Page 78 of Only for Him

I’ve never let that stop me before.

The mask restson my coffee table like a loaded gun. The dress moves with my body, not as confining as it appeared at first, the silk malleable and forgiving. I can work with the dress.

The heels? Not so much.

I pace the apartment until I can walk in them without stumbling. I need all the confidence I can get, and an embarrassing ankle twist could throw me off for hours.

While I pace, and wait, I run the plan over in my head. Because having a plan is good detective work, and I’m a detective. I am a logical animal, not a collection of cravings in a dress someone else picked out.

Whatever you need to tell yourself.

I have to loop in Teddy. I need him to corroborate any evidence I might present. Maybe he’ll even know how to tell the story of what I’ve been doing in a way that doesn’t put me in front of a committee.

Or in a padded room.

I wonder how to hide it from Roman, because I don’t want his blood on my hands.

Because itwouldbe my fault, wouldn’t it? It would be because I should have reported all this a month ago, should have gotten Roman arrested today when he was on my turf.

My chest clenches as the cold reality of the situation.

I’m doing everything wrong. And it’s going to get someone killed.

I don’t want it to be my fault, but it will be.

Oh, God, what have I done? What am Idoing?

Stop. Stop spiraling. You’re in contro.l You know you are. Prove it to yourself.

I sit at my laptop and open the case file. Not an official one, obviously. This one won’t live on the NYPD server but on an encrypted flash drive, the password a string of curse words and dead pets.

So far, all I have is the name. Roman. Just Roman. 6’5”, blue eyes, Russian origin, skilled in violence, and a history with the Starkov Bratva.

Not much to go on, but it'll fill out soon enough.

Because, surely, a spreadsheet will stop me fiending for him.

I have DNA, prints, and a pattern: the way he kills, the way he follows, the men he targets. And now, I have a way in, proof that Icanwiggle my way past his defenses. He didn’t want to cum in my hand, but I made him.

I refuse to feel guilty about that. The only shame I’ll allow myself to feel is the normal kind that a normal human would feel about performing sexual favors on their stalker.

Soon, I’ll get his last name, and start building a real case.

My hands are shaking so I turn them into fists.

What’s going to happen tonight? What have I agreed to?

Am I setting myself up to fail, or am I dooming someone else to torture?

I keep looking at the clock, counting down the seconds, telling myself I’m not going to do anything stupid.

Except I already did. I currently am.

It is, in fact, extremely stupid to put on this dress and these heels and wait around for my shadow to show up and do whatever he wants to me.

But hedidpromise answers.

And we justloveanswers, don’t we, Giselle?