Mattei - A Nation's Father Ch. 04

It would be two days before she would receive a reply. While the Council chose to honor the mating agreement between them, they did have stipulations. Unfortunately for Lura and Mattei, those stipulations were about to cause some heartache.

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Four days had passed since Mattei arrived at the palace, and he was still trying to acclimate to his new surroundings when he wasn't busy breeding. The place was so large and empty, and he could help but feel lonely. It helped that he got to meet the other breeders in an underground "man cave" so to speak. There were arcade games, pool tables, and a bowling abbey. He spent many of his hours there when Lura wasn't available to hang out with him.

"Lura," he thought, moaning a little as he lay in bed alone. It didn't matter that more and more women were being brought to him daily to breed. He still hungered for her, and he had no regrets about asking her to be his mate. But he was beginning to wonder if she was having doubts again because she'd been avoiding him. Her absence was driving him crazy, in more ways than one.

He released his cock from the strap and began to stroke it, imagining it was her stroking him. She'd jacked him off before the day before into a special condom for donations to the sperm bank, and it'd been so hot watching her do it. He would've preferred to put his sperm in her, but she'd said that couldn't always be the case. She'd rushed off afterward to deliver it, and he hadn't fucked her since. It was disappointing, because he thought she was going to come back so he could make love to her and put more of his seed in her. Boy was he wrong.

"Oh, Lura," he murmured. "Fuck ... I want you so bad." He'd bred fifteen women so far that day, but his balls still felt heavy, and he knew the releases he liked the best were the ones where she was involved. He'd kill whoever was keeping her if it meant that he could hold her in his arms and make sweet, passionate love to her.

The thought of making love to her almost put him over the edge, even though he'd just started stroking himself, and it was a bit of a wakeup call to him. If he was going to jack off, he'd better collect his sperm. He knew Lura wouldn't be happy if he didn't. So after letting out a sigh, he stopped stroking. Rolling to the right, he opened a drawer in a side table and pulled out a whole string of collection condoms. Then he opened multiple packages, knowing he had a lot of pent up sexual frustration to release.

The first one was barely on before he tugged a few hard times and filled it quite full with his sperm. "Oh fuck!" he cried out as the release hit him. His body shuddered with the sensation, and he let out a long moan. The things thinking about Lura did to him. Those breasts, those nipples, and bam. He was ready to go again.

He quickly took off the condom, tied it off, and dropped it into another drawer next to him that was the perfect temperature to preserve his sperm. Then he grabbed another and repeated the process. He didn't care that he was cuming quickly at this point. His balls felt so laden with sperm he needed to get as much of it as he could out.

He was filling up the sixth condom when Lura happened to walk in, and being caught jerking off to his memories of her made him blush. "Uh, hi," he said sheepishly. "I didn't know you were going to be coming by."

"Apparently," she replied. He detected a bit of a bite in her tone, and he wondered what was causing it. "Please tell me you remembered that those need to go into the preservation drawer for collection?"

"Yes, I did," he replied quietly. "There are others in there waiting to go. Don't worry. I remembered."

She sucked in the right side of her upper lip a little, and asked, "How many?"

"Six, I think, including this one." He held it up and then tied it shut before opening the drawer and putting it with the others. "Will you take them or will someone else come to get them?"

"I'll have your doctor come get them. Looks like you can stand to have another increase in how many women you're breeding per day."

"I suppose ... if that's what you want."

Lura let out a sigh. "Why are you assuming that I want you to sleep with more women?"

"Because you've been avoiding our bed!" he exclaimed, feeling frustrated. "You jerked me off once, the other morning. I thought you would come back, because heaven forbid I make love to you. And you didn't. My balls feel like they're going to explode from my need of being with you, Lura. What the fuck am I supposed to do when you cause this?!" He yanked on his cock, and he moaned when some precum oozed out. "You're the reason this is happening, babe. It doesn't matter how many women I fuck. I still want you."

"For sex," she retorted. "That's it."

"No, it's not, and you bloody well know that." He swung his legs off the bed and the got up, striding over to her quickly and then standing directly in front of her. "You know I want more. That I want all of you."

"We're mated, Mattei. You've already got all of me."

