Chapter 8 Luca
LUCA
Ifeel like I’ve lost my fucking mind.
One night with Valentina, and I’m constantly thinking about seeing her again.
I should be glad—it has helped distract me from Giulia and the inevitability of what’s going to happen.
I can’t stop thinking about how good she felt—her mouth, her hand, God, her fucking pussy.
The look on her face when she whispered how big I was. How good I felt.
She could make a man’s ego impossible. She made me feel like I was on top of the fucking world… enough to make a mistake that I’ve never made before with anyone.
I’ve never fucked a woman bare before. I’m meticulous about protection, I don’t want a child, and I don’t want anything else that’s difficult to get rid of, either. But when she begged me for my cock inside her without anything between us… I couldn’t fucking tell her no.
I feel like my obsession with Giulia has just branched out. Like I’m satisfying one obsession by feeding another. And if Valentina makes me feel that way, if she makes me make stupid decisions, I shouldn’t go back and see her.
The last thing I need is another woman who spins me up and makes me not think straight. I was supposed to be clearing my head, not giving myself another reason to get lost.
The smart thing would be to let it go, say that it was one night, and move on with my life. The smart thing would be to stay the fuck away from that club and everything it represents.
But I've never been particularly smart when it comes to the things I want. And I want her.
I can still feel her, still taste her. I can still hear the fucking sounds she made when I was inside her.
I've been with other women. More than I probably should have—enough to know the difference between good sex and great sex, attraction and chemistry.
This was something else. I don’t have a name for what that was, what I felt when I was inside her, when I came in her. I wanted to stay in her for fucking ever.
Which is insane. That’s the kind of thinking that gets men killed in my line of work, because attachment is weakness and weakness gets exploited.
But I can't stop thinking about the way her body fit against mine. The way she responded to my touch was like she'd been waiting for it her whole life. The way she looked at me, even through that mask, like I was exactly what she needed.
I check my watch. Eleven-thirty. If I leave now, I could be there by midnight.
I shouldn't go. I should stay here and work on the security reports that are due tomorrow, review the new protocols Dante wants implemented—literally anything other than chase after a woman who might not even show up. A woman who is only complicating my already complicated life.
But I'm already reaching for my jacket. I tell myself that I'll just go for one drink. If she's not there, I'll leave.
When I get there, I flash my card, make my way to the bar, and order whiskey, neat. The bartender pours it without comment, and I take up a position where I can see the entrance.
I tell myself I'm not waiting for her. I'm just here to unwind and have a drink, to remind myself that there's a world outside the Ciresa mansion and the constant, grinding pressure of wanting something I can't have.
But I'm lying. I'm waiting for her. And when she walks through that door at twelve-fifteen, my entire body goes still.
She's wearing a different dress tonight, but it’s just as fitted, highlighting every perfect curve of her body and making my palms itch to run my hands over her again.
There's something different about the way she carries herself tonight—less hesitant and more certain.
Like she made a decision and she's here to see it through.
The moment she sees me, it’s like an electric jolt. Just looking at her makes my cock start to swell.
She came back.
I set down my glass and start walking toward her before I can think better of it, and she meets me halfway.
We stop a few feet apart, and for a moment neither of us speaks.
We just look at each other, and I can see her chest rising and falling with quick breaths, can see the pulse fluttering at her throat.
"Valentina." It has to be a fake name. I want to know her real one. I want to know more about her; everything about her.
"Hi." Her voice is low and throaty. She wants me again, too, and just the sound of that need in her voice is enough to get me all the way hard. I haven’t even touched her yet, and I’m so stiff I’m aching.
"I didn't think I'd see you again."
"I didn't think I'd come back. But I still couldn't stop thinking about you."
The admission makes my chest tighten. I feel like I can’t fucking breathe.
"I couldn't stop thinking about you either.”
She licks her lips, and my cock throbs. “Upstairs?” she whispers.
I nod. “Upstairs.”
In the room, I can’t go slow this time. I can’t quite believe she came back, that I’m going to get to fuck her again.
I should savor it, but instead I can’t get our clothes off fast enough, and I can tell she feels the same.
