Page 5 of A Smile Full of Lies (Secrets of Stonewood #1)

Chapter

Four

KNOX

I narrowed my eyes, frowning at the screen.

Ros.

I leaned forward, every nerve in my body going still.

She was awake. Typing.

It was going on 3:00 a.m. She should’ve been asleep hours ago. She didn’t log into this particular forum very often, and she’d never posted under her burner account. Not until now.

Months ago, she brought me her laptop when it started refusing to charge.

She told me I was the only one she trusted to fix it.

So I did. I replaced the battery, ran updates, and scrubbed the system clean.

But while I had it, I installed a key logger — silent, invisible, and built from the ground up to be undetectable. Something only I knew how to find.

At first, I told myself it was for safety. To protect her. Make sure she wasn’t being stalked or exploited.

But that was a lie.

The truth was simpler: I needed to see her… all of her. The private thoughts. The ones she never said out loud. The ones no one else got to hear.

And tonight, she finally typed them out for anonymous strangers on the internet to read.

She typed like she worried someone might peer over her shoulder at any second, slow and hesitant. I watched her keystrokes populate in real time.

GraveyardGirl93: I think I want to be chased.

A sharp jolt of heat rolled through my spine and my cock twitched behind my zipper.

Oh, sweetheart. If you only knew how many times I’ve fantasized about you saying things like that.

My hand hovered over the keyboard, breathing slow as my vision narrowed. Every inch of me went hard and hungry as I logged in to the confession forum under my own burner account, the one I’d made the first time she ever logged into this site… just in case.

I didn’t hesitate, not even for a second. No guilt. No second thoughts. Just instinct.

StrayDog777 was ready. My DM response to her was almost instantaneous.

StrayDog777

How would you want to be caught?

My jaw flexed.

Her cursor blinked in the keystroke logger I had open on my left-hand monitor in my dual-screen setup while the forum sat open on the monitor to my right.

There was an excruciatingly long pause.

Then she replied.

GraveyardGirl93

I want to be pinned down and overpowered. Caught in the dark with his breath in my ear, his hands tight on my wrists, and his teeth on my throat. I can almost feel his body pressing me into the ground while I struggle, even though we both know I don’t really want to get away.

Fuck me sideways. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting her to say, but it wasn’t that.

My breath sharpened. My cock swelled, thick and aching thanks to her wicked, perfect words.

She wanted the same things I did, at least in a physical sense. She was fantasizing about being chased and pinned and fucked roughly. My pulse thundered in my ears and my blood seared me from the inside out.

My hand tightened around the edge of the desk until the wood creaked beneath the pressure. Then, I cracked my knuckles and typed in another response, egging her on.

StrayDog777

And then?

A muscle in my jaw ticked as I ground my teeth and stared at the screen, willing her to answer me faster.

Her typing sped up.

GraveyardGirl93

He’d make me beg, drag it out until I’m a mindless wreck. I want him to use his strength to hold me down and force me to take it — every inch of him — until I’m broken and begging for more.

Jesus mother-fucking Christ. She was going to be the death of me.

My whole body went molten and my cock throbbed behind my zipper; hard, needy, and straining for relief. I forced my breath to slow, dragged it deep into my lungs, keeping myself controlled and focused.

She wanted to be taken, overpowered, and claimed , but only in a way where she could still feel safe inside it. This was fantasy wrapped in trust. I could see it, feel it, in the subtext. She craved the predator, but only if she could believe he’d never actually hurt her.

I typed my next question, aching to see if she’d say it. Needing to know if she’d give me the final piece of the puzzle.

StrayDog777

Who is he? Someone you know? Or a stranger?

My hand hovered over the keys. My pulse slammed through my veins.

The cursor blinked.

One second.

Two.

GraveyardGirl93

I don’t know… but I think he has blue eyes.

My cock kicked hard and I palmed it through my jeans, giving it a slow, punishing squeeze.

A grin spread across my face — sharp, hungry, uncontainable — as a feral satisfaction roared through my bloodstream.

My chest tightened beneath the rhythm of my pounding heart, each beat deliberate , drenched in a need so intense it goddamn hurt.

Me. She was talking about me.

