Page 5 of A Step Too Close
“I will try my best to be appropriate,” I say. “I want to offer for you to come to my house to train because I have a home gym, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“You don’t make me feel uncomfortable,” she laughs. “I mean… you do, but not in a bad way.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I mean… When you touch my lower belly like that… I’m just a girl with a filthy mind who is attracted to a grumpy man who could break my ass in half.”
I laugh heartily, and she grins. “How about this? Let’s start being open about things and just see where it goes. No forcing things either way, we just continue on.”
“And you want me in your house?” she asks.
“Pretty girl, I want you in my bed and on any other surface I can sit your cute little ass on,” I say bluntly. “Yes, I’d feel better with you not being in that gym full of perverts. You picked the sleaziest gym in the city.”
“Where do you live?” she asks.
“On Franklin Street, a few miles from here. Why?”
“I live like forty-five minutes away with my parents,” she says. “Just thinking about how early I’d have to get up.”
“Just an idea. At a minimum, I’d like you to move gyms,” I say. “You live with your parents?”
“Yeah. Yeah,” she sighs. “I know. It’s weird and slobbish. I just… I used to live by myself, but I couldn’t do it.”
“Something happened?” I ask, and she nods. “I won’t push, but know that I am not judging.”
“Wilder offered for me to live with them, but I just can’t,” she says. I can tell she wants to say more but doesn’t.
“We can try it out and just see how you like the drive, or we can pick something else. I just want you to be comfortable.”
“That place creeps me out,” she admits. “I would never go there without you.”
“Good,” I say. “Let’s get your paperwork settled. While you fill that out, I will go through my email and see if there are any case requests that are more pressing than the others.”
“Okay,” she says with a smile.
Chapter Three
Arden
Once all my paperworkis filled out, Levi moves me to sit with him so he can explain how he prioritizes emails and cases. He has received a ton of requests, but there are many things he isn’t able to do. He does have access to a lab though, so he can send off samples, but if things go to court, I am sure it would make things more difficult to prove that nothing was tampered with.
I do my best to stay focused on the task at hand rather than his admission of wanting me. I have no reason to think he would ever do anything to hurt me, but I once trusted someone on the deepest possible level, and they broke me. I am broken, and I don’t know how to repair the gaping holes he left behind in my soul.
I keep telling myself that I am confused, but I am not. Some part of me has known for months that he was attracted to me. I just chose to ignore it. I enjoyed his subtle remarks, his praise, and the touches that always seem to linger. I saw the signs, but it always brought with it a wave of paranoia that I have yet to figure out how not to send me into an anxiety attack. I can’t be hurt like that by someone I trust again because I simply will not survive it.
I was nineteen and saw the world through rose-colored glasses. I thought I was invincible, and that nothing bad could ever truly happen to me. Boy, was I dead fucking wrong. Not only did bad things happen to me, but I never got justice. I never found out the truth because the police didn’t believe me. I wasn’t injured, so I must have just hooked up and regretted it. Never mind that I was drunk off my ass, and he had a mask on. Never mind that even drunk, I was positive about the identity of the man who had held me captive in my own apartment for three days. This horrific event led me to want to become a private investigator. I didn’t want to be a detective and be bound by department rules. I wanted to work for the victims and their loved ones. I wanted to make a real difference and actually care about finding the real truth, not the truth that the government is notorious for spoon-feeding the public. Only Macie knows the truth about what happened during those three days because after I was immediately shut down by the police when I went to report the events, I decided I wanted to keep it to myself. My parents let me move back in with no questions asked and haven’t pushed me to leave.
I realize that I am completely zoned out, thinking about everything that happened to me during those three days. Whenmy eyes meet Levi’s, I see familiarity. “Where did you go?” he asks.
“I’m sorry,” I say, dropping my gaze to my hands as I pick at my nails.
“Don’t be. You were triggered and I understand that more than you know,” he says. “Where did you go?”
“To my old apartment… When I lived alone,” I say, sniffing back tears.
“I won’t push unless you want me to, Arden. I just want you to know that you don’t have to keep it in.”
“I just don’t want you to think that my paranoia has anything to do with you,” I say tearfully. “I swore I would never tell anyone after being called a liar… and I haven’t. Not even Wilder knows… Only Macie.”
