Page 104 of Texting Dr. Stalker

Me:I am, and I’m not comfortable with you putting yourself in danger. I know you’re mad at me, but please, go back inside or at least lower your dress.

On the video, she stood, placed the dildo inside on the kitchen bench, then headed toward the veggie patch. Peng bounced alongside her as she unhitched her dress, and let it cascade to her ankles.

Every inch of me clenched.

I somehow found watching her cover up just as erotic as watching her expose herself. Maybe more so because it seemed so…intimate. She’d done that for me. She’d listened and obeyed and I shouldnothave this reaction.

I was not that type of guy.

I didn’t get off on bossing women around, outside or inside the bedroom. I wanted a partnership, a friendship, a forever after. Yet…the mere idea of having her drop to her knees because I asked her to?

I bit my fist and whacked the back of my head against the wall.

She is your neighbour.

She is suffering from trauma.

She is not kneeling for anyone.

Dropping to her haunches by a spinach plant, she plucked off a few leaves. She laughed a little as Peng leaped into the overgrown beds, attacking a row of beans strung up with string. Already those two were inseparable. I couldn’t picture her without him now.

My fingers shook as I texted her again.

Me:It seems my role as your protector has been taken by something orange and fluffy.

She continued to fill a small basket with greenery and a couple of carrots before standing upright. Sighing, she pulled her phone from a dress pocket and scanned my last message.

She didn’t move for a while, then glanced around the garden, most likely still searching for my cameras. At least those weren’t on her property. I hadn’t technically broken any law with them. Then again, some rule probably stated a neighbour couldn’t use his own security system to spy on someone else.

She let Peng run amok in her veggie garden as she tapped her phone.

Mine finally chirped.

Lori:He’s definitely keeping the nightmares at bay. Have a good work trip. Thanks for the gift.

Dumping her phone in her harvesting basket, she marched up the two steps of her back deck.

I blinked at her cool tone.

My heart twisted. I’d handled that wrong, didn’t I? Had I made her self-conscious? What was I supposed to do? Leave my shift and go over there? Haul her over my shoulder and carry her to bed—to hell with her mental health and all the consequences?

No way.

I was doing this for her, not for me.

I’d bought her a masturbation aid so she could reclaim the pieces she said she needed to claim byherself.No man required. It wasn’t up to me to give that back to her. She had to take it back for herself.

So why did I feel so wretched?

Why did an icy emptiness creep through me as all signs of the sexy tease who’d lain in the grass stiffened into shyness as she darted inside?

I wished I had a camera in her kitchen.

I wished I had audio to make sure she was okay.

I wished I could go over there, but I’d doubled down on my lie that I was away and now had to keep my distance.

“Shit. Shit.Shit.”

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