Page 45 of Stealing His Cupcake
Hesitating, I look inside the closet again. There don’t seem to be any dresses or other female garments hanging from the closet rods. Perhaps I misunderstood this? Men like makeup, too. Its presence is no proof of anything.
I take a breath. Open communication. Damn, this is hard, especially since a part of me constantly expects to be laughed or yelled at. But Wyatt wouldn’t do that. I hope. “I was wondering who all that makeup belongs to,” I say before I lose my courage. “Since you don’t seem to wear any. I mean, I wouldn’t mind if you did. I just thought that you had, like, a woman here before. And that’s okay, too, I don’t mind. Wouldn’t mind, I mean. I just, um, I wondered what, um, what happened to her. If there was a ‘her’. Or ‘him’. Or—”
“Amy.” Wyatt rescues me from my desperate blathering. “Look at me, Amy.”
Compelled to obey, I raise my eyes to his. He looks amused, but not in a mean way, so I allow myself to relax a little. The answer can’t be that bad if he’s smiling like this.
“You’re the first woman to ever step inside my bedroom, Amy.”
“Oh. Oh? But—” I don’t believe for a second he’s never had sex before. He’s like a damned sex god. He must have experience.
“I’ve slept with many women, but never here. All that,” he waves his hand inside the closet, “is mine.”
Okay, so he likes makeup. That’s great. Perhaps he’ll give me some pointers because my own skills suck. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s only natural that you’re curious. Besides, it’s your closet now, too. I’ll move my work stuff somewhere else.”
I choke on a gasp. Work stuff? Does he mean—
“They’re disguises, in case you were wondering,” he explains. “I don’t wear makeup because I like it. I hate it, really. I admire people who have it on all the time. I get itchy after an hour and I have a terrible tendency to rub my eyes all the time.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, I’m not a fan either. I’m sorry. I don’t know why my brain always jumps to the worst conclusions.”
“Because you’re an abuse survivor, because people have been shit to you, and because I’m a bad person. When it comes to me, the worst conclusions are usually the correct ones, but not every time. Never be afraid to ask me anything, okay?”
“I’ll try.” I want to kiss him but my bladder reminds me of different needs I need to take care of first. “Now, where’s the actual bathroom?”
Chapter 33
Wyatt
I’mhalfasleepwhenAmy comes back from the bathroom. The day has been exhausting, to say the least, but I’m satisfied to end it on a good note. Amy trusts me enough to ask uncomfortable questions, to have sex with me, and, most importantly, to cuddle in bed. Shit, that’s almost better than the sex. Almost.
Yawning, she stretches out, then curls into my side, wriggling for a while. “Your mattress is great,” she murmurs once she finally settles, her eyes closed already.
“Our mattress,” I correct her, because plural possessive pronouns are my new obsession.
She giggles sleepily. “Because we’re married. I never thought I’d get to say that out loud. If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up.”
“It’s not a dream. Go to sleep, cupcake,” I tell her, my voice cracking a little. Did she just call me a dream? I’ve never been anyone’s dream. Nightmare, yes, but a dream? Never. I don’t know how to deal with it. Before I met Amy, my whole life revolved around being a nightmare, but I’m not ready to give that part of me up completely. I don’t get a thrill outof torture or killing, but I like the hunt. It’s like a high-stakes puzzle I have to solve to both take out my target and avoid discovery. That’s the part I enjoy and don’t want to abandon.
What if Amy asks me to?
The question rattles around my head, stealing my sleep. If she asked me to stop killing, would I? It’s not like I need the job. I have enough money for us both to live comfortably. Law enforcement never picked up my trail, and I have good relations with the few people in the business who know my true identity. Well, except that wonky kid Nolan, but I’m sure he’s moved on to a different obsession. If he becomes a problem, I’ll just kill him.
The bottom line is that there’s no real reason for me to continue what I do, other than that I like it, and I worry that pushes me too far into the darkness for someone as kind as Amy to accept.
She hasn’t realized the full extent of the power she holds over me, but once she does—and she will—I’m certain she’ll ask me to stop killing. And once she asks, I’ll have to say yes because with her, I want to be a dream, not a nightmare. I’d just fucking prefer it if she never asked.
Her fingers are splayed on my stomach, and I lie to myself that even in her sleep, she needs me close. The longer I watch her slender, unadorned fingers, though, the more I realize I fucked up. Women have all kinds of wedding dreams, right? They dream about wearing a beautiful white gown, about walking down the aisle, about shit covered in flowers. About the perfect ring. Once Amy realizes I’ve taken all that from her, will she resent me?
Fuck. I don’t regret not proposing because I wouldn’t have accepted anything but “yes” anyway, but I should have at least gotten her a damned ring. Instead, I was so terrified someone would take her from me that I rushed things, even if she was already mine. It shows how much she affects me, because I’m not the type to rush anything. I stalk my targets for days, devising the best and safest plans, before finally taking them out. With Amy, all that careful control evaporates.
Maybe not all is lost, though. I can’t give her a big wedding, not that either of us has any family who would attend it even if I agreed to parade my technically still captive in front of so many people, but a ring? That I can do. Easily. What else is the internet for?
Taking great care not to wake Amy up, I extricate myself from her arms and retrieve my phone. Once I’m safely back in bed, Amy wrapping herself around me once more, I get to work. First, I go over all the people who have leered at Amy today. I have photos, vehicle types and colors, license plates, everything to help me track every single one of them down.
Do they deserve to die? Objectively, probably not. Sure, they might have some nasty secrets, but who doesn’t? I might not kill them, either. Maybe just maim them a little? Blind them for daring to look at my precious Amy? Yeah, that might work. Two of the assholes are even local. I could get to their place and back before Amy woke up. I won’t, though. Not because they deserve to live, but because I’m dead tired and I won’t leave my wife alone on our wedding night to spend time with other people. What kind of man does that?
