Page 38 of Oh, Hell No

“I have a pile of papers to grade,” I said, walking over to the knife block and pulling one out slowly, keeping my back to the wall. I needed to get off the phone. “We can plan for next weekend. Listen, I hear my neighbor, and I need to take her a package that was dropped here by mistake.” That was a lie, but it had happened last week. Just not today.

“Oh, okay. Well, when you have time to figure it out, just text me the day,” she said, sounding slightly let down, but I had an apartment to search and needed to go.

“I will. Love you,” I told her.

“Love you,” she replied.

I ended the call, set my phone down on the counter, then started walking down the tiny excuse for a hallway with my knife held like I was ready to stab someone. Going to the bathroom, I swung the door open, and my eyes did a quick scan but found nothing. Since the shower had a clear door, there was nowhere to hide.

Turning, I went into the bedroom. The only hiding place here would be my sorta walk-in closet. It was small but big enough for someone to stand. My heart hammered in my chest as I jerked open the door, then stabbed nothing. There was no one in there. My shoulders dropped, and I let out a heavy sigh before closing it and scanning my room one more time.

If there were someone hiding in this apartment, would they have stocked my pantry with my favorite snack? No. They would not have. My experience with criminals was that they didn’t care if you ate or not. I was being ridiculous. I must have bought them and forgotten they were there.

That or I had early-onset dementia.

Could you get that at twenty-three?I mused, then decided to run my bathwater.

Seventeen

Oz

I closed the door softly, then did a once-over of the living room and kitchen. No candles left burning tonight. Relieved to see she had gone almost two weeks without that mistake, I made my way over to the pantry to check and see if she had opened the Goldfish box I’d left in there last night. She’d been sick this week and forgotten to run to the store and restock her favorite snack, so I had done it for her.

A grin tugged at the corner of my mouth when I saw the box. Good girl. She was eating again.

Thursday, she hadn’t seemed to have much of an appetite yet. There had been no dirty dishes in the sink or dishwasher when I got here to check on things. Seemed her appetite had returned. That had been a nasty fucking virus. Kids were little germy shits.

Shifting my eyes toward her open bedroom door, I headed to her room, but stopped to peek in the bathroom first and makesure that the candle she kept by the bathtub hadn’t been left lit either. Although she had never forgotten that one. It was always the living room one she would leave lit. The small room was dark, but she had left a towel on the floor. Walking inside, I picked it up and hung it up neatly on the towel bar, spreading it out so that it would dry properly, like she normally did. It hadn’t only been a Friday for her, but a rough week.

The scent of her coconut-honey body wash filled the room. Fuck, that smelled good. I picked up the bottle and inhaled. She was getting low. If she didn’t get a new one in a few days, she was going to be out. I should check into where she got this. It looked expensive. Possibly the only splurge the woman did for herself. The rest of her things were minimalistic. Even her damn food. It was real hard not to go fill her refrigerator up the nights it was basically bare. But that would likely scare the shit out of her, so I refrained.

Stepping into her bedroom, I walked soundlessly over to the side of her bed to look at her. This had become my obsession, or perhaps it was an addiction—I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t meant to start this. Bringing her home, putting her in bed, and exiting her life had been my plan. But I’d made the mistake of standing here and watching her, like I was doing now. Peacefulness settled over me in the quiet as her wide, bowed lips slightly parted and her bare shoulder moved ever so gently with each breath she took. The elegant bone structure of her face and flawless complexion had all pulled me in. I had always enjoyed art, and she was a masterpiece. One that I needed to see every night.

After it had been clear I couldn’t stop this, I’d taken her key and had a copy made so I didn’t have to continue to break in. It was quieter this way. My fourth night here, she had left that damn candle burning in the living room. That shit scared me. What if I hadn’t come? What if she’d been caught in a fire? The idea of her not existing had struck me hard. So, that was my reasoning, myjustification, for being here nightly. Someone needed to check on her. She’d been through a lot. Fucking bastard brother had put her emotions through a wringer.

I’d been ready to kill him, and I would have done so if Linc hadn’t stopped me. But after watching her, seeing the nights when her eyes appeared puffy, as if she’d gone to sleep crying, I was real fucking grateful to Blaise that he’d ordered I not kill the son of a bitch. That would have broken her, and I didn’t like to see beautiful things broken. In my head, she had become my beautiful thing.

It had been fourteen days since I’d stood over her to see swollen eyes. She was handling things better. Adjusting to this new life, where her brother was behind bars. I’d gone to Blaise and asked if he could make sure Perry was placed in the closest federal prison to Madison. She’d want to visit him, and I didn’t like the idea of her making a long drive. There was always the chance I might be in the middle of family business and not be able to follow her. If that day came though, I wouldn’t handle it well. I didn’t want her in a damn prison without me. Even if she didn’t know I was there.

Odd how things happened. I’d met her on a Monday at twelve forty-three p.m. She had been so damn nervous and cute. Smiling and blushing at me. It was something women often did around me. I rarely noticed it anymore. There were times I was so blind to it that one of the guys would tease me about some female and I hadn’t even realized she was checking me out or flirting. But this one hadn’t flirted. She’d been an awkward, adorable mess. Five nights later, at two fifty-seven a.m., I had laid her in this bed and not wanted to walk away. She didn’t know that, and at first, I had thought it was for the best, but I knew now that I was just giving her time to forgive me.

If there was one woman who I couldn’t charm with a simple smile, it would be her. She was the only woman I had everabducted, locked up, starved, and choked…well, in that way. I mean, I had fucked some strippers who liked being choked while climaxing, but that wasn’t the same thing.

She was alone in the world with no one to protect her. Not that her brother had been capable of it. He might be a genius, but he was the size of a prepubescent boy.

There were bad men out there. Fucked-up sickos who would see her and want her. I knew myself how easy she was to take. I couldn’t chance that someone else would do the same. They would harm her, and I knew whatever shit had happened to me that night in the underground cellar with her brother—when he acted as if she wasn’t important and shouldn’t be cherished—would take over again. I’d never say it to anyone, but that feral, uncontrolled demon that seemed to be hidden inside me scared me. I didn’t like not being in control. I thrived on control, order, planning. That had not been planned.

If she ever got a look at the scars I’d left on Perry, then she’d likely come looking for me. Slap me, yell at me…

A smile spread across my face at the thought.

I ran the back of my finger over her cheekbone, then down to her chin. The almost, barely there cleft in it was my favorite, I had decided. While studying her at night, that tiny indention always drew me back to it. Some might think it was her only flaw to an otherwise perfect face, but they’d be idiots. This was the pinnacle of her perfection. The icing on the cake. The need to press my lips to it, trace it with my tongue, grew with each passing night that I stood here.

Her brows drew together in her sleep, and she made one of her sounds, telling me she was lost in whatever she was dreaming about. Whatever it was it had better be sweet. I might have to take on her fucking nightmares and slay them, too, if they haunted her.

I stepped back to stop myself from touching her further. Shewas taken care of and safe.

I needed to go, but first one more thing. I picked up her phone and tapped in the passcode, which she hadn’t changed since I’d given it back to her. I went to her messages and read through the new ones today. Granted, this was an invasion of privacy, but if I was going to take care of her, I needed to know what people she talked to. If anyone had upset her. What her plans were. If she was going on a trip, I had to be prepared so I could follow.

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