"No, Lura, I don't." He put his hands on her shoulders and then ran his hands gently down to her arms. "You know I want more than anything. Even more than your body."

"I ... I don't know if I can give you more," she murmured.

"This is about Jack again, isn't it?" he asked angrily. Jealousy coursed through his body, and he hated it, but he found he couldn't help himself. He'd promised to help her work through her guilt about being with him, but her avoidance of him was making him loopy. He'd about had it with her avoiding him. "You feel so guilty about enjoying me that you've been avoiding me." Lura refused to meet his eyes, and he knew he'd hit the mark. "Fuck, Lura. You enjoy making yourself miserable, don't you?"

"I do not!" she retorted, this time looking at him. But he could see that it wasn't just anger in her eyes. The sadness was back as well.

"What's wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why do you look sad?"

"I'm fine."

"Bullshit." He cupped her face and stared into her jade eyes. "Tell me."

"I gave Jack the plague."

He shook his head. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"It's my fault, okay? He got sick because he was around me! I got some test results back two days ago showing that the strain of the plague he contracted was the same one that I was trying to help treat. I killed my husband, okay? And how do I repay the man I loved? I go and fuck someone ... someone who's trying to give me what I wanted the most. Not to mention a man I wouldn't fuck if my husband were still alive."

Mattei felt like he'd been slapped in the face. He could understand why she was upset. But that last part? Damn. That hurt He stepped back, immediately dropping his hands to his sides. "Fine ... if that's the way you feel. I'll just give you a baby, and then we can remain mates in name only."

He heard her inhale sharply but turned his back to look away. He couldn't look at her right now, because the weight that was on his chest was almost suffocating. She still loved her husband so much that she couldn't imagine anyone else loving her too, and that hurt. "Mattei..."

"Just stop, Lura," he snapped. "I fuckin' get it, okay? You don't have the room in your heart for anyone but Jack or whatever baby I can put in you. So you win, okay? You get your baby, and I'll ... well, I'll keep fucking women like I agreed to. Maybe I'll find someone who wants a man to care about them the way I do about you."

"Mattei, that's not fair! You know that you have to find other mates!"

He spun around and glared at her. "And you know that I have feelings for you!" He pounded his chest with his right hand closed into a fist. "I don't just want to be your mate or fuck buddy, Lura! I was hoping you wanted more too when you agreed to be my mate. We discussed this! And you agreed to be with me, saying that Jack would want you to be happy. You said I made you happy, and that you would give us a chance. And not even three days after you agree to be my mate, you pull this shit? Please."

"You said you'd give me time to work through the guilt!"

"I CAN'T HELP YOU WORK THROUGH IT IF YOU'RE AVOIDING ME LIKE THE FUCKIN' PLAGUE!" As soon as he yelled those words, he regretted it, but it was too late. He heard a sob escape her mouth, and then before he could do anything, she ran out of his quarters, slamming the door behind him.

Rage boiled up inside him, mostly aimed at himself for yelling at her, and he let out a roar. Calling it a yell wasn't even remotely close enough of a description. The closest description could only be a roar. The sound reverberated against the walls, and then echoed back at him. Then there was silence.

He looked around at the place that was starting to feel a bit like a prison and let out a growl. He had to get the fuck out of there. Looking around, he found some clean clothes which had been delivered earlier and quickly dressed before grabbing his wallet. Then he ran out of quarters and down towards the entry he'd arrived at just a few days earlier.

"Milord!" one of the female guards called. "Where are you going?"

"Out of my way, NOW!"

"Sir, you can't go out unescorted!"

He stopped only briefly to give her a look that communicated his thoughts about what she said. Her jaw clenched, but then she nodded. "Fine. I'll call you a vehicle. They'll take you wherever you want to go."

"Out is where I want to go. Away from this fucking place, and away from a woman that wouldn't fucking know a damn thing about how I feel about her, because her head is shoved up her ass!" He started muttering under his breath, continuing until the transport showed up.

He practically ran into it, and when the driver asked where he wanted to go, he said, "Just get me the fuck out of here. I don't care where." He was silent for a moment and then shook his head. "Take me into the country. Take me someplace where I don't have walls around me like this."

