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17

LIA

I rested my back against the headboard of the huge king-size bed, waiting for Mael to come back.

I was too nervous to do anything but sit there on his bed.

This was ridiculous. I didn’t even know why I was nervous. It wasn’t like I was a virgin or that this was my first time spending the night with a man. It was the first time I had felt this way about a man though. Not even my first boyfriend in high school had been able to elicit these kinds of feelings from me, and I always thought teenage love was more intense than anything else.

But this…

I shook my head.

It wasn’t like I was actually planning on sleeping with Mael.

We were just going to sleep. That was all.

I jumped when the door to the ensuite bathroom opened, and Mael stepped out wearing nothing but black boxer briefs that molded to him in the best way possible and nothing else.

My mouth went dry.

I knew he was fit, but this was… this was something else entirely.

He was hard and muscular and beautiful. And so tall and imposing.

“How tall are you, Mael?” I asked with a breathless quality in my voice.

His eyes danced, showcasing his amusement. “Six-foot-four of pure muscles, baby.”

Hell.

I could just imagine his big, beautiful body on top of me while he…

I shook away the thought. I should have better control of myself. I should…

It didn’t feel like I did. It felt like I was…

Horny.

I was horny just looking at him, and the last thing I wanted to be was lose my head at this moment.

He had a good amount of tattoos on his body, from the black tribal lines on his neck that I could see clearly now to a crying woman kneeling in front of a cross on the left side of his rib to a blackbird that seemed to fade away in the shadow on his pec. There was the creepy face of a smiling clown that looked more evil than it did funny below his pecs, and a small monarch butterfly settling delicately near his abs. I quickly moved on to the next tattoo.

I narrowed my eyes at a small row of numbers hidden just at the top of his right ribs—wondering what they could mean—to the other side…

A row of white roses?

My favorite flower.

Was it a mere coincidence that he had those flowers tattooed on his body? It had to be, considering the tattoo didn’t look new, and I had only just told him about my favorite flowers. It didn’t look old either.

Was it really fate that brought him to me, then?

I quite liked that idea, even if I didn’t allow myself to delve into it. Not when I still wasn’t done with my exploration of him.

My eyes took in those broad shoulders, to his arms—talk about arm porn, yum —to his prominent pecs, down to his six-pack, and the small patch of hair that led inside his briefs?—

My eyes startled up to his when I realized he was hard.

He shot me a devilish smile. “That’s what happens when you look at me like that.”

I shook my head. “But that’s all I did.”

He chuckled and climbed into bed with me. The spacious king-size bed that had felt huge when it had been just me now felt like it had shrunk down to a twin bed.

I tried to move away to give him some room when he snaked his arms around my waist and pulled me in close to his warm body. His lips pressed up against the side of my face. “That’s all you need to do.”

I smiled shyly at him. He made it sound like I had such a hold on him. He made me sound powerful.

I was about to say something when a small yawn escaped.

He pressed another tender kiss on my face. “Let’s go to sleep.”

I nodded and buried my face in his neck, letting my lips trail over it. My body hummed with pleasure from the simple contact.

His arm tightened around me. “Baby, I’m trying to be good.”

His voice was gruff, and there was something shaky about it that had me smiling against his skin.

I pulled back. “Let’s go to sleep.”

We lay down on the bed close to each other. I couldn’t have put any space between us even if I wanted to. Not with the way Mael was holding onto me as if he was afraid something might happen to me if he didn’t hold on tight enough.

He reached over for the lamp and clicked it off, and suddenly, we were lying there in the dark.

I snuggled in closer to him, falling into that space between asleep and awake.

The last thought I had before falling under was just how familiar Mael felt pressed up against me, and I didn’t know why that was.

I wasn’t usually so whimsical, but I decided it must be because my soul recognized his in some way.

* * *

It was one of those rare days that I had off.

I wasn’t sure why I had taken to working so much at the coffee shop. It wasn’t like I needed the money. My family had been well-off for generations, and though we weren’t the kind of rich other people took notice of, we were rich enough that Caden and I each had a small inheritance set up for us to receive on our twenty-fifth birthday.

I’d barely touched mine since the moment I’d received it.

