Chapter 16
Clay: Unless this is your way of saying you’re back in, it’s gonna cost you.
Me: Sky’s the limit.
I probably should’ve felt weird for asking him to do this, but I didn’t.
It wasn’t like I was following her—I wasn’t some kind of creepy fucking stalker.
I was simply making sure she had someone nearby to protect her if something went wrong.
She wouldn’t even need to know about it, but it would give me peace of mind.
Especially since she insisted on getting on that filthy fucking bus again tonight.
It’s not like I was the one who would be watching over her—it would be trained professionals used to doing the same thing for celebrities and presidents. There was nothing wrong with that.
I made sure the restaurant was secure before slipping out the back door through the kitchen. The parking lot was small, which was why it was reserved for employee vehicles only. My black Pagani Huayra sat like a beacon shining with the moonlight.
It was one of the few luxuries I had kept for myself when I moved to San Francisco.
The car was all sleek lines and a twin turbo V12 engine that purred through the hilly streets of fog city like an untamable animal.
Was the car ostentatious? Sure. Did it fit the lifestyle I had been living here?
Nope. Was it dumb of me to leave it parked behind a busy restaurant all hours of the day? Absolutely. I didn’t give a shit.
I’d already left so much behind. Satan could crawl up from hell and drag me down now if I was gonna give up one of the few things that brought me joy.
I didn’t go home right away. Like many nights, I was restless even after a long day at Bellissima.
Even more now my little fantasy—as Clay had called it—was being turned upside down.
I drove around the city aimlessly for another hour, thinking about what the hell I was going to do about her situation. I would figure out who those shitbags were and then what? Kill them? Torture them? It wasn’t like it would be my first time doing either of those things to people who deserved it.
But that was the man I used to be, the one I’d tried my hardest to bury in the past. It was too late to worry about that now.
The damage had already been done, and now I was going to have to take whatever the universe threw my way this time.
How we’d deal with those bastards would be up to Lucy.
One thing was for sure though—we’d be doing it without the law.
Instead, we’d have one of the world’s most skilled underground coalitions on our side.
I only wished we didn’t need them to do it.
I finally drove home, the tall charcoal-colored Victorian looming like the ghosts of my past. I liked the house.
Obviously or I wouldn’t have bought it. I didn’t spend enough time there to really enjoy it though.
Everything in it was either preserved from its original state or reconstructed by some of the best interior designers in the city.
I lived alone, so cleaners and landscapers were the only ones I ever saw here.
It was way too big for one person, but there was something I found irresistible about its intricate design.
It was all kind of wasted on me at this point.
I realized how depressing that sounded, even in my own head.
I’d never taken a woman here before. Any time I felt the need to quell those urges, I made sure it happened at their place or a hotel.
Not that it happened very often anyway. I had no interest in dating.
There wasn’t room for that in my life, and I didn’t want to lose my focus on the restaurant.
I never did have anyone serious come into my life, even in New York when I was younger and getting around a lot more.
I went straight through my bedroom and into the en suite bathroom to start running the shower.
Even though women hadn’t been a priority of mine before, my mind couldn’t stop wandering to the one who showed up at my restaurant for a second time.
When we stood in that hallway earlier, for a brief moment I thought about what she would look like pressed up against the wall, my lips on hers.
I was really going to need to get some control over those kinds of thoughts if I was going to have to keep seeing her.
I turned the water as hot as it would go, shedding my clothes and tossing them into a hamper on the other side of the bathroom.
As I stepped into the steamy shower, I let the water run over my shoulders, closing my eyes.
I regretted this immediately because the first image that came to my mind was of her in that thin black dress.
I could see the peaks of her nipples, the outline of her thong hugging her curves right through that transparent fabric.
Fuck. This is not what I should be thinking about.
I felt my length stiffen as I tried to drown the thought of her away, but as the water droplets slid down from my hair and onto my shoulders, I couldn’t resist. I gripped myself and for the briefest moment, let my imagination go there.
How she would have looked if I’d just bent her over the desk in my office, ripping those yoga pants right down her round ass.
I groaned, pumping my hand up and down my shaft as I pictured taking that thick, glossy hair of hers in my hand and pounding into her from behind while she screamed my name.
I held back a moan that was lodged deep in my throat as release chased my hand. My hips jerked and brightness blurred my vision as I shot thick ropes of my seed onto the wet tile. I stood there for a moment, arm leaning on the shower wall.
“Fucking pathetic,” I told myself, rinsing myself off before I shut the water off and went to bed.
I wouldn’t be able to get much sleep—I never did.
So, I lay awake for at least another hour, trying to keep my mind off Lucy and instead focusing on all the things I wanted to do to the fuckers who walked onto my turf and decided to test me.
When I finally fell asleep, it was to the vision of what their eyeballs would look like as I tore them from their skulls.
It was a way more peaceful thought than it should have been.