Chapter 7 #2
While shooting Matteo a glare that announces he thinks I’m full of it, Nico moves around the studio apartment, opening drawers, checking under the mattress, and scanning for anything Lucia might have left behind.
Matteo and I do the same, although he doesn’t look as ridiculous as I do since he isn’t conducting his search in trousers too short to be taken seriously.
In a way, I’m grateful Lucia isn’t here. How the fuck can a grown man explain wearing three-quarter pants?
We collect what little evidence exists—a receipt from a local diner and a half-burned candle with the same faint lemon scent that surrounds my family compound. It’s limited, but it’s better than nothing. Then we leave.
The cool night air bites at my skin as we walk to the car. During the commute home, Matteo offers a healthy stream of commentary, mostly about the length of my pants, and Nico keeps threatening to throw him out of the moving vehicle if he doesn’t come up with some new content.
I tune them out.
My mind drifts back to that apartment and the stabbing pain in my chest when I picture Lucia living there. As my thoughts tangle in a knotted mess, I rake my fingers through my hair, tugging at the roots, hopeful that a brutal pull might yank my frustration out along with several strands of hair.
It doesn’t.
It never does.
By the time we reach the Caruso family compound, the sky is lightening at the edges. Dawn is creeping in. A new day. A new hunt. I just have a different target this time.
I head straight to Camille’s room. She’s curled up in her bed, her hair forming a dark halo around her tiny face as she clutches a stuffed squirrel. I stand at the foot of her bed for a moment, watching her breathe, and the knot in my stomach loosens.
The results will be different this time around because failure isn’t an option. Not finding Lucia will break Camille’s heart. That isn’t something I’ll ever settle for. Even if Lucia wants nothing to do with me, I’ll still push for her to be involved in Camille’s life.
I move closer when Camille stirs before she blinks sleepily at me. Her eyes—my eyes—search my face for the answer to the question she isn’t brave enough to ask just yet.
Did you find her?
I sit on the edge of her bed and brush her hair back. “Yeah, I did,” I murmur. “Not too much longer, and she’ll be here.”
Camille nods once, trusting my oath, then rolls over and falls back asleep.
I linger a little longer before heading to my room to take a shower, hopeful scorching-hot water will clear my thoughts. My bedroom is next to Camille’s. Unlike Camille’s zoo-themed room, mine features a dark, masculine color scheme.
I cross the unusually large room in five quick strides, removing my clothes along the way. My two-sizes-too-small pants are the first to come off.
Steam fills the space when I turn on the faucet full blast. I prefer my shower water scalding hot. After stepping into the double-headed shower, I brace my hands on the tile and let the water pound against my back.
It feels heavenly, but it doesn’t wash away any of Lucia’s scent.
With it drifting through the steam, within seconds, her ecstasy-riddled face flashes before my eyes, and then her voice curls around me, thickening my cock.
The way she looked at me when she was about to come confirms that Matteo and Nico are right.
I’m in trouble. But I don’t care. I’ll find her and bring her home, as promised.
Then it’ll be her wrapping her hand around my cock, instead of my own.
A quick jerk-off in the shower isn’t solely about release. It’s about ensuring I don’t fall into the same traps as before. Things with Anna burned fast because the sparks firing between us were nothing but lust. It was the exhilaration of the hunt and tasting the forbidden.
A lot has changed since then. I’m older now, more mature. Becoming a father changed me.
Though you wouldn’t believe a word I spoke if you could see how fast I’m jerking my dick.
Again, this isn’t about release. I need to do anything to clear my head.
This seems the easiest and most logical solution.
While picturing Lucia in the many positions I put her in tonight, I quicken my strokes. Only a handful of my thoughts revolve around my mouth devouring her soaked cunt. Some of them feature the routine she did on the pole and how I’ve never been more immediately enraptured.
