled up in my sheets. I’m going to want to slide back into bed, to breathe in the sleepy, warm scent of her hair and body, to press my hard cock against her until she opens her thighs and begs for it. It’s too easy to imagine, and even though I know that’s not how it would go in reality, it doesn’t keep me from imagining it.
I’m not going to give in, I tell myself firmly as I feel myself stiffen, the excruciating workout still not enough to keep all the blood from shooting straight to my cock the minute I start fantasizing about Bella. But I force myself to ignore it, exercising every bit of self-control that I have remaining. She’s going to be sleeping in my bed for the better part of the next week. If I start letting myself jerk off regularly to thoughts of her, it’s going to be far too slippery a slope when she’s right next to me in bed.
Especially not when I saw her reaction yesterday to my teasing command. When I can all too easily remember the look in her eyes when I came a breath away from kissing her that night in the living room. She feels something, too—this spark isn’t entirely one-sided, and it’s up to me to be the responsible one, the honorable one. To be the man who doesn’t take advantage of her, when so many others have.
Even if it feels like it’s going to kill me sometimes. Even though I can’t help wondering why the first woman I’ve truly wanted in so long, the first one I’ve not only desired but also liked, has to be a woman who is so completely off-limits to me in every imaginable way.
I focus all those pent-up emotions on something else instead—demanding that Masseo see me today. I fire off a curt text telling him that we need to meet, and as I sit down for breakfast I see his response, telling me that he has a busy afternoon but can fit me in for a few minutes after one p.m. today.
You’ll see me regardless, I think bitterly, my jaw tightening as I put my phone away. I want answers as to how this awful thing was allowed to happen to Bella, and as her father was a part of it, he’s best positioned to give me those answers. And if he doesn’t?—
I’ll go to the don himself, if I have to.
“You look deep in thought,” Agnes observes, sliding a plate of bacon, toast, and eggs in front of me, along with a protein smoothie. “Mulling over something important this morning?”
“Just business.” I flash her a smile, but she doesn’t walk away, which lets me know she has other things on her mind. Things that probably involve grilling me about Bella.
“Bella is awfully good with Cecelia and Danny.” There it is. “Shame that she can’t stay forever. I’m sure her father, being such an important man, isn’t going to want her working here long-term.”
“She’ll be here for as long as she wants to be.” It comes out more curtly than I intended, as I scoop up a forkful of eggs, but Agnes isn’t dissuaded.
“Is that so? You must be paying her father a pretty penny to mollify him, then. I know enough to know that girls like her don’t work for a living. But she seems happy to be doing it, which makes me wonder?—”
“It’s better not to.” I look up at Agnes, who has that narrow, curious look on her face that tells me she’s calculating something, coming up with plans and ideas that she’ll have every intention of seeing through, no matter how much meddling it takes. “Bella’s life at home is her own business. She’s here for now, and that’s all that matters.” Which is an incredibly hypocritical thing to say, considering the fact that I’m about to go meddle in Bella’s business this afternoon, when I go talk to Masseo. But I know the kind of meddling that Agnes does, and it’s the kind that’s only going to make my complicated feelings for Bella that much more difficult to deal with.
“If you say so.” Agnes sets down my cup of coffee, her mouth in a mulish line that tells me that she’s not going to give up so easily. She obviously thinks that there’s something more between Bella and me, and in that she would be correct. But she also clearly thinks that it has the potential to be more than just that, a spark of desire that needs to be quenched, and she’s wrong about that.
Bella needs more than I can give her. And I need to be a better man than giving in to those feelings would make me.
It’s hard to focus after I leave the house. I work on menial tasks for as long as I can, puttering around with paperwork and spreadsheets and going over plans for later in the year, anything that doesn’t require too much of my mental capacity. At noon, I pack up and leave, driving by one of my preferred sandwich spots to grab something for lunch before heading to the D’Amelio residence.