Chapter 8 Luca #3
I follow him. I know I shouldn’t. I should stay with the family, play my part… or if I can’t do that, I should just fucking go home.
Instead, I follow Enzo into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me in the instant before I pin him against it with my arm across his throat.
“What—” he barely gets the word out before I apply pressure.
"You touch the don's daughter again," I say, my voice low and deadly, "and I'll cut off your hands. Do you understand me?"
His eyes are wide, terrified. "I wasn't—I didn't mean—" he splutters. “You can’t—touch me—like this—”
I tighten my arm against his throat. "Do you understand me?"
“I—” he wheezes. “Do—know—who—am—”
“I know exactly who you are.” I reach down, sliding my hunting knife out from the holster beneath my jacket, and push the tip just beneath his ear. “You’ll be dead if I don’t get some sign you understand.”
His face is tomato-red. I smell piss as he starts to wet himself. “Under—stand—” he wheezes, and I let him go. He drops to the floor, coughing and gasping, and I step back, sneering at him in disgust.
“Get the fuck out.”
He scrambles halfway up, grasping for the knob as he stumbles out. The door swings shut behind him, and I stand there for a moment, breathing hard, trying to get myself under control. Trying to remember that I can't just threaten people every time they get too close to Giulia.
But I can't seem to help it. The possessiveness, the jealousy, the rage—it's all getting worse. Spiraling out of control. And I don't know how to stop it.
Enzo complains to Dante, of course. And I have to smooth it over, claim I was protecting the family's honor, that Enzo was being disrespectful. Dante accepts the explanation, but he warns me to be more subtle.
"I appreciate your loyalty, Luca," he says, his eyes sharp. "But we can't have you threatening every man who looks at my daughter. It draws too much attention."
My jaw tightens, but I nod. "Understood."
"Good. Because I'd hate to lose you over something so trivial."
The warning is clear: Get yourself under control, or there will be consequences. I nod and leave his office. Romeo follows me out, and I can see the concern on his face.
“Luca, what’s going on?”
I shake my head. “Just stress. I’m fine. I’ll focus.”
"Bullshit." He steps closer, his voice dropping even lower. "I've known you for years, Luca. I know when something's wrong. And this—whatever this is—it's eating you alive."
“I’m just not sleeping well. I’ll go to the doctor or something. Figure it out.”
“You need to. Dante is getting edgy about it, too. You’re going to fuck up a good thing, Luca. And I want you around. Need you around, especially these days with all this engagement bullshit and a new person joining the family.”
“Yeah.” I run my hand through my hair, forcing myself to sound calm and casual. Anything except what I actually feel, which is like I’m losing my fucking mind. “Giulia seems different lately. Quieter. More withdrawn.”
Romeo shrugs. "She's adjusting to the idea of marriage, I think. It's a big change. She knows the engagement is coming up. It’s a lot for her to deal with."
I nod. “A big change,” I echo, and Romeo claps me on the shoulder.
“It’s nothing for you to worry about.” There’s a hint of something close to warning in his tone. “You just focus on your work. This will all be over soon.”
I can’t fucking focus between then and the next night the club is open.
Valentina didn’t promise she’d come back, and I spend every fucking night until then with my hand on my cock, picturing her, trying to think of her when I come, and always ending up with Giulia in my head—on her back, on her knees, atop me, all the ways I’ve had Valentina but with Giulia naked and moaning for me instead.
I feel like I can’t fucking come alone anymore unless I’m thinking of her, unless it’s Giulia’s face I see.
I’m practically fucking praying that Valentina is there the next night that I go, even though I know the smarter thing would be to find another woman anyway.
I should be fucking as many women as I can, reminding myself that there isn’t anyone for me, that what I want is pleasure, not one specific person.
Or two. Two women who seem to have completely taken me over.
We don’t even get as far as taking our clothes off tonight.
When I see her, the relief I feel is overwhelming.
We go upstairs almost immediately, and I pin her to the door, yanking the leather skirt she’s wearing up to her hips.
It’s the same one she wore the first night, and it drives me wild.
I want to taste her, fuck her mouth, fuck her, but the need to be inside of her overwhelms everything else.
I pick her up, wrap her legs around my hips, and jerk her panties to one side as I sink into her with us both fully clothed.
I swear I’ll never get used to how good skin on skin feels. I’m ready to come from the instant I sink into her. “Fuck,” I groan, biting her throat as I thrust. “So fucking good. You keep coming back for this big fucking cock, don’t you? You take it so well. Such a good girl.”
She tightens around me, wetter with every filthy word I groan into her ear.
I rock against her, grinding into her clit, desperate to feel her come on me, around me.
I want to think of only her, to exorcise the image of Giulia in a wedding dress, walking toward Alessandro, promising herself to him forever.
I fuck Valentina like it can make me forget that I’m losing Giulia.
That I never really had her to begin with.
And Valentina takes everything I give her—every rough thrust, every possessive touch, every desperate kiss.
She takes it all and asks for more, and when I finally come, I moan her name, spurting into her as I feel her clench around me, her head falling back against the door as she cries out my name, too.
The moment my orgasm is done, I sink to my knees and press my mouth between her thighs, not caring that I just came in her.
I want to make her come again, feel her come apart on my tongue.
I hook her leg over my shoulder and devour her, attacking her sensitive clit until she comes in a matter of seconds.
I’m hard again by the time I taste her orgasm on my tongue, and I take us both down to the floor, pulling her astride me as I yank her down onto my cock and thrust up into her hard.
I fuck her like that, bouncing her on my cock, then flip her over and fuck her on her hands and knees on the floor until she comes again, and I come right after her.
By the time we’re done, we’re still clothed. I strip us both bare, take her to the bed, and feed her my cock until I’m hard again, then fuck her a third time.
I can’t get enough of her. I’ll never have Giulia, and that feels like it’s only fueling this, only making me need more of the only thing I want that I can have.
She comes again, hard, as I come the third time, my cum now dripping out of her as I fuck her, and when I finally stop, trying to catch my breath, I see tears tracking down her cheeks.
I freeze, staring down at her, still half inside her.
"Did I hurt you?" I ask, my voice rough with panic and guilt.
"No." Her voice cracks. "No, I've never felt better. It’s just… hormones, I guess, or something. All that oxytocin." She laughs shakily, but there's something in her tone that makes my chest ache.
We’re both lying, both pretending. Both trying to use each other to forget things we can't forget.
"Valentina—"
"I'm fine," she says, but she's not. I can feel it in the way she's trembling, hear it in her voice.
I hold her tighter, and I think about the two women who are destroying me.
Giulia, who I can never have, who's being forced into a marriage with a man who doesn't deserve her. And Valentina, who I can have but don't really know. Who cries after we fuck and tells me she's fine.
An angel and a devil, an innocent virgin and a fucking succubus who makes me come harder than I ever have in my life. I'm torn between them—caught between two obsessions, two impossible situations.
And the rage is always there, too, simmering just below the surface. Waiting for an excuse to explode. I'm losing control. Losing myself. And I don't know how to stop.
I don’t know how to survive what's coming, how to let go of either of them.
So I just hold Valentina in the dark and pretend that this is enough. That this can save me.
Even though I know it won't.