26. Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Six
Security Feeds, Synths + a Climax Telecast
Luca
The blue light of the seventy-five-inch screen reflects off the glass of bourbon in my hand. Usually, the only thing I watch on this TV is match film when I’m analyzing footwork, critiquing defensive lines, and looking for the tactical gaps I can exploit.
Tonight, the gap is in my chest.
I’d imagined us doing this together. We’d be sharing a bowl of popcorn, maybe her feet in my lap, both of us laughing at how ridiculous we looked.
Instead, Aspen is feet that feel like miles away, tucked behind the closed door of her bedroom.
She’d looked me dead in the eye an hour ago and said, “I can’t do it, Luca.
I can’t sit on that couch and watch us happen in front of millions while we’re... whatever this is.”
Every time I catch that flicker of pain in her eyes, it absolutely guts me.
It’s the ultimate defensive play. She’s guarding herself so fiercely against “whatever this is” that she’s blind to what's right in front of her.
She can't see how much I fucking miss her.
She can't see that I’m actually capable of being better.
I want to tell her that I’m finally man enough to burn down my entire life for her, but she still needs time.
For the last two weeks, I’ve been trying to bridge the gap without overstepping the lines she’s drawn.
I’ve been a ghost in my own home, playing the long game.
I’ve even managed to get her to swap some of her coffee for tea.
Partly because I know one of her patients has an affinity for it, but mostly because it’s a piece of me she’s finally letting in.
I won't let her guardedness put me off. I’m not throwing in the towel just because it’s hard.
Not this time. Even if I have to operate from the shadows, I’m showing her I can be the man she needs right now.
It’s in the way I’ve learned exactly how many minutes she likes her tea to steep, and how I keep the fridge stocked with that specific brand of yogurt she loves, but never actually asks for.
I’m trying to show her I’m paying attention. Not because an agreement says I have to, but because I can’t seem to look away from her now that she’s here.
Still, tonight she’s on her tablet, and I’m out here, alone.
The SightUnseen intro music blares. It’s dramatic, synth-heavy, and entirely too loud. Then, the screen cuts to the pods.
I see myself sitting in that small, dimly lit pod in Vegas. I look younger. Not in years, but in spirit. My shoulders aren’t yet heavy with the weight of the Strikers’ PR mess or the constant, throbbing ache in my knee. I look like a man who actually has a life worth protecting.
Then, her voice cracks through the speakers.
“Forgive me for burping,” she says.
I find myself smiling at the screen, instantly transported back to the second those words hit me.
The producers are playing our “meet-cute” in fragments, threading the conversation between the main show segments and commercial breaks, teasing the audience with the slow-burn of how Aspen and me began.
Watching it back, I can see the exact moment the shift happened.
I went from being an uptight, brooding athlete to a man who was suddenly, intoxicatingly captivated.
It wasn’t the polish or the “proper” behavior my mother always insisted a woman must have that got to me.
Aspen wasn't like the girls from boarding school who were groomed from birth to be some rich man’s trophy.
It was just her. Her being entirely too much and exactly enough at the same time. And I’m the asshole who let her get away, even though she’s sitting right in the next room.
I take a slow sip of the bourbon, leaning back as the burn settles in my chest. I’m struck by how much I was letting her take the wheel.
Me. The man who micromanages every meal, every training session, and every public statement was just...
going along with whatever she wanted. And I was loving every fucking minute of it.
I remember the heat behind that wall in the pod, thinking about how I’d let her take the lead in the bedroom just long enough to let her think she was in charge before I showed her what real domination felt like.
I remember holding so much of myself back that first time we made love because I was arrogant enough to assume I’d have a lifetime to taste her and tease out every hidden part of myself.
And fuck, what I would give to taste her right now. What I would give to have her for just one night in my suite at the Supper Club, with no cameras, no contracts, and no walls between us.
I watch her banter with me. She’s quick. She’s sharp. She’s down-to-earth in a way that makes the high-society women my mother tries to set me up with look like cardboard cutouts.
And that mouth. Fuck, I miss that mouth.
On the screen, we’re talking about nothing and everything. We’re arguing over the best way to peel a mango and then suddenly, we’re talking about the fear of being truly seen.
I remember that moment in the pod. I remember the air feeling like ice and my heart hammering against my ribs. Not from cardio, but from the sheer magnetism of a woman I couldn’t even see.
“You’re a lot, you know that?” Aspen’s voice says from the TV.
“And you’re exactly enough,” I respond.
I cringe slightly at the line, but my chest still tightens. Watching it back, the chemistry isn’t just visible, it’s visceral. On screen, I’m smiling like a man who hasn't a care in the world. I look happy. I look like I’m being hunted, and I’m enjoying every second of the chase.
The segment transitions, the mood on the screen shifting as our conversation drifts into deeper territory.
We start talking about sex. The wildest places, the fantasies, the history.
That was the moment I first realized she wasn't as experienced as she seemed. Her answers were guarded, but curious. It was right then that I decided I’d take it easy with her.