The woman nodded at him and drove in silence. Mattei's jaw remained clenched as she drove, him feeling like he needed to pace. He'd never felt such rage before and he just needed to let it out. He didn't want to hurt anyone physically ... like he knew he'd hurt Lura emotionally.

As soon as some woods came into view, he had the chauffeur pull over. "Stop here," he ordered. Then he flung the door open and jumped out.

"Your mask, milord!" the women called as he did so.

"Do you see anyone, honestly?" he asked with a growl emanating from the back of his throat. "There's nobody fucking here. There's nobody here! Finally! If I must be alone, at least I can do it where I belong!" He let out a holler and then ran into the woods, the driver staring as Mattei disappeared into the foliage.

It felt to him like he ran forever. He missed this ... his runs in the morning, the smell of dew on the grass, and manure in the paddocks. The sounds of nature and animals. He missed his old life. The one thing that helped him through it all had been Lura. And now, he'd hurt her after she'd hurt him. It should've felt good saying what he'd said to her. Tit for tat, right? She had said that she never would've slept with him. Instead, what he'd said to her was eating away at him even more than what she'd said to him because he'd hurt the woman he'd loved.

When he finally stopped running, he collapsed on his knees and wept loudly. The feelings she stirred in him were so strong, so primal ... so loving. And he'd been rejected ... again. First by his father, and now by her. The pain, the stress of it all, became overwhelming, and as he felt a pang in his chest, he let out one final cry and passed out.

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Beep ... beep ... beep.

Lura stared at Mattei as he slept in the hospital bed he was in back at the palace, and tears flowed down her face. He was lying still in bed, IV's hooked up to him, and sensors on several places on his body.

Eleven hours earlier, she'd run out of his quarters after he yelled at her. Though they'd only recently met, she'd never even heard him raise his voice. The closest he'd gotten was when he'd have a slight strain in his voice when he was frustrated. But a yell? It didn't seem like that was in his nature. Even his former boss had said she'd never heard him yell at anyone.

After their argument, she ran to her office, shut herself in, away from her concerned assistants, and cried. At one point, a couple of them tried pounding on her door, but she'd locked it when she ran in. Eventually, the pounding stopped, and she huddled up in the corner, her knees close to her chest while she stayed there and wept.

It wasn't until an hour later that she heard what had happened. Her pager had gone off with an alert signal and his "code name". When she called to find out what happened, she learned he'd lashed out at a guard, and insisted on getting away from the palace, spouting off something about some woman having her head shoved up her ass. If she hadn't been so worried, she would've laughed at what she knew was said in reference to her. Mattei did say what he meant. It was something she loved about him. It was also something that worried her because she realized she'd pushed him into that response. And if he hadn't been found, she also knew it could've resulted in his demise.

Thankfully, the chip in his hand saved him. After he was found in the woods, his doctors noticed that it'd been registering slightly elevated blood pressure before he started jacking off to her. It decreased each time he orgasmed, but when she was in his quarters and they fought, it skyrocketed. As his personal medical staff was being notified of the dangerous spike that followed her running out on him, he was fleeing the palace.

It took almost two hours for him to be retrieved from the forest floor, due to the difficulty of getting his long body onto a gurney, and getting him out of the thick brush he was found in. He was breathing though, and tests indicated that he hadn't suffered a heart attack. So it wasn't all bad news. Passing out lowered his blood pressure enough that all his vitals returned to normal. But he still hadn't woken, and that worried his doctors and Lura.

Lura let out a sigh and then looked over at Isilde, who was sitting in a chair nearby working on a crossword puzzle. "What am I going to do?" she asked quietly.

Isilde looked up. "About what?"

"If he doesn't wake up?"

"He'll wake up."

"How can you be so sure?" Lura asked. She started to chew on a fingernail but stopped when Isilde looked at her and raised an eyebrow. Old nervous habits died hard, and she hadn't been quite this nervous since Jack died. She pulled the finger away from her mouth and then tapped the chair. "He should've woken up by now."

"Lura, he's been breeding fifteen women a day, and his body might be exhausted. Besides, you saw how high his blood pressure got. Lord only knows what caused it to spike, but his body is recuperating. Just be glad he's not in a coma. He'll be fine, you'll see. I don't know why you're so worried."