She’d never admit it out loud — not yet, not after everything — but I knew the truth.

I saw it in the way she flinched when I got too close, in the way her breath caught when I brushed her hand.

Licking that marshmallow fluff off my thumb while I stared her down earlier?

It worked e xactly the way I wanted it to.

Without thinking twice, I hacked into the webcam and mic on her laptop so I could see her, hear her.

Her breath was already in my head, shallow and quick.

She was damn near panting for me. Fuck, she was a perfect sight, with her lips parted and pupils dilated with a heady mix of lust and adrenaline.

I watched the moment realization hit her, sheer panic flaring stark and beautiful across her perfect face as she registered what she’d just confessed, even if she thought it was just to some random, faceless user on an anonymous forum.

Her cheeks flushed, and she slammed the laptop shut, cutting the feed midstream.

Rude.

I leaned back in my chair. One hand drifted down, adjusting the hard ache behind my zipper. She had no fucking idea what she did to me.

A minute passed. Then another.

Still, I didn’t move. I sat there, letting the tension coil low and tight, feeling the insistent throb between my legs, the electricity humming hotter beneath my skin.

She was right there. Just across the yard. Barely a few strides away.

My chest constricted. My hand brushed the black mask tucked in my jacket pocket. I smiled, slow and wicked.

Patience, Knox , I told myself. Don’t be reckless. Wait until she’s asleep before you do what you’re thinking of doing.

I didn’t panic, didn’t curse, didn’t move.

I just exhaled once, slow and steady, and reached for the mouse.

She might’ve cut me off from one angle, but I’d planned for moments like this years ago.

All it took was two clicks.

The feed from the discreet floodlight cam on the back corner of my house lit up my monitor, its night vision flaring soft and ghostly before settling into focus.

The camera faced directly toward her bedroom window. I’d installed it myself when she was nineteen, and told myself it was for home security, but that was only a fraction of the twisted, multifaceted, ugly, inescapable monster known as the truth.

I didn’t mind waiting. I’d been waiting for her for seven years. What was just a little while longer?

I stared at my monitor. There she was, my perfect girl.

She looked so beautiful it hurt, bathed in silvery moonlight, frozen in place, sitting up against the headboard with her knees drawn to her chest. Her hands fisted the blanket like she could hold herself together by sheer force of will.

I leaned in closer.

Her eyes were wide, pupils still dilated from the adrenaline. Her lips parted, chest rising and falling too fast. She looked flushed, guilty, and fucking shattered .

Ros never pulled her bedroom curtains closed, and it made me wonder if some part of her secretly liked the idea of being watched.

Even now, she didn’t crawl under the blankets and hide. She stayed there in the open, almost like she knew she was putting on a show for me. But I knew she had no idea I was watching. Not really.

If she ever found out I had a camera pointed at her bedroom window, I had no doubt she’d kick in my front door and get in my face, reading me the riot act for invading her privacy like some kind of sicko.

I opened the drawer beneath my desktop and pulled out a black leather sketchbook, one of several I had stashed in different places throughout the house, that had been hidden beneath layers of paperwork no one would ever care enough to touch.

It was my secret confessional… page after page filled with sketches of her. And now, I’d fill one more.

I flipped to a fresh sheet and picked up the pencil I’d already worn down to a nub.

I guided the pencil in slow, reverent strokes; dragging graphite over paper, sketching the tight hunch of her shoulders, the way the moonlight kissed her bare collarbone, the faint tremble in her fingers as she clutched the blanket and finally tugged it higher.

She didn’t know how exposed she was, or how thoroughly I studied her when no one else was looking.

She had no clue just how long I’d been collecting these private versions of her.

She had no idea that I had seven years’ worth of sketches, memories of her no one else would ever see.

And I wasn’t about to stop now, not after she confessed what she wanted to my burner account in that forum, which turned out to be a fucking gift just for me in disguise.

She shifted, turned on her side, and faced the window. Faced me .

I kept sketching.

Sleep took her in stages. Her lashes fluttered closed. Her lips parted in a soft exhale. Her breathing evened out, going slow and steady as her hand relaxed beneath her cheek.

