Billionaire's Innocent Obsession

Damian's  Pov

I couldn't go to bed without a body to consume. For me, sleep was impossible without the temporary, high-heat anaesthesia of a woman beneath me. It was a compulsive, carnal addiction-a ruthless avoidance mechanic to drown out the noise of my own mind. I needed the raw friction of skin against skin, the heavy thud of my chest against hers, and the absolute submission of whatever high-class socialite or runway model was occupying my bed that night.

I was known for my spectacular, calculated moves in bed. I knew exactly where to touch, how to prolong the agony of desire, and how to deliver an intense, consuming experience that left them completely ruined. Every single woman who ever shared my sheets spent the next morning praying for a second chance.

But they never got one. I had a strict, unbreakable rule: I never reused a woman. Once the night was over, the connection was severed. They were part of the past, and I moved on to a fresh face without a single afterthought.

Lately, however, my insatiable womanising lifestyle was being aggressively choked out by a four-year-old roadblock.

"Daddy!"

The persistent, high-pitched whining of my son, Damian Junior, echoed through the thick mahogany doors of my penthouse master bedroom, accompanied by a frantic, tiny fist pounding relentlessly on the wood.

God damn it.

Beneath me, a gorgeous blonde Italian heiress froze, her painted fingernails dug into my tensed shoulders, her lips parted in sudden, awkward frustration. The heat in my veins instantly turned to ice.

"Damian, darling," she whispered, her voice laced with disappointment. "Is your son... always like this?"

"Ignore it," I growled, trying to recapture the commanding rhythm, but the pounding only grew louder, accompanied by a sharp, heartbreaking whine.

"Daddy, open the door! I want to sleep with you, Daddy! Open it!"

DJ was the absolute bane of my private life. He was a four-year-old shadow, and he had developed a suffocating, hyper-attached obsession with me. He didn't want nannies. He didn't want toys. He wanted me. He trailed behind me like a ghost, invading my space so relentlessly that bringing a woman home had become an absolute logistical nightmare. He was always lurking in the corridors, knocking on doors, and crying at the worst possible moments, completely sabotaging my escapes.

With a dark curse, I pulled away from the heiress, throwing on a heavy black silk robe as I strode to the door and yanked it open. DJ stood there, small and tear-stained. He glared past my shoulder, his little jaw clenching as he caught sight of the woman under my sheets. He hated them. He hated every woman who took my attention away from him, and he made sure they knew it.

"Go back to your room, Damian," I barked, my baritone deep and cold. "I am busy. I will check on you in the morning."

"No!" DJ yelled, his voice cracking with stubborn defiance. "Tell her to leave! She's in my spot!"

The mood was entirely dead. Defeated and furious, I sighed. This was the third time this week he had ruined my release, making it impossible to bring anyone home casually without a full-blown tantrum.

I walked over to my desk and buzzed Marcus.

Marcus wasn't just my executive assistant; he was my best friend and the only man in Manhattan who shared my exact, lustful, and unapologetic lifestyle. We ruled the city's nightlife like sovereigns, but while I handled the global corporate empire, Marcus was explicitly in charge of my nocturnal supplies. He possessed a golden Rolodex of the world's most elite, beautiful, and exclusive women. Every single evening, it was Marcus's job to select the absolute best of them and have her delivered to my penthouse like an expensive bottle of scotch.

"Marcus," I growled into the receiver. "Get a car for the heiress. And look into buying me a private, second penthouse downtown. A secure bachelor pad. I can't keep doing this under the same roof as my son."

"On it, boss," Marcus replied smoothly, entirely unfazed. He knew the drill.

By the next evening, Marcus had delivered flawlessly. He secured a breathtaking, ultra-modern penthouse downtown-completely hidden, private, and miles away from DJ's watchful eyes. I thought I had finally beaten the system. I thought I had successfully bought my freedom and escaped my four-year-old shadow.

But I had severely underestimated the terrifying bond between us.

The very first night I tried to use the downtown penthouse, Marcus had a stunning French lingerie model waiting for me. The tension in the room was high, the spice immediate. I pinned her against the glass window overlooking the city, my hands tracing her skin, finally ready to lose myself in the numbing release I craved.

Right as I was about to cross the line, my encrypted personal phone exploded on the nightstand.

