Page 10 of Look My Way (Bloody Desires #1)

Zavier

I knew whose address it was right away when it was given to me over the phone by a man I immediately didn’t like the moment he looked at me.

He had the same wrongness in his eyes my dad had had.

He was overly touchy too, in a way that made Liam uncomfortable.

I kept my face as neutral as I could, struggling not to step forward and rip the man’s arm from his body when he squeezed Liam tighter.

Liam didn’t have to tell me who Daniel was to him.

I already knew. He lives in Felice’s apartment building, across the way from her.

They chat whenever they pass each other, grabbing their mail or leaving at the same time.

When Daniel told me what he was wanting built, he wasted no time saying who the surprise would be for—his fiancé.

The street and house numbers clawed at my ears when he said them.

Yeah, I knew exactly who lived there without giving it a second thought.

I’d had that address playing on repeat in my head ever since learning it—right along with my pretty writer.

I call him mine because that’s what he feels like.

That’s what he tells me he wants to be when he looks at me and continues to dance around the subject of him being engaged, no matter how much I’ve tried to get the correct answer out of him.

If he wanted to stay Daniel’s, he’d parade him around proudly, but instead he wants me to see him as available, so I do.

He kept his sights on me the whole time, too, and I gave him what Daniel didn’t in that photo in his living room, returning the attention he was giving me.

I thought I enjoyed how much his eyes would find mine, until they started roaming my body.

They went from my bare arms to between my legs, and I almost gave him a better look.

There’ll be other days for that, though.

He keeps initiating more hang-outs than he realizes.

When I made a joke about him wanting to come over to my house, and how he should wait until the third date, there was a flash of interest in those bright blues. He wanted to explore what I was saying some more, and I wanted to keep going so I could study more of his beautiful reactions.

I roll down my window as I pull up to the side of one of my favorite places to get tamales and menudo when I don’t feel like cooking. It’s this hole-in-the-wall place with peeling paint and a drive-thru, sitting in the middle of a bad neighborhood. It’s how you know the food is going to be good.

“Hola, Zavier.”

“Hola,” I say, smiling at the woman taking my card from my hand.

“Another long workday?”

“You know they are whenever I order this much food.”

She laughs, processing my payment, and seconds later she hands me back my card. As I’m passed my bag of food, I can smell the savory scent leaking through, and my stomach grumbles.

“Have a good night, and if you have another long day tomorrow, I’ll see you then.” She winks and I huff out a laugh.

“Have a good rest of your day, Rosie, and don’t work too hard.” Rolling my window back up, I drive forward and toss the bag on the passenger seat. Unable to wait until I get home, I park in the closest empty space and pull out my food.

Who am I kidding? I’m not going home anytime soon anyway.

After I’m done eating, I’m going to swing by the store to grab some last-minute items for a small job tomorrow, and then I’ll go see if my carino ever figured out where I put his curtains.

When he gets wrapped up in his writing, he’s really detached from reality, and that made it easier for me to get in and out without being noticed.

When I’d snuck into his back yard, I was happy to find the back door unlocked, and I looked around before stepping inside.

I’d started with the kitchen first and slowly made it to other the rooms when I heard him typing away with his headphones on.

He’s really passionate about his work, and I can be that passionate too. He’ll see exactly how much soon enough.

There are no curtains on the windows, and the very few with blinds are open too.

As I’m leaning back in my seat, sipping on my drink, Liam moves around in the living room.

He fluffs the pillows on the couch and straightens out the coffee table.

He’s very particular about where he wants everything.

The coasters have to be lined up in a certain way and so do the candles.

As he’s refolding the throw blankets, Daniel walks behind him and blocks my view.

Annoyance has me sitting too close to the steering wheel and pressing my teeth tightly together. Why does he have to be everywhere he is? Liam walks into one room and there his doting lover is minutes later, never leaving him alone for too long.

Daniel pulls at his hand, pressing a kiss to his ear, and I lift the binoculars to my face as they both walk around the couch together. Liam is being shoved out of the room, and as he turns to look back, Daniel blows him a kiss and points toward an open room with a dim light on.

My nails dig into the plastic, and I adjust my focus, nose flaring when Daniel snaps his fingers as if talking to a child or a dog.

Liam obeys with hesitancy in his steps, and Daniel turns off all the lights.

For a minute, I think he’s looking right at me, but then he stands in front of the window and shuts the blinds.

This asshole really is an inconvenience in more ways than one.

That’s okay. I’ll make time this week to hide those too.

Smiling, I lie back in my seat and listen to the radio while milking the clock.

Hours pass before I get out of my car, looking around as I enter the gate leading to the backyard.

It’s quiet and dark as I step lightly along the stone path to where Liam’s garden is.

He has funny little wooden planter markers in the dirt of each pot.

I bite back a laugh at the one that reads “please don’t die.”

I’ve never met anyone as cute as this man before. It’s in every single thing he does. I twist around the marker for the tomatoes and trace over the words “feeling cute, might die later” with a smile creeping up on my lips.