My cock tenses with each frantic pump, and pre-cum leaks with every grind. I imagine Lucia’s moans as her body bucks through the shimmers coating her skin with sweat. She chases orgasms with the same intensity she uses when commanding the attention of every man in the room. With pure perfection.
An involuntary moan escapes my mouth when I slide my thumb over the slit in my crown, still sensitive. Lucia’s lips slid over my cock over six hours ago, but I can still recall every thought that crossed her mind with precise detail.
Her sultry lips were glistening with spit and stretched to within an inch of their life, and her eyes were arrested on mine.
She couldn’t accept all of me in her mouth, but what she could felt amazing.
My thigh muscles bunch as I glide my hand up and down my shaft, grunting with each pump. I pretend Lucia is on the other side of the foggy glass, watching me. Her smile is as teasing as mine, and her thighs are drenched.
Her hooded eyes set ablaze as she watches me unravel.
Spreading my feet to the width of my shoulders, I angle my body toward the entry of the bathroom. I bend my knees and rock my dick in and out of my fist, my lower lip caught between my teeth.
Even though there’s no visible object in my view but steam, I take in the way the stiff peaks of Lucia’s nipples brush against the metallic material of her bikini top, and notice that her bikini bottoms are shadowed with wetness.
A low groan rumbles up my throat as I grip my cock firmer.
I’m going to do this once she’s here with me for real. I’ll admire her curvy hips and the cock-thickening swells of her breasts while masturbating like my long stint of abstinence hadn’t recently rescinded.
“Fuck.”
The thought of Lucia’s lips parting as she sucks in desperate breaths while watching me makes me stroke my dick faster. I slam my hand to the base before returning it to the tip again and again.
Will she be so turned on by how horny she makes me that she’ll touch herself to alleviate the pulse between her legs? That would be a show I’d sign up for time and time again. I’d shell out far more than the hundred thousand I spent tonight. I’d give her every digit in my bank account.
There are a fuck ton of them, though not as many as there were before Anna arrived at my door.
My dick softens as I recall her demands. She wouldn’t fight me for custody if I were willing to hand over twenty million for the privilege of participating in my daughter’s upbringing.
I would have given five times that amount, but no man likes to be played. Despite Anna’s multiple promises that a big payday wasn’t her intention, the fact that she disappeared within an hour of the funds landing in her bank account proves otherwise.
I would have continued searching for her as I had the previous four years if she had taken Camille with her. Since she didn’t, I redirected my anger to something more positive—as I try to do again now.
My attraction to Lucia is sufficient enough to force this train back onto the tracks in a shamefully quick time. It’s as immediate as the swelling of my cock when she glided onto the stage in a paper-thin dress and an oversized wig concealing her features.
I could have let her keep her shield of anonymity, but I was selfish. I was as desperate to see her face as I was to announce my plan.
A nanny position wouldn’t tie her to me for life, but it would guarantee me fourteen years to woo her.
Even someone as devious as Matteo could have an angel siding with the devil in that time. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was the only plan I could think of that wouldn’t involve forcing her into submission with my dick.
No wonder my plan failed.
While pumping my cock, I flare my nostrils, hopeful to catch a snippet of Lucia’s scent on my skin. Pre-cum pools at the top when my efforts pay dividends. I can smell the scent of her arousal on my mouth, hand, and cock, but I also catch the faintest whiff of her perfume.
“Yes,” I whisper, my thoughts now not solely on my own release.
I imagine Lucia’s desperation reaching a fever pitch and her hand slowly slipping beneath her panties. I’d want to watch, so I’d have to order her into my room and demand she fan her legs wide for me.
Again, the thought has me on the brink of release.
I tug my dick harder, almost cruelly.
When my balls pull in close to my body, I throw my head back and stare at the ceiling. My pumps don’t slow as my body shudders through release. They taper a little so I can savor the tingles that have been few and far between the past five years.
I won’t allow another long stint of abstinence to happen.
Lucia Martinez flipped more than my life plan on its end when she jabbed her finger into my chest.
She rewrote history.