It was the head nanny from the main estate, her voice hyperventilating with panic. "Mr Vance! You need to come back immediately! Damian Junior has suddenly collapsed with a dangerously high fever. He's shaking, vomiting, and screaming for you. The private doctors are on their way, but he's rejecting everyone!"

My blood ran cold. The lust evaporated from my veins in an instant. As much as DJ's attachment frustrated my lifestyle, I loved my son fiercely. He was my blood, my anchor, and the only thing in this world I truly cared about protecting.

I threw my clothes on, leaving the model bewildered and furious in the downtown penthouse, and raced across the city like a madman. The moment I burst into his nursery, DJ was burning up, his small face flushed as he sobbed, wrapping his tiny arms around my neck the second I lifted him. The doctors confirmed it was a severe, stress-induced psychosomatic spike-his little body literally made itself violently ill the moment he sensed I had left the building to be with another woman.

It happened again the next time. And the time after that. It was an uncanny, terrifying pattern. Anytime I tried to lay with a woman in the other penthouse, DJ would suddenly get violently sick, forcing me to abandon my vice and sprint back to his bedside. He was tracking me emotionally, holding my carnal desires hostage with his own health. I was completely trapped, starved of my relief, and drowning in a volatile cocktail of sexual frustration and exhaustion.

And through all of this, the girl from the rain never left my mind.

Ever since I saw her outside my boutique, I was completely obsessed. Her face, her innocent panic, and the jaw-dropping, heavy geometry of her voluptuous curves had burned themselves into my subconscious. Even when Marcus sent the most elite women to my downtown pad before DJ's inevitable alerts, it wasn't their faces I was visualising. It was the girl from the rain. Cee. My head of security had finally cracked her identity this morning: Cecelia Hensley, a penniless girl from Queens.

I stared out the window of my study, swirling the amber liquid in my crystal glass, waiting for Marcus to bring me the full surveillance report on her daily routine. I was a man who ruled an international conglomerate with an iron fist, yet my entire life was currently paralysed by a four-year-old child and a ghost of a girl I hadn't even touched yet.

The heavy doors of my study opened, and Marcus stepped in. His face wasn't his usual calm, professional mask. He looked hesitant, holding a tablet tight against his chest.

"Do you have her location?" I demanded, my voice dropping into a dark, impatient rumble.

"I do, boss," Marcus said, clearing his throat nervously. He slid the tablet across my heavy mahogany desk. "My surveillance team tracked her back to Queens. But... we ran into an issue. It seems you aren't the only man in her orbit."

I snapped my gaze down to the screen. It was a high-resolution surveillance photo taken just an hour ago outside a rundown diner in Astoria.

My blood instantly turned to pure, roaring fire.

Cee was standing on the sidewalk, her jaw-dropping, heavy curves fully on display even in a cheap jacket. She was smiling-a genuine, warm, beautiful smile that she had never shown me. And she was smiling at a random guy standing right in front of her. He had his hand wrapped gently around her wrist, leaning in close, and she wasn't pulling away. She looked completely relaxed, entirely comfortable with his proximity. He was looking at her like she was his world, and she was letting him.

The sheer sight of another man touching what I had already claimed in my mind-seeing her give her warmth to someone else while I sat here starved, frustrated, and drowning-sent a violent, animalistic wave of fury tearing through my veins.

With a brutal roar, I threw my crystal glass against the wall, shattering it into a thousand glittering shards.

"Who the hell is he?" I snarled, slamming both hands onto the desk, my gray eyes darkening to a lethal, predatory shade of storm that made Marcus instinctively take a step back.

"Our intelligence says his name is Liam, boss," Marcus answered quickly, tracking my unhinged reaction. "He's not a threat. Just a close childhood friend. He's been helping her out with little things around the neighborhood, checking on her dad, helping with groceries-"

"I don't care if he's her brother," I growled, my chest heaving with an unhinged, possessive rage. The forced celibacy, the sexual frustration, and the complete obsession with this girl exploded all at once. If I couldn't sleep with any other woman in this city, then no other man was allowed to be near her. "Deploy the entire security detail. I want eyes on her twenty-four hours a day."

I leaned over the desk, my voice dropping into a terrifying, guttural whisper that dripped with dangerous intent. "She ran from me once, but she belongs to me now. I will buy her apartment, I will eliminate her debts, and I will tear apart anyone who dares to make her smile like that again. I will get her into my bed and under my roof... no matter the cost."