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24

LIA

Mael was busy.

Which meant I hadn’t seen him in two days.

Which meant I had spent two days in turmoil.

I closed my eyes, and the memory of that night kept popping up in my head, fucking with my mind a little more each time.

What was wrong with me?

It wasn’t like I was falling for my stalker. I wasn’t. I couldn’t. And it wasn’t like I was forgetting about Mael either. He was very much present in my mind, and the feelings I had for him were still strong, only…

It felt like my feelings toward my stalker had changed, and I didn’t know what to do with that.

Can you develop feelings for two men at the same time?

And I didn’t even know what the other man looked like.

I quickly shook away the thought. I wasn’t falling for my stalker.

My feelings were nothing more than a mix of loneliness, being messed up in the brain, and gratitude that he had been there the night that man had followed me home—like my very own twisted version of a knight in shining armor. And that would pass as long as he left me alone.

I closed my eyes at the thought. He wasn’t going to leave me alone.

I didn’t know what he wanted from me or how long it would take him to get what he wanted… A few months? Years?

A lifetime?

I felt him come inside my room before he even made himself known. It was his presence. He simply sucked up all the air in this small room and made it his, making me feel heavy and hopeless and overwhelmed all at the same time.

The light turned off like I knew it would. I was beginning to think he didn’t want me to see his face, not because he didn’t want me to know what he looked like but because I would recognize him if I saw him.

How unnerving.

I tried to think of all the men I knew who matched his physique—from what I had felt so far—but there weren’t many.

I didn’t know a lot of men who had muscles like his, apart from Mael. Which always made me wonder if Mael could’ve taken my stalker on if I had come clean about this with him from the beginning.

Was he a customer from the coffee shop? Or from my college days? Did we have a class together?

I shook my head. Surely, I would have remembered. He would have stood out, wouldn’t he?

Much like he had done before, he wrapped his arms around me from behind and pulled me in close to his body.

Close enough that I could feel the hard planes of his muscles and take in his scent, somehow both familiar and not.

I resisted the urge to melt into him, wondering when I had become one of those people who had no control over their actions.

“What are you doing, just standing in the middle of the room?” he asked.

“I’m trying to decide whether or not I know you,” I said. I felt him still behind me. It was a small movement, and I normally wouldn’t have noticed had he not turned off the light, making my other senses heightened.

“And what have you decided? Do you know me? Have we met before?”

“Well, we obviously have met before. It probably kick-started your obsession with me,” I said nonchalantly.

“One look was all it took,” he said, his voice low.

I let out a stuttering breath. “One look.”

“One look,” he confirmed. “I knew you were mine then.”

Any thoughts that he might get bored with me after a few months died a quick death.

“You’re crazy.”

I felt him shrug as if he couldn’t care less.

“Unhinged.”

“Perhaps,” he responded, his hand moving around and pulling on my shirt.

“What are you doing?” I asked, but it was too late. He had my shirt pulled up over my head before I could so much as blink.

“Getting you naked,” he replied, cupping my breasts with his huge hands, playing with the heavy globes.

“Why?”

“Because I fucking missed you. Missed these.”

He toyed with my nipples as he said it, sending a sharp sting of pleasure straight to my clit.

“I—”

He tugged on my shorts and panties, pushing them down my legs and lifting me up.

He threw me on the bed, and I watched his shadow move. It looked like… he was taking off his clothes as well. That was confirmed when he joined me in bed, and all I felt was skin.

I tried to inch away, but he grabbed my legs and pulled me back.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I— Shouldn’t we talk about this?”

“So talk,” he said casually, maneuvering me around until I was sitting on his stomach. I jumped when I felt his erection brush up against me.

“What are you doing?”

His hands came down and cupped my ass cheeks, molding around the supple flesh, squeezing it roughly until all I could focus on was that.

“Wait!” I yelled when I felt his fingers pressing around the tight sphincter muscles of my back end.

“Talk, baby.”

“I can’t think when you touch me like this.”

I placed my hands on his chest when I felt his finger push inside, my muscles clenching down on him automatically.

“We can just play around then.”

I shook my head. “We can’t just play around.”

“Why not?”

I had no words for him. What the hell was I supposed to say to that?

He grabbed my arms and pulled me down until I was lying on top of him. I could barely make out the outlines of his face.

He wrapped his arms around the small of my back and held them there. “Okay. Talk.”

I shook my head. “Like this?”

“Like this.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

Because I could feel his hard dick on my thigh. I closed my eyes. Fuck, why was this so hard with him?

He twisted us around and pulled the covers over us.

“Is this going to be a common occurrence?” I asked him. “Me going to bed naked.”

“I’m naked,” he said, as if that made it all better. I didn’t need a reminder. “And you want to talk? So we can talk.”

Problem was, I didn’t even know what I wanted to talk about now.

“Did something happen to you?” I asked, the thought popping inside my head.

He didn’t say anything for a beat. Then, “What do you mean?”

“Just your past. Maybe your childhood. Did something happen… to you? You know, to make you like this?”

He laughed. “Are you asking me if my shitty childhood messed me up so bad I decided to stalk women?”

I bit my lip.

He cupped my cheek, somehow knowing I was doing that, and pulled the abused flesh from my teeth.

“There’s only been you. Surprising as it might sound, I don’t make it a habit to stalk women.”

“So I’m just special ?”

Lucky me.

“That you are,” he said. He pressed me tighter against him until I almost had my face buried in his chest. I counted his heartbeats… slow and steady.

“My childhood made me into a lot of things, baby. A stalker is not one of them.”

So he did have a shitty childhood.

“Then why me?”

“Why you?”

I nodded against him.

“Because the first time I saw you was the first time I felt my heart beat.”

And as if on cue, that slow and steady rhythm I had been feeling sped up. I sucked in a breath.

“Because I knew you were mine on sight. I was a man obsessed. Seeing your face in everything I did. Knowing I couldn’t rest easy until I saw you again. And again. And fucking again. Until you became my favorite subject.”

“The roses?” I asked. He had left them there for me. I knew it.

“They’re your favorite flower.”

I let out a small sigh. Of course he would know that.

“What happened in your childhood?”

“Nothing happy.”

I didn’t say anything. I waited for him to elaborate. He seemed to know a lot about me, and I knew nothing about him. It was only fair that he told me more. Why that mattered, I didn’t know.

“I was in the system from when I was five up until about nine.”

I blinked. That wasn’t what I had expected him to say.

He tightened his arms around me, giving me some of his warmth. I was suddenly feeling cold.

“What happened at nine? Did you get adopted by a nice family?”

Even I could hear the na?ve hope in my voice.

His bitter laugh told me everything I needed to know.

“Nope. My father found me. And I wished the son of a bitch would have left me in the system to rot instead.”

I closed my eyes, moving in closer to him.

As if he could sense my turmoil, he said, “It was a long time ago.”

“Which obviously still affected you.”

He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. I wished he wouldn’t act so blasé about this. I didn’t dare ask him how it was living with his father.

I pulled back and cupped his face. He held still for me as if he was afraid I might hurt him. The thought was almost comical.

Slowly, I leaned down and kissed him. He didn’t do anything more than let me.

For the first time, it was me making the first move. I could no longer claim to be a helpless victim in this twisted game with him.

That should have mattered to me, but it didn’t.

Not when there was one thought running through my mind.

Why the fuck did he taste and feel like Mael?