Chapter Thirty-Four
I couldn’t sleep .
It was a dick move going into her apartment, but Preston had been right, the place was a disaster. More, I could smell her. Her shampoo, the faint smell of perfume, and just… her. Her skin, the scent of her neck, the smell of her body—I could’ve sworn she was there, hiding in her closet behind the hanging clothes, but I couldn’t bring myself to look.
Instead, like a pathetic asshole, I’d sat in her parking lot for an hour. Her Jeep didn’t move, and she never showed up on foot. I’d finally had to call it. But now a few hours later, the sun was rising, and I couldn’t lie in bed another minute.
Forgoing the gym, I showered and dressed for work, but then I went to a coffee shop chain where I knew I could get a damn lemonade.
Bearing sustenance in the form of a bribe, I drove to her place. Thirty-one years old, and I’d never chased a woman. I’d never had to. My last name and genetics were all I usually needed.
But here I was at seven a.m. because a five-foot-nothing redhead who drove me absolutely insane had sucker punched me with her own brand of innocence and strength, and I didn’t know who the fuck I was anymore.
Bypassing the elevator, I took the stairs and strode to her door. Hearing a TV on inside, I exhaled and knocked.
Nothing.
Impatient, I knocked again.
Still nothing. No shuffling sounds, no shadow passing across the peephole, no turning down of the TV.
Fuck.
“Genevieve.” I knocked again. “Open up.”
Ten seconds… twenty.
Goddamn it. “I brought you breakfast.” I knocked again, then I did something I’d never fucking done in my whole damn life. I begged. “ Please . Open the door.”
Forty-five seconds, no response.
I counted down another fifteen seconds, but she still didn’t answer. I put the lemonade, hot tea and carrot muffin on the floor. “Fine. If you don’t want to talk to me, at least eat the food I brought. It’s outside the door.” I waited a beat, then headed back to my car.
Once I was behind the wheel, I cranked the engine, but I didn’t pull out. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. I had fifty-two minutes before I was due at work. Not that any of us had set schedules, but I rolled in at the same time every day I wasn’t out on assignment. You could take the Marine out of active duty, but you couldn’t take the Marine out of the man. I liked routine. I craved it. Until I’d met Genevieve, routine had kept my head straight. But sitting my ass in my Range Rover parked outside a woman’s house I’d been cock deep in was anything but routine.
I still fucking sat.
I sat for forty-five minutes, silently berating myself for every damn thing I’d done wrong with her. Not the least of which was blaming her for me having sex with her. I could’ve turned her down, kept my damn dick in my pants, but the simple truth was I didn’t want to. I’d wanted to dominate her since the second I’d laid eyes on her.
It was no excuse for breaking the promise I made to myself all those years ago to never be a damn thing like my father, but maybe, just maybe Luna had been right. Maybe there were shades of married. I wasn’t ignorant, I knew I had nothing to do with breaking her marriage apart, but I’d always thought if temptation did arise, I’d be a stronger man, an honorable man.
But there was no honor in stalking a woman who didn’t want to speak to you.