Page 28 of Watching Ames

I didn’t sleepafter leaving Ames. Instead, I spent my time installing the cameras that had been sitting in storage, motivated not only because I wanted to protect Ames in every way I could, but also to divert some of the angry energy that was suffusing my veins. The video continued to play in my mind as I positioned the security cameras in all the main areas of the house, linking them easily to my phone as I installed each one. The outdoor cameras would be placed another time, when Ames’s empty eyes and blank face had stopped haunting me long enough to leave her alone.

The installation didn’t take long. Unlike the cameras in Ames’s apartment, which needed to be hidden in light fixtures and shelving to avoid detection, I was able to attach these directly to the wall and connect them to the wiring I’d already run into each room, meaning almost a dozen cameras were installed within an hour. I was interrupted while screwing in the last camera by a scream, the sudden noise almost causing me to stumble from the stepladder I stood on to reach the ceilings.

Knowing where the noise came from, I sprinted up the stairs, and my hand instinctively went for the doorknob before I recalled I’d given her the only key. I readied myself to break down the door if needed, but the knob turned under my grip, and my chest swelled as I realized Ames had trusted me enough to leave it unlocked.

The moment of pride was broken by another scream, and I burst into the room, unsurprised to find Ames with her eyes shut, the sheets wrapped around her legs as she thrashed from her nightmare. I walked over to her side, conscious of the fact that my presence might not help the situation but unwilling to leave her alone.

“Ames, sweetheart,” I pressed my hand against her cheek, trying to wake her up gently. At the sound of my voice her scared whimpers faded, her face settling deeper into my palm for a moment until her eyes opened. Instead of the dead-eyed gaze from earlier, her eyes were covered in a thin sheen of tears that I could see in the dim light filtering in from the hallway, the residual fear still clear as she shook off the last vestiges of her nightmare.

“Alex?” Her voice was thick from sleep and hoarse from her screams, still trembling as she tried to shake off her nightmare.

“It’s okay,” I murmured softly, unable to stop my thumb from brushing against her cheekbone, her face still resting in my palm. “You were having a nightmare, so I came to check on you.”

“Can you stay with me?” She whispered, eyes flicking downward as if she were embarrassed before she explained, “I feel safer with you here.”

I could barely restrain the growl building in my throat, every part of me on fire at her admission. But I didn’t want to scare her away, especially not now, when she was vulnerable and trusting me. So instead I simply nodded, flicking off the hallway light and shutting the bedroom door before I crawled next to her in the bed. I laid on my back, waiting for her breaths to settle into a smooth rhythm, but instead of falling back asleep, she rolled toward me in the bed, until her face settled into the crook of my arm and her legs were tangled with mine. She let out a contented sigh, one tinged with sleep, and within minutes she was asleep in my arms. I waited for the nightmares to take her again but she dozed peacefully, and eventually I fell asleep next to her, my last thoughts of the depraved things I would do to keep her here, safe in my arms and in my bed.

Chapter18

Him

I wokeup before Ames the next morning, gently slipping my arm from beneath her head so I didn’t wake her from her much-needed sleep. I made my way into the shower, groaning as the heat of the water relaxed the muscles that I had clenched for hours last night while replays of the security footage ran through my mind. I tilted my face up, letting the water run over my skin, trying to push the rage out of my head but unable to forget the empty, defeated look in Ames’s eyes when she walked in the door last night.

The memories shook me more than I wanted them to, and I rushed through scrubbing myself clean so I could lay my eyes on Ames and reassure myself she was still okay. I left the shower wrapped in a towel, eyes searching out Ames’s sleeping form on the bed only to find her sitting on the edge, eyes traveling up my body before they met mine.

“We need to talk.” Her jaw was set in determination and her chin tilted up in pride despite the fact that she wore my clothes and her hair was still rumpled from where she’d slept against my chest all night. The sight was enough to make my cock half-hard; not the smooth curves of her body in my clothes but the fact that she was so strong around me. She stood up to me always, calling me on my shit and confronting me without fear. She wasn’t afraid of me, didn’t cower to my needs or demands like I’d gathered she did for that asshole, and I craved her stubborn personality if only because it showed us both that she could be herself around me. That I could be myself around her, without worrying about her cowering in fear like so many others did.