Caden will never get the chance to receive his. He died a month before his twenty-first birthday, and Dad gave me his portion. I knew he was trying to do the right thing, but sometimes, I wished he had never given it to me in the first place.

That money was nothing more than a reminder that I had lost my baby brother.

But it was mine nonetheless, and with both inheritances combined, I had enough to live off modestly for at least a decade or so.

I was still working a lot.

Too much, according to Dad. But I had the day off today, and Victoria wanted to go for lunch.

She was already at the restaurant when I arrived, and waved me over before the hostess could say anything.

I walked over to her with a smile, somewhat excited to be doing something normal, at least.

My little stalker problem was still very much on my mind, but I didn’t want it to stop me from living.

So far, he’d been harmless.

At least, harmless enough that he hadn’t done anything more than scare the shit out of me and creep me out in the worst way possible.

Or perhaps I was stupid and feeling optimistic today because I had spent the night with Mael. I didn’t know.

“Hey,” I greeted, sitting across from my friend in the booth.

She pushed the menu over to me. “Hey, how are you? It feels like we haven’t talked in a while.”

I nodded. The last time had been when she saw Mael for the first time at the coffee shop and flirted with him. I didn’t even know how to bring up that I was sort of seeing him.

“I know. That’s why we need to enjoy this time, and you need to tell me all about the latest man.”

She laughed. “Maybe I want to start settling down.”

I shot her a look of surprise. It wasn’t that I thought Victoria wasn’t capable of it, only that ever since we met our freshman year in college, she had always been adamant that she would never settle down with anyone. And she had held true to that. I had never seen Victoria in a long-term relationship. But it wasn’t like I was one to talk. I hadn’t been in a long-term relationship with anyone either, but Victoria…

“Do you have someone in mind?” I asked. Maybe she met someone.

She gave me a cheeky smile. “Why do you think there is a man to make me want to settle down?”

I didn’t say anything.

She chuckled and shook her head but didn’t answer me.

The waitress came by our table then. We ordered our drinks, and I looked down at the menu, trying to decide what I wanted to eat.

“How’s everyone?” she asked.

“Good,” I said, already knowing where she was going with this.

“And Leo? How’s he doing?”

“He’s been doing good since I last saw him at my weekly dinner with him and Dad. You should join us next time.”

She shook her head.

Victoria had a crush on Leo.

It wasn’t really for me to judge her on her crush, but it was hard for me to grasp that Victoria liked Leo when I had grown up with the man as a second father figure to me. And there was at least a twenty-five-year age gap between the two of them.

Victoria's crush on him was the most enduring one I had seen her have with anyone, and I always thought it was because he was someone she couldn’t have.

I smiled at her and looked down at the menu again, wondering if I should bring up Mael with her.

There was just something about this… whatever this was with Mael, that I wasn’t quite ready to share with anyone else.

I just wanted to keep him to myself for a little while longer, and I knew if I brought him up, she would want details.

We weren’t quite in a place where I was ready to share that with anyone.

“So, what's new with you?” Victoria asked absently, her eyes scanning the menu. “Any exciting developments in your life?” Oh, there were just so many things. So many things I wanted to tell her about but didn’t know how.

I took in my friend, and for the first time in our friendship, I didn’t tell her everything. “Nothing much,” I answered. She didn’t look up from the menu, only making a small sound in acknowledgment, and that was all.

Lunch was pretty normal, which was what I needed.

I would tell her.

Next time, I promised myself.

I would tell her if things got serious with Mael or if things took a turn with my stalker.

I would tell her.

* * *

He was back.

He was back to sneaking into my apartment late at night, crawling into bed with me, and holding me close in his arms.

I closed my eyes when he shifted slightly against me, letting me feel the hardness of his body pressed up against my back.

That was all he was doing.

Why was he doing this?

Why was he just holding me?

What was the point?

Did he just want to scare me? Because he was succeeding. I wished he would just tell me what the purpose of this was.

But he didn’t talk.

He just held me, and much like the last time, I was struck frozen with fear, unable to move away.

I didn’t sleep for most of the night.

And like that last time, he waited until after three o’clock—until I was too tired to stay awake any longer and fell into a restless sleep—before he left. Then I woke up in the morning.

I looked around the room in frustration, not knowing what to think or feel about this anymore.

What the hell was happening?