Page 24 of The Villain's Beast

“I warned you earlier about this,” I said, setting my book down.

Luca was pretty and his hair looked soft, and he was standing dangerously close to me, swaying gently as he steadied his weight on his feet.

“I don’t listen well.”

“That’s going to be a problem.”

“Maybe you should punish me,” he suggested, reaching behind him and rucking up his shirt. It was over his head and on the floor before I could protest, revealing a dark rose tattoo spread across the center of his chest.

It was the Crimson Rose crest.

Luca was even prettier up close, his pale body dusted with light brown curls that ran down his stomach, disappearing behind the waistband of his dark jeans. He was far smaller than me, shorter and skinnier, but not without strength to his build. The tattoo over his heart was a combination of blacks and dark reds, a stark contrast to the lightness of his skin. Even though he couldn’t have been more different from me, the tattoo was a reminder Luca and I were very much the same.

“I told you I would tear you apart, Luca,” I warned him again, my self-control hurtling toward its limit.

It had been easy, since Fletcher, because my father had isolated me for so long by the time I returned to public life everyone was scared of me. I didn’t have to push people away; they stayed back on their own. Luca was an anomaly, absolutely undeterred when I begged him off. If anything, my resistance was an allure, bringing him deeper into my orbit.

Every breath brought both of us one step closer to the point of no return. Every time I told him no, he came closer.

“What if I do all the work?” he asked, popping open the button on his jeans.

“You’re drunk.”

“I’ll recite you the alphabet backward,” he offered, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, bringing my attention to his wide black pupils and flushed cheeks.

I chuckled, dragging my tongue back and forth across my lower lip while I watched him. I was hard, grateful Luca hadn’t bothered to call me out on it. He’d instead kept as much of his attention on my face as he could manage, like staring down a predator to let them know you weren’t afraid. And it was with our stares connected that he pulled down his zipper and shoved his pants to his ankles. It was with eye contact that he reached into his underwear and stroked his cock, jaw quivering when he reached the tip.

It was too intimate.

Too familiar.

Too much of a memory.

“Get out,” I said quietly, swallowing hard.

Luca gave another stroke down the length of his dick, and he didn’t back away. He had the decency to look down, but it wasn’t to do me any favors. He was trying to scope out the situation between my legs.

“B, come on.”

His plea was breathy, needy…almost impossible to ignore.

“Get out, Luca.” I stood from my seat, towering over him.

Luca was right. He wasn’t that drunk because he didn’t fall over. And he wasn’t that drunk because he took the meaning of my stare to heart in less than five seconds.

“I’m sorry,” he said, grabbing his clothes up off the floor. He stumbled into his pants, staggering backward toward the door with an apologetic smile on his face.

I’d never understand why Luca Mandeville wasn’t afraid of me the same way everyone else was.

“It’s notyou, Luca,” I said softly, palming the erection that the sight of him had grown between my legs.

He gave me a sad smile and a half shrug. “You told me earlier it wasn’t a good day. No harm, no foul?”

“No harm,” I assured him.

Luca pulled his shirt over his head and adjusted his glasses back onto his nose. “If you ever change your mind…”

I chuckled, his audacity maybe the sexiest thing about him. “I know where to find you.”