Page 26 of Red

I don’t think so.

Yet, being with him is so familiar… It’s such a strange feeling that I can’t even describe. Like, he’s my other half. I was never a believer in the whole soulmates crap, but I may believe withhim. He’s a supernatural being, after all.

What I need is to be put in a straitjacket and locked in a psychiatric ward. Because I seriously consider running away with him to wherever he only wants to go without any prior explanation.

Gosh! Enough with this overthinking!

It’s only some hormonal response since I’m inheat—whatever that means exactly—and my body reacts to him a certain way. Besides, even under regular circumstances, attraction is just a biochemical reaction in human brains. There’s nothing romantic about any of this, and I better shut up already.

I finish the third glass of wine, feeling tipsy, while I eat my food alone. I missthe dog, and it messes with my head some more.

After a quick shower, I put on an oversized tee alone before I lay on the collapsed mattress, still encased in a bed frame with the broken slats underneath.

I twist and turn, but I’m not able to relax… not withouthim. I know he’s not anywhere near because I don’t feel him around. And it makeseverything worse.

He said all I need to do is call him, right?

Curious to test it, I step to the glass door and slide them wide open. There’s nothing outside but the serenity of the night—no leaves rattling, no eerie shadows, no glowing yellow orbs. And I hate to admit how much I lack this unsettling linger of a presence in the darkness.

I shout out his name into the void.

Unheard, unseen, yet this time invading my life per my request, Alex appears in barely few seconds.

“You summoned me?” He grins as he steps into the light pouring onto the terrace from my room.

I shake my head at his quip. “How fast can you run?”

“Approximately 350 miles per hour. Faster if in a hurry.”

Sure, that’s a thing now! What’s next? Lizard people?

I still don’t know how I feel about any of this, but Ineedhim close. “Can you hold me?”

“Always.” He wraps me tightly in his arms and takes me to bed—or what’s left of it. “So, how was your day?”

“I got in a little trouble at work,” I mufflethe response with my cheek pressed against his fuzzy chest while my knee hooked over his hip, caging him. “I was thinking about you the entire time.”

“Oh, were you?” He flirts, running his hand up and down the side of my naked thigh.

Why am I immediately turned on?

Calm your tits. We’re just cuddling.

“Yeah.” I rest my chin against his firm peck to look at his face. “How was yours?”

“I missed you.”

“Um, it was only several hours.”

“And that’s several too many.” He leans for the kiss, and I happily reciprocate. His tongue is more demanding, his hands more persistent. “It was the longest I’ve kept away from you since only you moved here.”

As much as I find it hot, I also am aware of the utter wrongness of it all. My contradicting emotions together with the alcohol are bubbling up to the surface and I cannot keep it in me any longer.

“Alex, you’ve been stalking me,” I confront him with a mix of anger and betrayal. “And not only that, but you also chose to pose as a damn dog whom you knew I’d blindly trust to allow in my personal space without any suspicion!”

He exhales heavily. “Julia, I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am. There wasn’t anything sinister about it from my side, though.”

“You came on my underwear,” I snap back, putting the puzzles together. But before he gets any chance to explain himself, another thought pops into my head. “You didn’t do anything to me when I was sleeping before this morning, did you?”

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