Page 27 of Only for Him

Bigger than life or death.

He’s facing the house, head tilted, waiting so patiently for my eyes to meet his.

Blue.

By now, I know those eyes better than my own: blue so deep they have their own gravity. And I’m being dragged right in.

He lifts a finger to his mouth, slow and deliberate in that universal sign of silence.

Then he smiles again, and it sets my heart racing.

The balls on this guy!

I clench both hands so tight that my fingernails dig into my palms. It’s the best I can do without Serena’s earrings. I feel my heartbeat everywhere, from my scalp to my fingers to the uncomfortable warmth pooling between my legs.

“Cantiano!” Russo’s voice snaps me back. I turn, and he’s standing on the other side of Ivan, holding something silver between gloved thumb and forefinger. “Those look familiar?”

I squint to push out the heady rush of seeing my stalker again. Russo’s pointing at an earring. It’s silver, cheap, and has three stones missing on the right.

My stomach flips over on itself when I see it.

My stalker’s voice echoes in my memory:To see if you’ll lie for me. I think you will.

I hate that he’s already so deep in my head. He shouldn’t know me at all, never mind knowing methiswell.

“I—yeah,” I say. “They must’ve popped out last night atFaberge.”

Fuck!

Russo stares at the earring, then at me. “Don’t do this to me, G.”

“I’m not doing anything,” I say quietly.To you, I finish in my head.

What I’m doing, I’m doing to myself.

And I don’t want to stop. I only want tolooklike I wantto stop. It’s killing me, knowing that as someone who’s dedicated my life to doing things the right way, I’m being forced to face down my darkest cravings and make a choice. And every time, I keep choosing the darkness.

“You want it back?”

If I didn’t know better, I’d think he might be fighting tears. He knows what happened to Serena. He and Ida are the only two people other than my parents who know the full story. That’s why he’s been so protective of me ever since I joined the force.

My heart breaks, but I know if I look out the window, there’s another man asking something of me.

And I know if I look out the window, I’ll do everything that he demands.

Because after hearing his voice this morning, I can’t make myself refuse.

He’s taken root in my head, burrowed his way into my brain, and planted something that is slowly blossoming into something dark and twisted. Reshaping me into someone different.

Someone just like him.

I shake my head. “It’s evidence now.”

Russo slips it into a bag, writes my name on the label. “I’ll let the lab know you want it returned. But no promises.”

I chance a look back at the window, but my blue-eyed shadow is gone.

Russo finishes the note, and clicks his pen shut. “You want to ride with me to the morgue? Or you got somewhere else you’d rather be?”