Chapter Seventeen

Phantom

At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.

I’ve never really been into kissing.

I like it, but it’s not the crux of what I’m after during a scene.

Scenes, for me, while they’re definitely about the sex, aren’t about emotion. Kissing is about emotion. Consequently, I’m not that into it.

I give my partners pleasure, for sure. Pain if they want it.

But I don’t get attached, and I rarely kiss them unless they ask me to.

With Francesca, though?

I’ve never enjoyed a kiss so much.

I couldn’t wait to get my lips on hers, my tongue inside her mouth.

I couldn’t wait to touch her soft cheeks, to thread my fingers through her silky hair.

I truly get what Jay Gatsby was feeling. She’s blossoming like a flower under my kiss.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought her here. I want her more than anything. My cock is hard as a rock, and I long to thrust it into her lush body. I come here for one purpose—to satisfy my hunger, my desires.

She came here with me. She’s seen the place. She knows what happens here.

And she hasn’t asked to leave.

That’s all I can think as she melts farther into me, farther into the kiss.

My God… The feelings swirling through me. I wasn’t sure I could ever have them again.

I still don’t know much about this woman. I know her name, now, and a bit about what she does.

I certainly know more about her than she does about me.

And what’s truly frightening?

I want her to know me. I want to show her who I truly am.

But if I do, will she be as enamored by me?

Women like the mystery of my costume, the darkness, the desires shrouded in a conundrum.

I’ve never had trouble attracting women without this getup, but I like the mystery, too. I like how excited it gets them.

And I like how I can be someone other than who I am, if only for a moment.

But no matter what I look like on the outside, I’m the same person on the inside.

I never forget that, though my partners probably do. They probably never think about who I am on the inside.

Francesca seems to be the exception.

She’s asked me many times to level with her. To tell her something personal about myself.

I’ve done that, and I want to tell her more.

I want to very much.

Which means I cannot. I unequivocally cannot.