I toss my jacket over the arm of the couch and toe off my shoes, letting them land wherever. The place feels sterile without anyone else in it. Ale’s unit is a few floors up, and I can almost imagine Rory’s laughter spilling into the hall. I bet they’re curled up together right now, her head on his scarred shoulder and his hand on her belly like he already feels the kid growing inside. Like I once had.
Up there, life is multiplying. Down here, it’s just me and the silence. Something dark, bitter and unexpected twists in my gut at the vivid image the thought conjures.
Meanwhile, I’m here. Alone.
Stalking to the wet bar in the great room, I grab a glass and pour two fingers of whiskey and sink into the couch. The silence presses harder. Too loud.
I need a distraction, preferably of the female variety.Cazzo, when was the last time I got laid? Clearly, it’s been too long. I fish my phone from my pocket and scroll through my contacts.
There’s no shortage of names. Models, dancers, influencers, half of them saved with emojis I can’t even remember assigning. , , . Hell, most of the women in this city are in my phone, all waiting for me to light the match. Normally, I’d spark one and burn the night away without thinking twice. But tonight? Every name feels wrong. Every smile is the wrong shade of red. Every laugh, too hollow compared to hers.
I hover over a random name, then tap out a message before I stop cold, my thumb over the send button.
Me: You up?
The thought of meaningless sex, of some stranger in my bed, leaves a sour taste in my mouth. My stomach twists tighter. Normally, it would be easy. Quick, dirty, and forgettable. But not now. Not with her damned constant presence haunting me.
Cat.
Her name is poison and salvation all at once. I close my eyes, and it all comes rushing back.
The Sicilian sun bleeds gold over the cliffs, her strawberry-blonde hair tangled in my fingers as she laughs, that low, husky sound that doesn’t belong to an eighteen-year-old girl. We’re tangled in each other just a few yards out, the water deep enough to cover the breast I’ve freed from her bikini. Saltwater drips down her neck as I kiss it, and she whispers my name against my ear like it’s a secret she is scared to keep but refuses to let go.
“Kitty Cat,” I murmur as I run my tongue down her neck. A moan catches in her throat, andcazzo, I’m so fucking hard I think I’ll explode if I don’t get out of this bathing suit. But we’re taking it slow, a word I’m completely unfamiliar with, because she’s a god-damned virgin. I didn’t even know those existed at eighteen anymore. And I’m already so fucking gone for her, I’m willing to wait as long as it takes.
Her head tips back, her skin smelling like coconut oil and sea breeze and another groan spills out as I toy with her nipple.
“You don’t even know what you’re doing to me,” I whisper, my voice ragged and husky.
She looks up, blue eyes shimmering. “Maybe I do.”
I swallow hard, dragging myself back to the present. The glass sweats against my palm, my phone heavy in the other. The message draft blinks at me, I’m just two words away from a meaningless night of sex.
I delete them with a curse.
What the hell is wrong with me? I could have any woman in this city, but none of them are her. None of them make my chest tight just thinking about their smile. None of them haunt me so completely that I hesitate with my finger on a trigger.
I toss the phone onto the coffee table and scrub a hand over my face. The apartment is still too quiet. And the only thing louder than the silence is the memory of her laugh echoing in my head.
So I do the only thing a respectable, and possibly insane, man can. I shove my hand down my pants, strangle my cock, eyes squeezed shut and chase ghosts. It’s her I see with every stroke, her warm, tight pussy I feel wrapped around me, and her laugh bubbling against my throat as she straddles me on a sun-warmed stone jetty. Her hair is a halo of fire and salt, her freckles kissed by starlight. My body remembers every inch of her, every taste, and every damned promise I broke.
But no matter how tight I clench my fist, and no matter how hard I try to drown in the physical, it’s never enough. Fire roars through my veins, the orgasm already within sight. No one made me come like Cat. Maybe it was the newness of it all, her eagerness, her desire to please but even now, just the thought of her has me skirting the edge of sanity. I hold on tight to the images that live rent free in my mind. Because when the release finally comes, it’s hollow. Empty.
Just like me.
The glass throws my reflection back at me, sweaty, raw, and pathetic. All I see is a man jerking off to a ghost, wondering why the only woman who’s ever mattered is the one I lost.
CHAPTER 12
A FIREWALL
Matteo
Gemini Tower’s lobby gleams like money that never sleeps. I saunter in, mask firmly in place despite the shit night of sleep I had. Minka at reception clocks me the second the doors hiss open, mouth shaping into the kind of smile that used to be my favorite sport.
“Mr. Rossi.” Her gaze drags over me slowly. “You look… busy.”
I remember the night on her sofa, her perfume and the after-hours laugh, but it flashes and dies. She’s one of the names on my list, one of the meaningless faces I used to call for a good time. Now, all I can see is copper hair and a sun-drenched beach. All I can taste is the word almost.