A light turning on in the kitchen has me dropping low to the ground and under the glass table the plants are on. The door opens and I stay where I am, slowing my breathing while remaining hidden.

“There you are,” a soft voice says.

Pressing my back to the table leg, I rest my hands on the ground as Liam snatches something from the table.

A light flashes from his phone when he taps at it.

“I swear, I’d lose my ass if it wasn’t attached to me.

” Shaking his head, he laughs to himself, and the bottom of his plaid pajama bottoms graze the concrete slab.

His steps come to a halt and he goes still. With labored breathing, he slowly turns around, and after seconds of scanning the area, he quickly goes back inside the house. I don’t hear the lock click, though it could be one of those quiet ones. He seemed on edge so why would he leave the door open?

Does he think his muscular cop fiancé will keep him safe enough that those kinds of precautions don’t matter? Or does allowing others to have easy access to him while he has company make him more at ease? Can he feel someone else here? Can he feel me?

Once the light goes off in the kitchen, I come out of hiding and reach into my pocket.

The note I wrote him is folded into a perfect square.

I had to keep starting over when the edges wouldn’t line up to my liking.

I need things to be a certain way too. I wonder what else we have in common.

I could always wait until Monday to ask him what his favorite movies are and what he keeps in the blue box on the windowsill of his kitchen, but that would be too easy.

And that’s exactly why I haven’t left yet.

I like the challenge of finding out everything I can by sneaking into his house while he has a cop in his bed.

I cringe as the vision of them lying closely together pops into my head.

It shouldn’t be Daniel under those sheets with Liam, but I’ll be patient and let him realize that on his own.

I’m not going to force the decision on him.

He gets enough of that from Daniel as it is.

He’s capable of making up his own mind when no one tries to intervene, and he’ll experience so much more freedom whenever he’s with me that he’ll keep seeking it out.

I drop the note into the jalapeno pot and tap my fingers on my hip as I slowly approach the back door. When I don’t see any kind of movement in the kitchen or in the connecting living room, I pull open the door and my heart pounds in my ears as it opens easily.

He did leave it open. My heart flutters—something that has only ever happened when I ended someone’s life. He felt the danger behind him and invited it in. Or did he figure that anyone who could be hiding outside would be better company than what was inside?

The door stays open behind me as I take a peek inside the blue box perfectly centered on the windowsill.

A small wind chill sweeps in behind me as I lift the top.

Index cards are stuffed into the small space, pressing tightly together, with recipes written on them in different colored inks.

Strawberry cheesecake, grannie’s famous fruit salad, tortilla soup, and many others.

The writing is all the same, with curves at the top and bottom of the start of each letter.

It’s legible and pleasing to the eye. Nothing like the note I left him.

Setting the box back where I got it, I crane my neck and stare at the dark room behind me.

A night light on one of the walls guides me further into the room, and on the right side of the medium-sized flat screen is a shelf built into the wall with stacks of DVDs.

My lips curl up at the corners as I sort through the large selection.

He has movies from the eighties, nineties, and early two thousands mostly.

Much like me, he doesn’t really care for the newer shit.

My skin warms as I close my eyes, imagining us together on the couch behind me.

He’s curled into my front as I’m kissing his shoulder, pointing out my favorite scene in a movie we’re watching together.

A cough from close by has me retracting my hand, and I come back to reality, immediately wishing I was back where I was before when I hear Daniel mumble something.

His words are unintelligible and are followed by snoring.

He’s sleeping. I should go, but my feet won’t stop moving in the wrong direction.

I follow the obnoxious sounds down the dark hall and pause in front of a partly open door.

I push on it gently and two figures lay in the bed in front of me.

There’s a night light in here too. They’re all over the house.

I appreciate them at this moment because it’s easier to make out my carino’s bare back.

The white comforter lies low on his hips, giving me a peek of his black boxer briefs.

A scar rests on his shoulder blade, and I realize I’m way too close when my fingers are inches from touching it.

Daniel tosses and turns, eyes staying closed as he pulls the covers fully over his head.

Liam is mostly uncovered from the asshole’s careless action, so I pull at the sheet underneath and tug it up to his neck.

The wiggle of his nose leaves me smiling wide, and throwing caution to the wind, I bend down to press a light kiss there.

His eyes flutter but he doesn’t move, his breathing as even as before.

Relief has my shoulders relaxing and I quickly back out of the room, snatching a black watch from the dresser on my way out.

That was a close one. I risked too much tonight, and I’m making another idiotic decision by leaving with the heavy item weighing down my pocket.

I don’t collect items from others until after I end their pathetic lives.

I have a feeling Daniel will be on that list in good time, and his stuff going missing from Liam’s house could be a reason it happens sooner.

I want this man to show his true colors to me right away.

To give me more than a glimpse of how much of a piece of shit he can be.

To give me a reason to cause him more pain than anyone else.

Everyone has secrets, and this man’s energy isn’t sitting right with me, screaming that he’s a person who has far more than a few skeletons in his closet.