"It's all my fault."

Isilde let out a sigh and looked at her friend. "What is?"

"This," Lura replied. "This is my fault."

"I don't follow."

Lura leaned forward a little and balled her hands into fists. "We got into a fight. I noticed his face was getting red, but he'd yelled at me, and I just figured it was anger. I didn't stick around long enough to check his vitals, instead of running out because what he said hurt."

"He yelled at you?"

She nodded. "Yeah." She wiped away a tear that rolled down her face as she remembered their fight. "Jack would yell sometimes too, but ... I don't think I ever hurt this bad when he would. I was used to Jack having a temper. But Mattei?" Lura shook her head. "It was so out of character from him. He's so..."

"Gentle."

"Yes." Lura pressed her lips together and then shut her eyes. "I shouldn't have provoked him."

"What happened?"

"I said some shit I shouldn't have."

"Lura," Isilde said, a slight warning in her tone. "What did you say?"

"I basically told him I was just fucking him so I could have a baby."

Isilde frowned a little. "But you are fucking him so you can have a baby." But when she saw the crushed look on Lura's face she gasped. "You've fallen for him completely, haven't you? You love him!"

Lura started crying, and she nodded a little. "He doesn't know. I can't tell him. I feel so guilty for loving him. So guilty that it happened so quickly. The feelings he stirs in me, Isilde ... they're way more intense than the ones I had with Jack, and that confuses me. It makes me feel guilty. And I can't tell him!" Isilde chuckled a little in response and Lura shot her friend an angry glance. "What is so fucking funny?" she demanded.

"The Council doesn't want you falling in love, I cautioned you not to, even though I hoped you would, and you were certain you'd never fall in love with anyone else. And here you are, using guilt as penance for your feelings."

"I am not!"

"Oh, you totally are." Isilde pulled her legs up behind her on the chair and then smirked at Lura. "It's what you do. It's what you've always done. When you feel a certain way, and don't think it's acceptable, you make yourself feel so guilty that it tears you to shreds. I know you, Lura. That's how you operate. It's happened with your sisters, your dad..."

"Please don't bring them into this. I'm not even sure I'm to blame there."

"Ah, but that's my point," Isilde pointed out. "You're sure it is. So you still blame yourself."

"I hate you, sometimes. You know that, right?"

"Totally," Isilde said, laughing a little. "Because I tell you the truth just like it sounds like he might've. I know he doesn't mince words. Neither do I. I'm just not in love with you like I think he is."

Lura rolled her eyes. "He is not in love with me."

"Then why did his blood pressure spike after you basically told him that he was just your fuck toy, Lura?"

"I thought you were trying to talk me out of blaming myself."

"Eh, yes and no. You're partially to blame, I think. But maybe not solely. Some of that may rest on him as well. What did he tell you that made you run away anyways?"

"Something about him not being able to help me deal with my guilt if I'm avoiding him ... like the plague."

"Ouch."

"Yeah ... right after I told him that the test results came back about Jack's strain of it being the one I was trying to help treat."

"Oh shit."

Lura simply nodded. "It really hurt. I felt like I was the plague when he yelled that at me. Like I was the enemy. He was right though. I was avoiding him. Ever since I got the results ... it just reopened the wounds I felt about losing Jack, the guilt about trying to get pregnant by Mattei. I haven't slept with him in like two days."

"Well, he is highly sexed, and the drugs can push his BP up higher if he's not getting enough fucking by his lady love," Isilde said, half-seriously. She let out a bark when Lura glared at her but continued anyway. "The combination from lack of sex and your fight probably didn't help."

"Both of which are my fault."

"Okay ... maybe it is all your fault."

"Some friend you are."

Isilde giggled, but then stopped, and held up her hand. "Did you hear that?" Both women were quiet for a second, and then heard a groan.

Lura's eyes widened, and she sprung out of her chair. "Mattei?" She leaned over and heard a groan again. Looking at Isilde, she said, "Get his doctors in here. Now."

Isilde nodded and ran out the door while Lura checked Mattei over a little, including his bulge. The only time it'd been flaccid was while he'd been in the bed, but it was quickly returning to it hard state. She blushed thinking that it was one of the first things she'd checked. But she really did enjoy it.