Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EZRA
S even weeks. Fifty-nine days. One thousand, four hundred hours and more minutes than my brain cares to calculate.
That’s how long I’ve spent watching my girl through the two-way mirror she doesn’t know exists—my own private viewing portal into her world.
A place where I get to see her at her most vulnerable, completely unaware.
Or maybe not. Maybe, on some deep, instinctual level, she feels it. Feels me. Watching her every move.
Is she fucking stupid? Because if not, the fact that you make her bed every day, fill her fridge, and tidy around like a chambermaid might alert her to the fact that she isn’t the only one invested in her care.
Losing all sense of reality, I snap back like I’m arguing with a living, breathing person, “Fuck you.” It’s concise, but I never professed to be a complicated man.
‘Fuck you too - at this point; I’m only here for the pussy, and you’ve kept me waiting long enough,’ he bites back.
I groan at the idea of it. We’re all hungry for her.
When she dances around to her records, rolling her full hips, light on her bare feet, her underwear peeking out from the loosely tied satin robe—I wonder how nice it would feel to finally get a taste, to run my tongue over her soft supple skin until her body is arching into my touch, silently begging me for more.
I like your thinking.
I shut the voice out and lose myself in her giggles, watching her as she reads the romance novel I had my guy smuggle in with last week’s food delivery.
The main character is a brooding possessive alpha with a primal kink; I thought she’d appreciate the irony.
Mauves and oranges from the early evening sun floods in through the windows.
She’s burrowed beneath her crochet blanket, snuggled up on the moth-eaten suede chaise lounge in the corner.
I like to watch as she loses herself in fictional worlds, all while I lose myself in her.
I catch her sometimes, staring at me on her rounds during her shifts, that rosy flush blooming on her cheeks when our eyes meet.
Clumsy Cara seems to be a direct result of my presence, and while I don’t love the idea of her falling over and hurting herself, I do get a kick out of her getting flustered like that.
The smile that she tries to mask as she bites down on her full lower lip makes me want to study her, to find out what makes her tick, to discover what really makes Cara Morgrieves so impossible to forget.
Because the only thing that makes sense to me right now is this—watching her.
The sense of closeness, the comfort of another human being’s warmth, I lost the desire for that the day my mother died all those years ago.
The grief hollowed out my chest and stole away my ability to love another person when she decided she had no more strength left to fight with—when the release of the hangman’s noose became too inviting for her to ignore.
Like clockwork, I watch as Cara adds an entry into her diary, laying on her belly across her bed in her underwear as her shower heats up in the ensuite.
Her bare legs bent at the knees, swaying in the air behind her as she details her day onto the page.
I wonder whether my name makes an appearance; the man inside me not tortured by his past—the one who still believes not all is lost with this world, he hopes it does.
Ten minutes later, Cara climbs out of the shower and slips on her nightdress, knocking back one of her nightly sleeping pills with the fresh glass of water I set for her beside her bed.
For every night that I’ve watched her, she’s always taken two.
I’ve timed how long it takes them to take effect, so my plan should go off without a hitch.
Tucking the identical copy of her key on the chain around my neck back into my shirt, I run a hand through my hair, a sly grin tugging at my lips when I see a cheeky smile forming on hers.