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 watchingus. 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.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Aston Martins, Ambushes + a Human Shield
Luca
I’ve only ever had one truly serious relationship. It’s not that I’m jaded or a skeptic when it comes to love. I simply never had the capacity to give a woman my all. My father always insisted that you can’t claim to care for a woman if you can’t provide for her, and the women my mother envisioned for me required a great deal of “providing.” I stayed away from anything real until I could offer a life worth sharing.
Now, I can provide. And I’m certain that Aspen is the only woman I want to give it all to.
Given the texts flooding my phone all morning, it’s clear my mother isn’t quite so convinced. My parents raised me to lead, and even though they’ve never seen me this headstrong over a woman, let alone one they’ve never actually met, I have to do this my way.
Everyone in my life is used to me choosing the “right” path. The one with the least resistance and the lowest risk. They seem to forget that I’ve been trained to make split-second decisionswhile the weight of the world is pressing on my shoulders. I know I’ve stumbled. I know I’ve made a mess of balancing my personal and professional lives, but it’s time everyone met a different version of me. This is the version that saysfuck it allthe moment he realizes he’s about to lose the best thing that ever happened to him.
My mother’s dreams of me marrying Nigerian royalty need to be passed down to my younger brother. I’ve already found my forever. And she prefers red-bottom Jordans over red-bottom pumps.
Myforeveris also insanely stubborn, drives me absolutely insane, and I can’t stop getting hard around her.
The next morning, I can’t even look at her. I avoid eye contact like a man with a guilty conscience, certain that if I hold her gaze for too long, she’ll see the replay of last night in my eyes. She’ll figure out that I dreamed about her until the sun came up and that I had to masturbate in the shower again this morning just so I could stand in this kitchen without wanting to fuck her into the middle of next week.
Even after all that, I’m still a complete mess the second she walks into the room.
“Do you have all your medication packed for the day?” she asks, her voice crisp as she stirs the tea I prepared for her.
