That arrogant bastard. “Keep imagining that. It won’t happen.”

Matteo braced himself against the doorframe, trapping me between his arms. “Your body reacted to me, Gianna, even if you don’t want to admit it. Next time you will come when I fuck you, trust me.”

“What makes you think my body was reacting to you? Maybe I was imagining I was with someone else. The mind is a powerful tool.” I tried to slip away under his arm but he pushed me against the doorframe. “Maybe I was imagining it was Sid and not you fucking me.”

Matteo didn’t even blink. He didn’t believe a word I was saying. Damn it!

“If you’d really wanted Sid to be your first, you would have let him fuck you. So why didn’t you?”

“Because you killed him!”

Matteo smiled. “We both know that’s not the reason why, but let’s just pretend it were true. Then I’m glad he’s dead. That wimp didn’t deserve the privilege.”

I couldn’t believe him. “You asshole. I knew you’d get a kick out of it, that’s why I didn’t tell you.”

Matteo leaned close until there was less than an inch between our lips. “But I know and I won’t ever forget. You are mine now Gianna, and I fucking love that I caught you before you found a loser to pop your cherry.”

I tried to slap him but he caught my wrist and actually kissed my palm with a self-satisfied grin. I wrenched my hand away from him. A myriad of insults flitted through my mind, too many to choose only one.

Matteo nodded toward the bed. “Maybe I should tell everyone that we can have a presentation of the sheets after all.”

My eyes grew wide. That was the last thing I wanted, and Matteo knew it. He was taunting me. I pushed past him and this time he let me, and rushed toward the bed. There was a small pink smudge on the sheet. Men had it so much easier. Women had really been screwed over when it came to anatomy. We got our period, we couldn’t pee standing up, we had to squeeze something the size of a melon out of our vagina and our first times sucked majorly. “You wouldn’t dare,” I said.

Matteo crossed his arms over his chest. He was still gloriously naked and was getting a boner again. The bastard was turned on by our fight. “You shouldn’t tempt me.”

I shrugged. “Even if you showed the sheets to your family, nobody would believe you anyway. They think I’m a slut, remember? They’d probably think you faked the stain with your own blood like Luca did in his wedding night.” I tensed. This was a secret I was supposed to keep. Nobody knew. Why couldn’t I ever keep my stupid mouth shut?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Matteo

Gianna’s eyes widened when she let Aria’s and Luca’s little secret slip. Did she actually think I didn’t know? Luca and I would die for each other. He knew he could trust me with every secret, even one that revealed that he wasn’t quite the cruel bastard he and everyone else thought he was. Somehow by some stroke of luck our sadist of a father had made the right decision when he’d chosen Aria for Luca. I didn’t think he’d known how well those two would get along, or he wouldn’t have agreed to the match. He’d always strived on the misery of others. “Don’t worry. Luca told me. Your sister has warmed his cold heart. You Scuderi women have a talent for it.”

Gianna relaxed. No matter how tough she thought she was, her body gave her away. She wasn’t very good at hiding her emotions¸ which would make it easier for me. Her gaze returned to the stain on the sheets. Seeing it actually gave me a sick kick, so had the fine smear of blood on my cock. I wasn’t like some men in our world who would have refused to marry Gianna because she might have messed around with other guys during her flight. Not that I didn’t hate the thought that any guy had ever laid a fucking finger on her beautiful body, but I wanted Gianna too much to care, and I found the whole obsession with purity in our world ridiculous anyway. The best sex I’d had in my life definitely had been with women who knew what they were doing, but I had a feeling Gianna was a quick learner. Still after the initial shock when Gianna had cried out in pain, I’d felt a rush of possessiveness and fucking joy.

Gianna glanced at me, suspicion tightening her kissable lips. Her hair covered her pale shoulder like a veil and I couldn’t resist brushing the strands from her shoulder, marveling at their silkiness. Only Gianna’s skin was even smoother. I didn’t think I’d ever get enough of touching her. My fingers found her pulse before I started stroking her throat lightly. For a moment Gianna held her breath and actually leaned into my touch before she seemed to catch herself. She took a step back so I had no choice but to drop my hand. I had to stifle a smile. She was so very predictable. At least, in her reactions to me. Sometimes in the past she’d managed to surprise me, which wasn’t something other people managed often.

Gianna narrowed her eyes at me. If she knew how hot she looked when she was angry, she’d smile more often. I was already hard again and wanted nothing more than to fuck Gianna. Her eyes flitted down to my cock and she huffed. Shaking her head, she brushed past me and disappeared in the bathroom before slamming the door shut with an audible bang.

I released a small laugh before heading back to the bed, dropping on my back and crossing my arms behind my head. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. After months of frustration, I had been rewarded, even more than I’d hoped for. I waited for the sound of running water but silence reigned in the bathroom. I sat up, suspicion filling me. There wasn’t any way Gianna could escape from the bathroom, but what if she decided to end her life rather than spend it with me?

Gianna seemed to love life too much for such an action, but I wasn’t sure she wouldn’t do it to spite me. I moved toward the bathroom door, ready to tear it down when it opened. Gianna stepped out, her eyebrows shooting up when she spotted me right in front of her. Her eyes weren’t puffy, so at east she hadn’t been crying, which was a relief.

Her nose crinkled. “What? Don’t tell me you’ve been spying on me while I was in the bathroom?”

I crossed my arms over my chest with a smirk. I definitely wouldn’t tell her what I’d thought. “We both know you need supervision.”

With a sigh, she walked past me and climbed under the covers. After a quick scan of the bathroom, which looked the same as it had before, I joined Gianna. She had her back turned to me, and the blankets pulled up to her chin. I pressed myself against her back, my arm sliding around her naked waist. Having her naked body so close to mine was giving me all kinds of ideas and my cock was digging insistently against her butt. I couldn’t wait to take her like this, to have her in front of me on all fours, to have her riding me. I wanted to fuck her in a thousand different ways.

“Don’t even think about it,” Gianna said quietly, warningly. “I’m tired and I don’t owe you more than one go in our wedding night.”

I laughed against her neck before pressing a kiss to her soft skin. “You are such a romantic, Gianna. Your words always warm my heart.”

“Oh shut up,” she muttered.

I tightened my hold on her. She didn’t try to pull away, which surprised me, and again raised my suspicions, but I blamed her demureness on the long day both of us had had. It had been more than twenty-four hours since I’d slept.