I push her back onto the bed, kneeling down with one of her legs over my shoulder, and press my face between her thighs, hungry for another taste of her.
I’m already too close to the edge from the moment my tongue touches her clit. I’m so fucking hard it hurts. I reach for my cock, and the second my fingers brush it, I jerk my hand away. I’m going to come if I keep doing that. I—
I push two fingers into her instead, desperate to feel her heat, her wetness. She’s so fucking soaked. She’s arching beneath me, moaning, coating my tongue with her arousal, and when she clenches around my fingers, pulsing rhythmically as she comes on my mouth, I fucking lose it.
Like I’m a goddamn teenager again. Fuck, this didn’t even happen to me back then. She comes on my tongue, and my cock jerks, hot spurts of cum erupting onto the floor as I lick her through her orgasm.
I wasn’t even touching myself, and I came. Fuck.
My cock is still twitching, cum dripping from the tip as I pull back, but I’m still hard.
I feel like I’m going fucking insane as I rise up, leaning over her as I move her further back onto the mattress and crawl up there with her.
I kneel over her and slide one arm around her back, pulling her up and onto my lap.
I should get a condom.
She gasps as I pull her upright, lifting her onto my cock as if she weighs nothing. The hot slide of her pussy against my bare, still-leaking cock is indescribable. I’d die for this, kill for it. It’s so fucking good.
“Luca.” She whispers my name, and it jerks me out of my fog.
It sounds so familiar. For a moment, it was enough to make me think I was inside Giulia, and my balls tightened dangerously despite the fact that I came seconds ago.
If I hadn’t, I’d have come right then and there, just from the sound of her whispering my name.
Her thighs spread wider, her knees digging in on either side of us as she starts to move on me. I should pull out. Get a condom. This is a bad idea—
She pushes up, slides back down, her hand curling around the back of my neck as she pulls my mouth to hers, and I stop thinking. I press my hand to the small of her back as she starts to ride me, bouncing on my cock with an uneven rhythm, and I swear I see God.
Nothing has ever been so good. This isn’t sex, it’s something else. It’s something I’ll never get over. I need to see her again. I haven’t even finished fucking her, and I already need to see her again.
She kisses me, murmuring my name against my lips, and as I slide my hand between us, rubbing her clit as I thrust up into her, I swear I hear Giulia’s voice again.
Valentina. Giulia. I came here to get over one woman and only ended up wanting them both.
Guilt mingles with desire, but pleasure overwhelms all of it as she comes again, this time on my cock, and I feel my own second orgasm burst through me.
I grab her hip, pulling her down hard on me as I forget all thoughts of pulling out, and bury myself as deeply inside of her as I can as I come.
We lie there afterward, both of us breathing hard.
She fits perfectly against me, her head tucked under my chin, and I can feel her heartbeat gradually slowing to match mine.
I lie there in the dark, holding a woman whose face I've never fully seen, whose real name I don't know, and I think about how completely fucked I am.
"When can I see you again?" I murmur, before I can stop myself. She's quiet for a long moment, and I think she's going to say no. Think she's going to tell me this was a mistake, that it can't happen again.
But then she says, "Friday. Same time."
Relief floods through me, so intense it's almost painful. "Friday," I repeat, already counting down the hours.
—
The next morning, I'm back at the Ciresa mansion for a security briefing, and the first person I see is Giulia.
She's in the hallway, talking to one of the housekeepers, and the sight of her makes my chest tighten. She looks so fucking beautiful, wearing a pale blue sundress, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looks young and innocent and completely untouchable.
Because she is.
She looks up as I approach, and our eyes meet. And I feel guilty.
Which is insane. It doesn't make any sense.
What happened at the club should be a good thing—exactly what I needed.
I'm attracted to a woman who isn't Giulia, a woman who isn't completely off-limits, a woman I can actually have without destroying everything. It’s nothing serious or permanent, but it’s mind-blowing and consuming.
I should relieve me of this inappropriate desire for a woman who I would be executed for even thinking the things I have about her if her brother or father ever found out.
But instead of feeling relieved, I just feel confused.