A sob escaped me and I covered my face. I couldn’t believe him. The fact he made me safeword out instead of talking to me, tore at me. There was a gentle side to him. I knew there was. I had seen it. But whatever had happened to him in the past couple of days, brought forth a monster.
Warm fingers wrapped around my wrists, pulling my hands-free from my face.
Blinking through my tears, I stared up at him.
So many emotions passed through his dark eyes but I couldn’t quite place them. He caressed the back of his hand down the side of my face before pinching my chin. Tilting my head to meet his mouth, he brushed his lips along mine. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“What happened?” I swallowed hard.
Matteo released me and helped me to my feet, pulling me to his bed. He took off the rest of his clothes and took a deep breath. “I get paid to listen. Not talk. I don’t talk about my shit. Ever.” He slowly turned away from me.
I slapped a hand against my mouth, muffling my gasp. Light and dark pink scars marred his back, covering him completely in the jagged flesh. “Matteo…”
“I want to talk to you. I need to. But I need you to have patience with me.”
I crawled onto my knees and knelt behind him. With a shaky hand, I brushed my fingers over his bumpy skin. “…can you tell me what happened these past couple of days and why you disappeared?”
“I…” He let out a heavy sigh. “I have no reason for how I treated you but…I didn’t want you to see me that way.”
“What way?” I asked, brushing a hand down his back. If only I could take away his pain. Take away the nightmares that came along with the marked skin.
“A couple nights ago, I went to a BDSM club called, Heavy. It’s been the only thing I’ve known since…for a long while.” Matteo slumped on the bed. “I’m a monster.”
“No, you—”
“Mae, I appreciate you saying that I’m not but I fucking am,” he snapped. “Because of her.”
“I don’t…I don’t understand.”
He slowly turned to me, his eyes the darkest I had ever seen. “I didn’t want to scare you.”
“What are you talking about?” I frowned.
“I don’t trust myself when I see her,” he muttered, kissing each of my knuckles. “As much as I want to hurt you, I don’t want you to see me that way.”
“Matteo…”
“I…” he shook his head. “You think I’m such a good man. You think I’m happy and everything is fine and dandy because I’m a doctor. Well, little girl, I have no strength. I have no fight. I have no will to move forward when I see her. But you, you bring out something inside of me. I can’t explain it. All I know is because of you, because of this…” he waved a hand between us. “I am a motherfucking monster.”
Matteo
Mae frowned, placing her hands on her hips and pointed a finger at me. “I’ve met monsters. I’ve met men that would make the devil himself cringe.”
My heart gave a start. “Mae, I—”
“No,” she shook her head. “I know you’re not a monster.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Because I couldn’t be with you if you were,” she yelled, pushing me.
My mouth snapped shut.
“I like you. I like this,” she waved a hand between us. “But I don’t like when you shut me out. We’ve been doing so well. Dating like a normal couple. But I still don’t know everything.”
“I don’t know everything about you,” I said, taking a step towards her.
“You need to have patience with me,” she said softly, throwing my own words back at me. “I know we both need time but talking is healthy. Look at what you do for a living, Matteo. You get paid to force people to talk.”
“I don’t force them,” I mumbled.
“You manipulate your words into making your patients think they have no choice but to talk.”
I scoffed. “You sound like some of my patients.”
“At least tell me one thing,” she said gently. “Did you fuck her?”
“No.”
She gave a curt nod. “Good.”
Watching her sleep without touching her, was one of the hardest things I had ever done. The need for Mae drove me fucking insane. It was like a drug addict that could see their fix right in front of them but wasn’t allowed to touch it. The pure white powder, lining the table, making their nose tingle