Page 34 of Hold Him Like Gravity

If he was okay, and he’d just hooked up with a new crew to make money—because heaven fucking forbid he have to go out and get an actual job for once—why would his phone be off? Why was he no-contact with Bobby, who he’d been friends with forever?

I was dead on my feet when I dragged myself down the hallway toward my apartment.

I sighed when I heard something falling to the ground inside.

I’d locked in Evander when I’d stopped in to feed him and change after work, not wanting him shrieking on the fire escape all night if I wasn’t around to let him in. Clearly, he was protesting by knocking shit off of my counters and tables.

Luckily, I didn’t exactly have much by way of possessions, so he couldn’t have done too much damage.

It wasn’t until I was already in the apartment with the door closed behind me that I realized something was off.

It was dark.

Pitch-black dark inside of my apartment.

I’d not only left the light on in the living room and the bathroom where his litter box was located, but I’d also left the TV on so he had some noise in case he started to throw a fit about being trapped inside.

Sure, there was a chance that the TV had glitched while streaming and gone back to the home screen. And, yeah, lightbulbs went out.

But not all at once.

My hand shot backward, trying to find the knob in the dark, wanting to just quietly make my way back out. To go where, I had no idea. But I wasn’t about to walk further into anapartment until I had some light. And maybe something heavy to knock someone on the head with.

My hand overshot the knob, though, knocking into it, making a sound that seemed like a thunderclap in the silent apartment.

My heartbeat pounded harder and sweat was beading up in my hairline as I grabbed the knob.

It was right then that the light flicked on.

The one that was attached to the light switch just two feet away from me.

Then there he was.

Towering over me.

With hauntingly familiar piercing blue eyes.

The last time I’d seen them, they’d been leering at me through the hole slits of a ski mask. As he tried to hold me down and remove my pants.

A little whimper escaped me before I could fight it back.

“That’s probably an appropriate reaction,” he said with an evil little smirk as he raised his hand a little higher, showing me the gun he was holding.

I hated that he was attractive.

There should be some genetic rule that your internal ugliness had to be displayed on the outside, so everyone knew who to steer clear of.

But there he was.

Tall, classically handsome with his cut-glass jaw, his rugged bone structure, his blue eyes, and his carelessly tousled brown hair.

“What do you want?” I asked, frustrated with the shakiness in my voice.

I needed to calm down.

This wasn’t the empty meat shop, flanked on either side with other businesses that had shut down for the night.

This was an apartment building filled with people. Most of them home on a weekday night. I could even hear the muffled conversation from the family on the floor above mine.

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