I may wear down her morals and boundaries to make her want me, but I refused to wear down her spirit.

“Can I get changed first, or do you want me to stay like this?” I gestured at my half-naked body, and the pink that settled on her cheeks only served to get me harder. Luckily, she waved me away with a roll of her eyes, and I shot her a small grin as I took a left into the closet, willing my cock to get itself under control as I threw on some clothes.

I emerged out of the closet and found Ames putting her hair up, growling to herself as she looked around at the blank walls of the bedroom.

“Why don’t you have any mirrors in your room?” She attempted to smooth a few stray pieces of hair to no avail, and I stepped in front of her, my fingers easily rearranging the strands I could see.

“I only got the basics for the house, since I figured you’d want to decorate it,” I told her, her muscles only tensing for a moment at my stark admission. “You said we needed to talk, right?” She nodded in response, and I stepped back a few inches so I could meet her eyes. They weren’t fearful, just wary of my words, so I pressed on. “I want to be honest with you about everything. Just…hear the whole story, alright? Before you run away from me again.”

She shrugged, and it didn’t miss my notice that she hadn’t promised anything as she made her way toward the kitchen. I was left following her around like a lost puppy, and I was glad Dev hadn’t chosen to stay the night because I knew he would have plenty of things to say about how far gone I was for this girl.

“I assume you have my favorite coffee around here somewhere?” She asked, one eyebrow raised with a smirk on her face. My heart jolted at the sight, a faint beat of hope that she might forgive me for all my creepy bullshit, something that I had begun to doubt after her abrupt departure from her first visit to the house. Even though I hadn’t had the cameras installed yet, the wide-open front door coupled with no contact from Ames had sent a pretty clear message.

“I’ll make it,” I told her, pushing her gently into a seat at the island counter while I pulled down the brand of coffee she made for herself at home. I grabbed the french press and the coffee grinder, glancing up at her as I started measuring beans. I could see the questions building, the tension in her body as she waited to pounce, staring at the coffee as if she could will it to brew faster. “You can start asking questions if you want. You don’t have to wait for the coffee.”

“I was trying to be polite,” she grumbled under her breath, and I laughed out loud, the noise making her smile in turn before she sat straighter in her chair. “Let’s start with the beginning. When we first met, was that a lie?”

I shrugged, thinking back to all those months ago. “I was hired to do a full background check on you. It was supposed to be off the books, to check out your character. A pretty common job for me and Dev. He usually does the in-field work, and I’m relegated to the meetings and computer-based tasks, but something had come up.” I stopped when her hand shot up, palm facing out.

“Off the books.” I winced slightly at the phrase she chose to pick out, waiting until she finished the question I knew was coming, “What does that mean? What is your job, honestly?”

“Dev and I do have a real business, in - ”

“Cybersecurity and surveillance,” she finished for me, her hands throwing air quotes around the phrase. “But what does that even mean? You always made it sound like you were glorified IT guys or home security installers but I never bought it.”

I rolled my eyes at her impertinence but was secretly impressed by how well she had read into me and my tells, reading between the lines to guess that what Dev and I did wasn’t as simple as installing security cameras. “Like I was saying, we have a real, legal business that installs cameras and security systems for local businesses. We do security checks, sometimes, for businesses that want us to look for certain things that a criminal background check might not pick up.”

“But,” she urged me on with a quick flick of her wrist, already familiar with this part of my job, since those were the stories I usually told during our coffee and lunch dates.

“But we also have another part to our business, one that functions off the books. We still do similar things, just to the extreme. Security and surveillance for shadowy figures who want their systems to be impossible to hack into. Hacking into organizations to get information that might be pertinent to certain…businesses. Extreme background checks that require the type of surveillance or research that wouldn’t be considered legal in the strictest of terms.”

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