Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Liam

I mmediately after getting off the subway in Manhattan with Jack this morning, I walked around the block, then went back to the station and got on the first train back to the apartment.

As soon as I stepped into the building lobby, I loosened my tie, taking a long breath. Faking a full day at work was exhausting, and I was ready to just… well, do what I’d planned. Whatever that was going to look like.

Then I heard the rapid click of high heels against the marble floors and barely had time to brace myself before Nessa appeared out of nowhere, her phone already in my face.

“Is this your Instagram account?” she asked, her eyes bright with curiosity as she held her phone right up to me. “I like to follow all my tenants online.”

Dimitri, the security guard, chuckled from behind his desk. “Sure, sure. She’s adding him to the hot tenants’ account. Poor kid doesn’t even know.”

“Shut it, Dimitri,” she shot back, barely glancing his way. “Liam here is prime feed material. You don’t mind if I show you off on my account every once in a while, do you, sweetie?”

I glanced down, hoping she hadn’t found anything else. My shoulders relaxed when I saw it was my normal account—plain old Liam Murphy. Just the usual snapshots of me at parties or hanging out at the park. No sign of the other account I’d set up last night for Lucien Steel.

“Yeah, that’s me. You can follow me, Nessa.”

“Already did, sweetie.” She winked, tapping her screen.

I nodded, gave her a quick smile, and headed to the elevator, feeling like I’d narrowly avoided disaster number one for the day.

Once I was safely back in the apartment, I headed straight to my room and shut the door behind me. Stripping off my shirt, I tossed it onto my chair. The thought of putting on sweatpants and calling it a day crossed my mind, but then I remembered my plans for the morning.

Instead of getting comfortable, I walked to my closet, pulled out the brown paper bags, and dumped them onto the bed. A strange assortment of underwear—way, way sexier than anything I’d normally wear—along with a couple of bottles of oil, a few new toys, and even a pair of fuzzy handcuffs I didn’t remember putting in my cart.

I sank onto the bed and picked up a pair of underwear. Lacy, black, and way too small. My face burned just looking at it.

“How am I going to do this?” I muttered, turning it over in my hands. This was stuff I’d never, ever be caught dead in. But this wasn’t about me. Not the normal me, anyway. This was for… well, Lucien Steel.

I shook my head, still not quite sure how to get from Liam Murphy to this fantasy alter ego. I stared at the underwear in my hand, trying to imagine what kind of guy would willingly put this on—and like it.

Lucien Steel… Lucien was a guy who’d love his body, enjoy showing it off, maybe even be wild about it. He’d be all smooth, confident moves and lazy smiles, right?

The problem was, I was as close to smooth and confident as a cat is to taking a bath.

A bright idea hit me: what if I approached this like an acting role? Lucien Steel could be a character I played—someone completely different from Liam Murphy, the guy who got sweaty palms just from making eye contact for too long.

I laid back on my bed, pulled out my phone, and typed “how to get into character” into the YouTube search bar. Maybe someone out there had a quick trick to go from awkward to whatever Lucien Steel was supposed to be.

The first video was a woman with a British accent and an intense gaze, her background filled with awards and posters. “To fully embody another character,” she said, staring directly at the camera, “you must find the core of their essence. Their thoughts, their passions… what drives them to live the way they do.”

The way she said it made it sound like I’d have to peel off my personality like an old coat and just slip on Lucien’s. But this Lucien guy? I didn’t even know what he thought about, let alone what drove him. I knew about his underwear choices and what his face was supposed to look like in photos—that was about it.

I kept watching, hoping something would click. But her instructions kept getting more elaborate. “Feel the world as they do, inhabit their body, breathe as if you were them.” She was already on some other topic, about becoming one with the character, and I was officially lost.

In frustration, I tossed my phone across the room. It sailed right into my laundry hamper. The video was still playing, the muffled voice now rambling about emotional states from inside a pile of dirty underwear.

