I groan when I feel the blood rushing to my manhood, my thick length inevitably getting rock hard at the thought of her.
It’s too easy to imagine fisting her messy blonde hair and tugging lightly as I slide into her, again and again, getting harder with each stroke of my manhood until she’s squirting white cream all down dick.
I have to put my hands behind my back and let out a shuddering breath.
What the fuck am I going to do, start jacking off right here with my consigliere in the next room?
I grit my teeth and force myself to get dressed, trying to push her from my mind.
But the moment I manage to consign her to the periphery of my consciousness, thoughts of her begin to drift in, little whispers and images. I feel her body against mine, curvaceous, and hot. I see the strap of her satchel cutting into her breasts. I imagine my hand instead, squeezing, massaging, making her nipples hard and tingly and then sucking them until they are red-raw.
Stop. Stop this now.
“Fuck,” I grunt, when my manhood nearly catches on my zipper, the massive in-the-way length now sideways in my briefs.
I walk to the sink and splash cold water on my face, hoping that will jolt some wakefulness – and some sense – into me.
Just because I haven’t felt even one percent of this for another woman, ever, doesn’t mean I’m going to act on it. I can’t forget Gabriel, the kid who looked up to me, who then became a man and built my organization with me.
Gabriel, who stayed with me even when Samantha took his daughter west.
Gabriel, who trusts me with his life, my best friend.
I look at myself in the mirror, seeming just the same as I did earlier today, except for this new purpose in my eyes.
It isn’t just the situation with Patty, which is my main focus.
It should be my only focus.
But there’s something else inside of me, a primeval drum beat, a call to action, the hunt, the hunt, as though something nameless is roaring at me and telling me to take her, to pump my seed into her childbearing body, to fill her and make sure I give her every hot drop I can until she’s pregnant.
I stand up straighter and compose myself, the same way I do before making a public appearance. I make myself cold and try to kill this new fire raging through my body.
I fail. It still flames. Because it’s fueled by her.
I compromise and hide it as best as I can instead. I wait for my manhood to stop throbbing by staring at the sink, just focusing on the sink and nothing else, and not letting my mind stray to the thought of her bent over the sink, naked, ass sticking out, breasts bouncing invitingly. She’d arch her back and pump down onto my cock, her ass flattening against my abs and …
No, no.
A fucking sink?
That’s how crazy she’s making me.
“Skip?” Gabriel calls from outside.
“Yes?”
“Ah, nothing. Just checking you were okay.”
“Do you think I need help to take a piss?” I snap.
“No, just … paranoid. Sorry.”
I sigh. “No, you’re right to be.”
I open the door and walk out in my suit, feeling a little like my usual self.
“Tell the boys to get ready,” I say. “We’re going to give this city a little fireworks show tonight.”
Gabriel blinks. “You’re coming?”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
Because it’s easier than fantasizing about your daughter.
“Because I need to be there to make sure we do this right. If Patty thinks we’re weak, we’ll show him, Gabriel.”
“Just like the old days,” he says, eyes bright with reminiscence.
“Not quite,” I grin wolfishly. “But pretty damn close.”
We leave.
Chapter Four
Dallas
I lie in bed with my arms wrapped around Poppet, hugging her to my chest like I used to when she was a puppy. She cuddles against me, maybe sensing how tense my body is.
A war of tension runs through me, tearing me right down the middle.
On the one side, there’s the explosion, its reverberations causing me to shiver every time I remember it. I close my eyes and sense, more than see, the explosive light that lit up the alleyway. I feel the tremor in my bones. I feel my teeth chatter together.
But mostly, insanely, I feel Domenico’s body pressed against mine. I feel the muscles pushing through his shirt and his solid forearm wrapped across my middle.
The protective shield he turned his body into, it returns to me in white-hot moments, teasing me.
In my frantic writer’s mind, I see the explosion tear away his clothes and leaving him standing there naked, the flames dancing in his eyes as he stares firmly at me.
It’s wrong.
He is dad’s best friend and, also, he’s The Domenico DeLuca, which basically means he’d never be interested in a twenty year old nobody like me in a million years.
I roll over and end up nose to nose with Poppet. Her eyes are bright and knowing as she stares at me. She gives me a lick on the nose and then leans back, watching to see what I’ll do.
“I’m not obsessing over him,” I tell her.
She makes a huffing noise and lays her snout on her crossed forepaws, as though she’s had enough of my lies. I tickle her behind the ear and lie back, the room still undecorated, my boxes stacked all around me, and various pieces of clothes scattered here and there. I’ve been using the boxes as and when I need them. A paperback sits on my otherwise-bare bedside table.
I close my eyes and then snap them open again because apparently even closing my eyes now is dangerous.
The moment my eyelids fall shut, they become a screen projecting all kinds of lust-filled movies.
We’re on the hood of Domenico’s jet-black Mustang and I’m sitting on him, sitting right down on his manhood, and I’m not nervous,