And I kept fucking sketching until I was sure, absolutely positive, that she was asleep deep enough that it wouldn’t wake her if I slipped into her house.

Only then did I set the pencil down, close the book, and stand.

I stretched. My hand flexed at my side.

It took two long strides to reach my back patio door. The mid-October night air was almost cool against my skin as I crossed the yard. The grass was damp beneath my boots.

My key slid into her lock, the deadbolt clicked open beneath my hand, and I stepped inside.

The house was quiet. Her scent lingered in the air; vanilla and jasmine, warm and familiar.

I stepped down the hall, moving slow and silent. My hand brushed against the edge of the doorframe as I looked inside her bedroom.

She was curled beneath a pile of fuzzy blankets. Her dark, wavy hair fanned across the pillow like a halo around her pale face. Her tank top was a severe temptation, one of the straps slipping off her left shoulder. Her breathing was soft and even, her lips parted slightly.

My cock throbbed painfully at the sight of her, so close and so utterly vulnerable. I leaned against the doorframe, watching the slow, steady rise of her chest beneath the blankets. She looked so soft like this, completely unguarded and breakable. She’d be so damn easy to take.

My hand twitched at my side.

Just one touch , I told myself. Just one hand curled around her throat to feel her pulse beneath my thumb. She wouldn’t wake up.

I moved closer, slow and deliberate, brushing her hair back from her face. My knuckles skimmed the delicate line of her cheek. Her breath hitched. I recoiled, leaning away from her and holding my breath, afraid I’d disturbed her.

But she didn’t wake. Her exhale steadied, her breathing quiet and rhythmic.

I straightened. Tension tugged beneath my sternum like barbed wire wound too tight around my heart.

I turned toward the living room, her presence still vibrating in my head as I sat down at her laptop. The screen glowed faint blue, casting long shadows across my hands.

My attention slid to the stack of mail beside it.

I picked it up and flipped through it.

Overdue notices. Late fees. Final warnings.

Her power was three days from being cut off.

My jaw flexed as an unbearable pressure flared beneath my skin.

Her internet bill was overdue, too. It had a manageable balance, but the cutoff date had already passed. She must’ve been skating by on some kind of grace period. It wouldn’t last long.

A slow burn crawled through my chest, low, tight, and heavy.

She was drowning, and she didn’t reach out. She didn’t ask me for a single goddamn thing.

I pulled out my phone and hovered over her account portals, her passwords already memorized thanks to the keystroke logger I’d put on her laptop. I could fix it all right now, every last detail. It would be so fucking easy for me to just handle her mess and make it all go away.

I inherited fifteen million dollars when my family was murdered, and I’d more than doubled that with smart investments and the advancements I made to the cybersecurity company passed down by my father. That was nearly four years ago. The anniversary of their deaths was coming up on the 27th.

And just four days after that? Halloween. Ros’s twenty-fifth birthday. Fixing her life would be a nice birthday present, right?

But I didn’t fix it. I didn’t clean up her mess. I didn’t make it all go away.

Why?

Because if I did, she’d stay here, in her Gran’s house, alone and independent. She’d stay in my sights, but just beyond my reach.

And I’d waited seven long, excruciating fucking years to have her close enough to keep.

So, I closed the apps, reset the screen, and stared down at the power shutoff notice in my hand.

Three days, and she’ll break. Three days, and she’ll come to me because she’ll have no one else to turn to.

And what will I do? I’ll open my door, take her in, and I’ll never let her go.

And if she doesn’t come to me? I’ll come to her, and I’ll drag her into my house kicking and screaming if I have to.

What kind of man does that?

The kind who waits. The kind who watches. The kind who doesn’t put out the fire, not because he can’t, but because he wants to feel the heat on his own skin.

She’s trusted me with everything: her house key, her quiet, her grief.

And I’m letting her fall. Not to hurt her. To catch her. To bring her home the only way she’ll let me.

I’ve been patient long enough.

Letting her power get shut off is a shitty fucking thing to do. But it’ll get her in my house, under my roof, breathing my air.

When she breaks, it won’t be because the world failed her. It’ll be because I let it happen, and I’ll live with that. Gladly.

Because once she’s in my house… she’ll finally be mine.