I looked around my room, which was still a mess from the police raid. My dresser drawers were half-open, clothes spilling out of them, and there was dust on the desk where I hadn’t wiped it down. If I was going to take any pictures, there was no way I could do it in this mess.

I sprang out of bed and started grabbing clothes off the floor. Then I folded the random clean ones and stacked them in a hurry, thinking all the while: there’s no way I can really do this. No way I can put on sexy underwear and take pictures like I’m some free spirit who loves showing off.

I glimpsed myself in the mirror and pictured myself fumbling through poses, looking as natural as a mannequin in the discount aisle. My skin was prickling with embarrassment just thinking about it.

But as I dusted off the desk and straightened the bedspread, a reminder crept in. This wasn’t some fun little experiment; this was rent money, food money. I didn’t exactly have the luxury of just not doing it. Like it or not, I had to become Lucien Steel—and fast.

With my room finally clean, I stood in the middle of it, heart racing as I took a long breath and looked at the bags on the bed. Time to get my head in the game.

With a sigh, I grabbed my phone from the laundry hamper, half-wondering if I should just toss it right back in there and call it a day. But if I was going to become Lucien, I needed… examples. Models. And unfortunately, that meant diving into Instagram thirst traps.

I stretched out on my bed, thumb hovering over the search bar as I typed in a few random tags. Before long, I stumbled on an account that caught my eye: MrBigDck. The guy wasn’t exactly GQ material; he was a little stocky, maybe a few pounds heavier than what’s supposed to be “hot,” but he had this confidence about him that practically radiated through the screen. The guy sprawled out on a couch in nothing but a jockstrap, grinning with a “I don’t care if you think this is sexy” attitude. I do. And I’ll admit it—that was hot.

It wasn’t that he was some perfect male specimen; the guy was comfortable, relaxed, fully owning the body he had. I scrolled a bit more, taking in how he looked in every pose. His shoulders relaxed, his grin totally carefree. There was a part of me that wanted to feel that free, to let go of the constant worry that every minor flaw was on full display. And then… I scrolled one more picture down, and it hit me why he’d chosen the name MrBigDck.

“Shit.”

It looked like he’d stuffed a grapefruit down his jockstrap. I mean, the thing was practically its own feature. Glancing down, I tugged at the waistband of my underwear, and couldn’t help the sigh that slipped out. I wasn’t exactly Mr. Big Anything. Not that anyone had ever complained. Even so, the comparison was… well; it was enough to make a guy rethink his career pivot.

A chill of anxiety crawled up my spine. What if people laugh at me? The thought froze me solid. What if this whole idea was setting me up to be the joke of some group chat? Is my… am I… big enough?

I shook the thought off, giving myself a mental slap.

Come on, Liam. It’s like how women are judged for their bra size. This is such BS.

The size thing was a complete non-issue—I’d never felt like anything was lacking before, so why let it get to me now? I kept scrolling, reminding myself that this was all for research, and eventually landed on another profile that looked… almost familiar.

The guy had a lean build, like me, and this confidence that wasn’t exactly in your face but still came through. One shot showed him sprawled on a bed in a speedo, a faint smirk on his face, and—okay, it impressed me. If this guy could pull it off, why couldn’t I?

I scrolled down to find his FantasyFans link and, taking a deep breath, clicked on it. Apparently, he went by OnlyTopMan there. In the interest of research—and purely research—I signed up.

As I scrolled down, I found more pictures of him in various poses, each one showing off his toned muscles and chiseled abs. He was like a Greek god come to life, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. My heart raced as I clicked on one of his videos.

The reel started with him standing in front of the camera, wearing only his speedo.

“Imagine my hands on your body,” he whispered, his eyes locked on the camera with an intensity that made my pulse quicken. “Feel my touch, my hot breath against your skin.”

I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the screen. His words painted vivid images in my mind, each one more tantalizing than the last.

“I want to taste you,” he murmured, his voice laced with a hint of hunger. “To explore every inch of you.”