I wanted to be the one to guide her, to be the architect of every new level of ecstasy she discovered, but I also wanted to take my time.
I wanted to savor the slow burn of her awakening, peeling back her inhibitions layer by layer until there was nothing left but us.
When the world eventually erupted between us—when I made the idiotic choice to walk away—I’d only just begun. I had only just started to open her up to me, and myself to her.
Now, the silence of the apartment feels like a lead ball.
I want to see her.
The need is a dull roar in my blood, louder than the television, louder than the logic telling me to stay on this sofa. Then, a dark, dangerous thought takes root. One I’ve spent every second since she moved in trying to kill.
This is a smart home. I have a state-of-the-art security system with high-definition cameras in every room except the bathrooms. Out of some archaic sense of respect for my wife, I haven’t touched the app. I haven't looked. I’ve been the disciplined athlete and behaved.
But I am a starved man. I haven’t visited the Supper Club to indulge in ages, and a man can only survive on breadcrumbs for so long before he turns into a predator. And my need to feast is primal.
My fingers tremble slightly as I pull out my phone and open the security interface. My heart is hammering harder now than it ever has on the pitch. I bypass the living room feed, the kitchen, the hallway. I tap the icon for the primary suite.
The feed flickers to life on my phone, and with a swipe of my thumb, I cast the image onto the seventy-five-inch screen.
At first glance, she looks peaceful. Infuriatingly so.
She doesn't look like a woman who misses me.
She doesn't look like she’s being tortured by the few inches of drywall that separate us or the heavy silence of the things we aren't saying.
I can only see the soft silhouette of her body beneath the heavy duvet, a mountain of white linen that I suddenly want to rip away just so I can see my wife bare.
I know I’m being a voyeur, a pathetic peeping Tom who’s traded his dignity for a digital feed. She’d be scandalized if she knew what I was doing, and yet, I can’t bring myself to look away. I’m hungry. And this grainy image is the only indulgence I’m allowed.
But then, the stillness breaks. I notice a rhythm beneath the covers.
It’s subtle at first. Then it grows into an agonizingly familiar cadence. The rhythm. My breath hitches in my throat as the realization becomes clear.
I see her head tilted back against the headboard, her eyes closed, her lips parted as she draws in ragged, shallow breaths. She isn't just watching the show. She’s feeling it. She’s watching us. Watching the version of me that wasn't broken and it’s fucking turned her on.
I should really look away, now. But as her back arches and a muffled, shaky moan vibrates through the wall and into my ears, I know I’m not going anywhere.
I set my glass down, the bourbon still nearly level with the rim. It was a futile attempt at restraint anyway, a shallow distraction from the magnetic pull of the woman in the next room. Now, the distraction is gone. Now, I have a bird’s-eye view of my own reckoning.
I’m rock hard, the pressure so intense it’s borderline painful, and I’ve got zero willpower left to be respectable. My “best behavior” died the second I saw her touching herself to the sound of my voice.
She’s got one hand gripping her breast while the other works her toward ruin.
I watch intently as I pull my dick out, the cool air hitting my skin before I spit into my palm.
I begin to work myself over, my eyes locked on the seventy-five-inch glow of her surrender.
I stroke and then pause, a sharp squeeze as I watch her arm reach deeper beneath the duvet, her movements turning frantic.
“Fuck. She’s close now,” I whisper into the darkness. Her body tightening in that way I can still feel against my own skin if I just close my eyes.
I stroke harder, my hand twisting and turning as I try to conjure the memory of her skin and map it onto my own movements.
It’s a poor substitute. Still, my release is only a heartbeat away because I’ve spent the last three months starving.
I’ve refused to indulge in my usual habits, cutting out the easy distractions and the hollow substitutes.
I want my fucking wife. No one else will do, even if I’m reduced to wanking over a digital image of her.
“Shit,” I hear her whimper. Not through the speakers, but through the actual wall.
On the screen, her legs bow, her back arching off the mattress as she comes all over my bed. I follow her, stroking myself into oblivion as I watch her chest heave.
I want to be the one finishing her. I want to be the one tasting that cry. But I stay rooted here, watching her pull the sheets back, spreading her legs wide as she tries to catch her breath.
She’s bare beneath that black nighty—the one she knows I love—and the sight of her is a car crash I can't look away from. It’s like I can’t stop stroking. Can’t stop coming in my hand. The release is violent, echoing the raw, unrefined need I’ve been trying to bottle up since I first tasted her.
It almost looks like she’s staring at the camera while her wet fingers are still between her thighs. Almost. But I have the camera in a location not easily visible so I know she’s not looking directly at me. Still, the visual is the most beautifully erotic thing I’ve ever seen.
Then I hear it. A soft, rugged whisper that almost misses the microphone.
“Damn you, Luca...I fucking hate you so much.”
I lean back against the sofa, a dark, predatory smile spreading across my face.
“I fucking love you, too. Wife.”