Page 12 of A Smile Full of Lies
I didn’t mind waiting. I’d been waiting for her for seven years. What was just a little while longer?
I stared at my monitor. There she was, my perfect girl.
She looked so beautiful it hurt, bathed in silvery moonlight, frozen in place, sitting up against the headboard with her knees drawn to her chest. Her hands fisted the blanket like she could hold herself together by sheer force of will.
I leaned in closer.
Her eyes were wide, pupils still dilated from the adrenaline. Her lips parted, chest rising and falling too fast. She looked flushed, guilty, and fucking shattered.
Ros never pulled her bedroom curtains closed, and it made me wonder if some part of her secretly liked the idea of being watched.
Even now, she didn’t crawl under the blankets and hide. She stayed there in the open, almost like she knew she was putting on a show for me. But I knew she had no idea I was watching. Not really.
If she ever found out I had a camera pointed at her bedroom window, I had no doubt she’d kick in my front door and get in my face, reading me the riot act for invading her privacy like some kind of sicko.
I opened the drawer beneath my desktop and pulled out a black leather sketchbook, one of several I had stashed in differentplaces throughout the house, that had been hidden beneath layers of paperwork no one would ever care enough to touch.
It was my secret confessional… page after page filled with sketches of her. And now, I’d fill one more.
I flipped to a fresh sheet and picked up the pencil I’d already worn down to a nub. I guided the pencil in slow, reverent strokes; dragging graphite over paper, sketching the tight hunch of her shoulders, the way the moonlight kissed her bare collarbone, the faint tremble in her fingers as she clutched the blanket and finally tugged it higher.
She didn’t know how exposed she was, or how thoroughly I studied her when no one else was looking. She had no clue just how long I’d been collecting these private versions of her. She had no idea that I had seven years’ worth of sketches, memories of her no one else would ever see. And I wasn’t about to stop now, not after she confessed what she wanted to my burner account in that forum, which turned out to be a fucking gift just for me in disguise.
She shifted, turned on her side, and faced the window. Facedme.
I kept sketching.
Sleep took her in stages. Her lashes fluttered closed. Her lips parted in a soft exhale. Her breathing evened out, going slow and steady as her hand relaxed beneath her cheek.
And I kept fucking sketching until I was sure, absolutely positive, that she was asleep deep enough that it wouldn’t wake her if I slipped into her house.
Only then did I set the pencil down, close the book, and stand.
I stretched. My hand flexed at my side.
It took two long strides to reach my back patio door. The mid-October night air was almost cool against my skin as I crossed the yard. The grass was damp beneath my boots.
My key slid into her lock, the deadbolt clicked open beneath my hand, and I stepped inside.
The house was quiet. Her scent lingered in the air; vanilla and jasmine, warm and familiar.
I stepped down the hall, moving slow and silent. My hand brushed against the edge of the doorframe as I looked inside her bedroom.
She was curled beneath a pile of fuzzy blankets. Her dark, wavy hair fanned across the pillow like a halo around her pale face. Her tank top was a severe temptation, one of the straps slipping off her left shoulder. Her breathing was soft and even, her lips parted slightly.
My cock throbbed painfully at the sight of her, so close and so utterly vulnerable. I leaned against the doorframe, watching the slow, steady rise of her chest beneath the blankets. She looked so soft like this, completely unguarded and breakable. She’d be so damn easy to take.
My hand twitched at my side.
Just one touch, I told myself.Just one hand curled around her throat to feel her pulse beneath my thumb. She wouldn’t wake up.
I moved closer, slow and deliberate, brushing her hair back from her face. My knuckles skimmed the delicate line of her cheek. Her breath hitched. I recoiled, leaning away from her and holding my breath, afraid I’d disturbed her.
But she didn’t wake. Her exhale steadied, her breathing quiet and rhythmic.
I straightened. Tension tugged beneath my sternum like barbed wire wound too tight around my heart.
I turned toward the living room, her presence still vibrating in my head as I sat down at her laptop. The screen glowed faint blue, casting long shadows across my hands.