My fingers trembled as I watched him, his confidence and charisma pulling me deeper into his fantasy. It was as if he knew exactly how to push my buttons, how to awaken desires I never knew existed.

Suddenly, he yanked off his speedo and revealed his sizeable erection. My eyes widened in shock and arousal as he played with himself while continuing to talk dirty. My cock twitched at the sight, and without even thinking about it, I reached down and began stroking myself.

As the model continued to jerk off, I felt myself getting closer and closer to climaxing. But then an idea struck me—I didn’t want to finish just yet. If I was going to take sexy pictures of myself for this website, I wanted to capture this same feeling this man was giving me right now.

With great effort, I forced myself to stop before reaching orgasm and took a deep breath. This was going to be a challenge for sure, but I was determined not only to succeed, but to excel at it.

“I can do this,” I muttered under my breath, more to convince myself than anything else. I reached for a piece of the sexy underwear I’d picked up the other day. It was a black mesh number that left little to the imagination. It hugged my skin like a second layer, clinging in ways that made me blush, even here, alone in my room.

Next, I grabbed the bottle of massage oil. If I was going to pull this off, I needed to look the part—glossy, like I knew exactly what I was doing. I squeezed a handful and worked it over my chest, shoulders, down my arms, across my abs, anywhere I could reach. The stuff was slick, adding a polished gleam to my skin. It was strange seeing myself like this, all shiny and posed up. But Lucien was supposed to be confident, right? So maybe, for now, I just had to pretend to be.

I angled the selfie stick, clamping my phone in place. Then, I stretched out on the bed, adjusting the covers to make them look a little more casual, like I’d just woken up looking this… exposed. Holding the phone above me, I did my best to channel MrBigDck’s easygoing confidence.

I shifted a little, tilting my head and giving the camera my best “come hither” look. But instead, I felt like I was just squinting at the ceiling. I tried again, lifting my chin, giving a little smirk. But it didn’t feel sexy—it felt like I was half-heartedly smiling in a family photo. How does anyone make this look easy?

After a few more tries, I scrolled through the shots. Half of them looked like I was about to sneeze; the rest were… awkward, to say the least. Sighing, I shifted the phone back up and took a breath.

I wasn’t Liam right now. I was Lucien, and that sexy motherfucker could turn anyone on.

“I know what to do,” I muttered, then I took the phone off the stick, got up, and found the phone clamp and attached my phone to it. After attaching the clamp to my dresser drawers, I made sure it had a clear view of my bed. Then I hit record and laid back down.

I shut my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to block out the fact that I was alone in my bedroom, pretending to be someone else. In my mind, I was no longer Liam, an awkward guy who’d only slept with a handful of men. No, I was Lucien, the confident and seductive webcam model.

I imagined OnlyTopMan sitting in front of his computer screen, his eyes glued to me while I rubbed my hands all over my body. The thought sent a jolt of excitement through me, causing me to rub my cock through my underwear as if he could actually feel it.

But then I remembered I was supposed to be talking dirty too. I couldn’t just sit here and look pretty (or try to at least). I needed to give OnlyTopMan what he wanted—a steamy show.

“I want you,” I said, my voice coming out low and husky. “I want you to fuck me hard and make me scream.” It felt strange saying those words out loud, but it turned me on beyond belief. A surge of confidence went through me, and I pulled off the underwear. Just as I was about to toss them on the floor, I stopped, then brought them to my nose and inhaled my musky scent.

I continued talking, letting every filthy thought that came into my mind spill out of my mouth. “I want you to suck my cock until I can’t take it anymore,” I moaned. Grabbing the bottle of oil next to me, I coated my cock with it and began stroking myself. The slickness felt incredible against my skin, and each touch sent shivers down my spine.

Suddenly, an image of Jack popped into my head, naked and hard like the other webcam models. Without warning, I shot my load, coating my stomach and chest.

“Oh my God, Jack!”