Page 132 of Sinful Desires
Her red hair was spread across the blanket. She always hated that. Always braided it tightly before bed. Said she didn’t like it in her face, said it made her feel like a mess.
I let go of the doorknob. My fingers ached. I didn’t fucking deserve to stand here. Didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as her.
Someone cleared their throat behind me. I turned, shoulders tense. A short woman stood there, maybe in her sixties, a soft grey bob framing her narrow face, glasses sliding down her nose.
She blinked up at me, cheeks turning pink. “Hmm, hi. May I help you?”
That same second, my mind decided to do something about it all.
I pulled the badge from my jacket, the one Lazzio had slipped me before he disappeared. His own little parting gift. “Flash it, don’t explain,” he’d said.
“I’m the new night security agent.”
And just like that, I’d found a way to stay. Five minutes later, I had clearance.
A windowless studio apartment three floors beneath hers. A shitty mattress and a lock on the inside. That was all I needed.
That evening, I started working. And for a year, I never stopped.
Every night I walked those halls like a fucking ghost. Passed doors, passed cameras, passed rules. None of it mattered. At midnight, I was in her room.
Always quiet. Always careful.
She never saw me.
She slept with her fists curled, lips parted, brows tight like she was still fighting things in her dreams. I’d sit in the corner at first. Watch her breathe. Count every rise and fall.
Then closer.
Some nights, I braided her hair. Loose at first, then tighter. Read her the poems I wrote during the day. Whispered them like confessions. Told her everything I’d buried inside me. All the filth. All the fear. All the pieces of me I’d never shared before. I brought her lavender bouquets when the last ones had wilted.
I was always gone before she woke. During the day, I kept my distance.
I followed her schedule. I memorized her therapist’s hours. Her meal breaks. Her meds. Her progress reports.
I watched as she rode horses with her spine locked straight, every muscle pulled tight. Swam until her arms failed, dragging herself out of the water without a sound. Sat in the chapel for hours, hands folded, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Buried her hands in the dirt, planting roses and peonies, pressing her fingers deep into the soil as if something in her needed to stay buried too.
She never saw the man who couldn’t stop crawling back to her. Who fed on the sound of her breathing like it was a prayer meant only for him.
For a year, I belonged to her without permission.
And every night I stood by her bed like a sinner at the altar, waiting for a god that would never forgive me. Even asleep, she burned brighter than anything I’d ever touched. And I’d keep burning for her. Until there was nothing left.
I barely slept. I spent every spare hour tearing through my body in that gym, training until I couldn’t think, until the ache in my muscles was louder than the one she left behind. I wrote when I couldn’t move anymore. Pages full of her. Words I’d never say. Phrases I couldn’t burn.
I paced. I waited.
And while she healed from her poisons, mine kept feeding in silence, raw and starving.
I kept overdosing on her. Every fucking night.
Chapter
Thirty-Five
“In a world of fame, followers, likes, and paparazzi,we need to aspire to be something other than popular.”
?Koki Oyuke
