Page 22 of He Sees You

Sorry, but I don’t believe any of that. I don’t believe that this handsome, deceptively ‘nice’ guy fell for me, like it was love at first sight, and spent months…months… plotting for a way to get me in his bed.

Only we’re inmybed, and as he starts shrugging off the red Santa jacket, revealing the sculpted, bare chest beneath it, he doesn’t seem to have any intention of leaving it.

“You’re going to blackmail to get me to sleep with you? Is that it?”

“There isn’t anything I won’t do to get you to let me fuck you. Because that’s important to me, Dove. I could force you, but then I’d have to force you every time for the rest of our lives. But if you give yourself to me… that’s the only Christmas gift I want, and I’m ready to open it.”

I still have the covers on me, legs clamped together, but as Derek finds my knee, applying enough pressure to ease my legs open, it’s obvious that’s what he means.

I slam them closed again. “‘Rest of our lives’?” I echo. “You get what you want and walk away from here. You never threatenme with jail again, and if you see me doing my business, you keep walking. That’s the only way I’ll agree to this. Otherwise you will have to force me.”

How bad does he want to fuck me? Enough to agree to my terms? Because if I let myself believe even a word of his bullshit… no. There’s no such thing as Santa. I love Christmas, but there’s no such thing as Christmas magic or miracles, either.

In this world, there are pushy men who take, and naive women who don’t do anything to stop them because they believe love at first might actually be real.

Would I stop Derek if I could? Maybe if it wasn’t the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, but it is, and he’s a cop… and instead of laughing at me or telling me to spread my legs again, he rises up on his knees so that he’s at my side, looming over me.

“Let me tell you about this guy I know.”

Story time. Of course. Why not? I’m already pretty sure that, despite his pretty face, Officer Coleman is psychotic. Maybe a sociopath? I don’t know the differences, only that he seems convinced that everything he’s done—stalking, leaving me inappropriate gifts, watching me on a camera that he managed to install in my apartment, and lying in my bed while I’m unconscious, whether he fucked me or not—is a perfectly acceptable way of showing a woman he’s into her. There’s something wrong with him—and something wrong with me that I’m still humoring all of this instead of screaming bloody murder or searching for my phone to call 9-1-1.

As if that’ll help. Call a cop on a cop? Even in Springfield, that’s a bad, bad idea.

So, instead, I listen to him as Derek says, “He fell in love with a sweet girl. She was kind to him, and he was instantly obsessed. He thought he was too broken for her, though, and kept his distance. Kind of like how I did. But I always planned on making you mine, Dove. I just needed to wait. But my friend? He wasn’tgoing to ruin her innocence… but then she agreed to go out on a date with another man.

“Side note, precious. You touch another man, he’s dead.” The slight humor that’s been on his face since I woke up to him watching me disappears suddenly. In its place, I see a cold man who absolutely means what he says. “Go out with another man, he’s dead. Fuck anyone else but me? He’s dead, and I’ll make it hurt. Understand?”

Fuck me. I should hate this. I should be trembling, crying, pleading for him to leave, not secretly wishing he’d shut up and, if he’s going to fuck me already,do it. I should be scared out of my mind, and while I could blame it on my sleeping pills fucking with me when I wake up and they’re still in my system, I’m not so sure that’s enough of a reason to explain why I goad Derek by saying, “What if one thinks he can get away with grabbing my ass when I’m at work?”

“I’ll cut off his hands and feed them to him, finger by finger. Then he’s dead. Why? Did someone grab your ass, Dove?”

He’s serious. Shit. He’s really, really serious.

Jerry sucks, but I’m not about to be the reason he dies. So, instead of answering the unhinged cop, I turn the conversation around on him. Gesturing at his bare chest, I ask, “And what if he thinks he can start stripping after sneaking into my bed, that I’ll agree to this insanity and decide to sleep with him?”

Derek’s eyes seem to flash, the Christmas lights behind him silhouetting him against their sparkle. “Then you should fuck him better than you did the toy he made for you if you want him to stop thinking about murdering every man you’ve ever met before and after him.”

I swallow. “Good to know.”

He nods. “Back to my friend. Do you know what he did when he saw the woman he was obsessed with on a date with another man? He wasn’t as messed up as I am. He didn’t jump straightto murder. Instead, he drugged her, arrested her, and kept her as his personal prisoner in his basement until she learned to love him.”

My mouth falls open.That’s not as messed up as what my stalker did? If that’s the case, then what else did Derek do that I don’t have any idea about?

Then again, maybe I don’twantto know…

I lick my bottom lip. “That guy you’re talking about… tell me the girl got away from his crazy ass and he’s in jail now.”

Derek smiles. “Actually, they’re happily married. As for jail? Unlikely.” Then, before I can ask, he adds, “He’s a cop, too.”

Fuck. I knew the Springfield cops were crooked, butdamn.

Derek pauses for a moment. “Okay. Maybe he’s a little more messed up than me. I’ll kill for you, Dove, but I don’t want to scare you. I just want you to understand how badly I need you. How I saw you once and immediately knew you were mine. My friend thought the same thing about the woman who became his wife. To make sure she knew that she belonged to him, he actually tatted her while she was unconscious.”

As silly as it is, I gasp. I would’ve noticed a tattoo on me since I don’t have any, but that doesn’t stop me from blurting out, “You didn’t do that to me, did you?”

Derek shakes his head. “I would never mark up your pretty skin without permission, precious, but he did me a favor and gave me a tat of my own.”

Part of me wants to know what that tattoo is. Another part wants to know where it is. Since I would only be feeding his delusions if I asked about it, I don’t, but it doesn’t matter. Within seconds, he’s shoving down the red Santa pants, showing off his groin.

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