Chapter 3 Leo
She was already coming when I pulled out.
Her legs were shaking. She gasped like she couldn’t breathe without me inside her. Her head lolled back against the mattress, mouth open, chest slick with sweat, thighs still twitching. I stood between her knees, watching the last shudder roll through her body.
I hadn’t said a word the entire time.
“God,” she moaned, fingers curling in the stained sheet beneath her. “That was—Jesus, Leo—just—please don’t stop—”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.
She looked up at me through the haze of it, pupils still blown. Her mascara was smudged, hair a mess. She was smiling like she’d earned something. Like she was entitled to the rest.
Her hand slid down between us. She found me—still hard, still wet from her—and wrapped her fingers around the base.
“I want to finish you,” she whispered. “Let me. Please. I can make it so good—”
I grabbed her wrist.
She flinched. Not because it hurt. But because of the way I looked at her.
“You’re done,” I said.
“But—”
“Get dressed.”
Her face twisted. “Why are you such a cold fucking bastard?”
I let go of her hand. “Because you still don’t know when to shut up.”
She rolled away from me with a muttered curse, scooping her clothes from the floor. The sound of her dressing was loud in the room—fabric dragging over skin, buttons snapping closed. I didn’t watch her go. I just stood there, unsatisfied, heart rate steady. My cock throbbed once, useless and ignored.
“Next time,” she muttered, tugging her skirt down, “try fucking someone you actually want.”
“There won’t be a next time.”
She left. The door slammed behind her.
I stood in the center of the room, the sweat drying on my skin, and finally exhaled.
The place reeked of sex. Sweat, latex, perfume. It meant nothing.
I laid back on the mattress and stared at the ceiling, still half-naked, the weight of her body already fading from memory. My cock was still stiff against my stomach. I could’ve made her stay. Could’ve taken my time. Finished in her mouth. Or in her ass. She would’ve let me. They always did.
But she wasn’t the one I wanted.
She never was.
I closed my eyes and let the dream come.
It never took long. It never had to.
Her scent hit me first. Clean and wrong. Like rain on hot stone. She was never fully there. Never visible. Just breath, skin, the brush of her hair against my mouth. She moved like she was made of smoke. Soft. Silent. Surrendered.
In the dream, she never said no. She didn’t have to say anything.
She just offered herself.
I reached down, fingers closing around my cock, already hard, already dripping. The image of the girl who’d just left didn’t even register. All I could see was the phantom.
The woman who didn’t exist.
She bent for me.
Knelt for me.
Waited with her back arched, ass in the air, thighs parted like she’d been taught how.
Her hands clutched the sheets like they were all that kept her from falling apart.
I stroked myself slow. My hand slick with the thought of her mouth. The wet sound of my palm dragging up and down made my teeth grit. My hips lifted. The rhythm built in silence, punctuated only by my breath and the heat curling deep in my belly.
She whimpered for me. Her voice was always faint. A murmur. But I knew what it meant.
More. Please. Harder.
I gave it to her.
Fucked her with my hand, imagining her clenching down around me. Imagining her eyes rolling back when I filled her. Imagining her thighs shaking while I used her, emptied myself in her, and left her wrecked.
I pumped harder. My jaw locked. The edge hit like a wave breaking—tight, sudden, electric.
I came with a grunt, hot across my stomach, cock pulsing in my fist. My eyes stayed shut, breath ragged, her image seared behind my eyelids.
Whoever she was.
She belonged to me.
And I still hadn’t found her.
I was still on the mattress, pants half on, cum drying on my skin, when the knock came.
I didn’t move. Not right away.
The knock came again.
“Leo,” a voice said.
I sat up slowly and grabbed the towel from the floor. Wiped myself clean, tossed it aside, pulled on my shirt.
“Door’s open,” I muttered.
It creaked open. Edward stood in the doorway, taller than me, bulkier, a scar under one eye that made him look dumber than he was.
He had an envelope in one hand.
“I told you not to bother me,” I said.
“You’ll want this.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“It’s from Jacob Lockwood,” Edward said.
My blood stopped moving.
He added, quietly: “He’s dead.”
I stood without speaking. Crossed the floor. Took the letter.
It wasn’t sealed. Just folded. Slipped inside a plain white envelope.
The paper was thick. Handwritten.
Two sentences.
Protect her.
Protect my daughter.
I stared at the words until they blurred.
The room spun once around me. I didn’t sit. I didn’t breathe.
Edward cleared his throat. “You okay?”
I didn’t look at him. I just said, flatly: “I told you to never ask me for anything again, Jacob.”
He was gone, of course. There was no one to hear it.
Just me.
Just the letter.
Just those fucking words.
I read them again.
Protect her.
Protect my daughter.
I hadn’t known he had a daughter.
Not really.
Not until now.
And if he asked me to protect her—then he knew.
He knew what that would mean.
I looked down at the page. My fingers were trembling now.
And I whispered, under my breath:
“Fuck.”