Chapter 11 Ghost
GHOST
My head was on a constant swivel, checking for anything or anyone that could have followed her.
Only this time, I didn’t have to conceal myself.
At stoplights, I sat up straight on my bike, my head sitting where the tops of most cars were.
When we rode, I swerved all around her, getting up to her windows and waving at her.
Even through the windows of her vehicle, I saw that bright smile of hers.
And every time she waved back at me, I smiled beneath my mask.
Every once in a while, her eyes dropped to the mask that I wore. I had different ones. But my favorite was my all-black mask. It had the outline of sharp teeth and a monstrous grin, and since it came up over my nose, it had the hollowed out imprint of a nose cavity on it as well.
Loved the damn thing.
Got it from Ranger a few years back when he was out and about with his fling-of-the-month.
You know, back when he did that kind of thing.
However, the short ten-minute ride back to her place wasn’t fraught with anyone watching. No one looked suspicious. I didn’t see any cars that were double-backing to get a better view of us. And while I found that a relief, it also made me worry.
What if they were waiting for sundown?
She parked in the space she parked in last time, when I was perched across the street in the darkness.
Did they have assigned parking at this place?
Maybe she was just a creature of habit. I couldn’t ask the question without outing myself, so I kept that little part of her life a mystery as I followed her into the building and up to the third floor, where I knew her apartment to be.
And when we stopped so that she could fish out her keys, I took the grocery bags from her.
“Oh, thanks,” she said breathlessly as she dug for them.
“Not a problem,” I muttered as I watched her face brighten.
“Aha,” she said as she tossed her keys into the air.
Only for them to slip through her fingers before she could catch them.
“Well, fuck,” she said as she dropped down to pick them up from the floor.
I chuckled as I watched her.
I couldn’t help the way my eyes slid down the length of her back. They took in the way her waist dipped in just a smidge. The way her hips flared out in a way that made me lick my lips. Her body looked like it had so much love to give. When was the last time she had been touched?
I cleared my throat as she slid her key into the locks on her front door.
“So,” I said when she threw open her front door, “any plans this weekend, other than snacks and video games?”
“Nope!” she chirped as she took the bags from me. “Just lounging around and being lazy. I never get time off like this, so I’m going to enjoy it.”
“Why not?”
“Why not what?”
I searched her face. “Why don’t you get time off like this?”
“Oh,” she said with a small shrug, “just don’t. I prefer to work.”
I chuckled. “Ah, a workaholic.”
“I mean.”
I tilted my head and waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. “You mean… what?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a soft snicker and a shake of her head, “isn’t everyone pretty much a workaholic? Trying to climb out of debt? Or save back for things? Can’t really do that if you don’t work. So I just take all of the overtime my boss can give me and I roll with it.”
“You deserve a break every once in a while, though.”
“Oh, I know,” she said as she walked into her apartment and turned to face me. She still hadn’t invited me in, and I realized at that moment that she was probably hesitant. “Just a thing with me.”
“Why?”
She snickered. “You’re a curious one, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “You’re an interesting topic.”
I watched those tan cheeks of hers tint with that gorgeous red, and I wanted to make her do it again.
Maybe on other parts of her body.
Goddamn it, she’s speaking to you. You’re close. Clone her damn phone.
I mindlessly slid my hand into my pocket and pulled out my phone. “Do you have debts you’re trying to pay off?”
“What?” she asked a bit too quickly.
Bingo.
I hit the nail on the head with something.
I stared at the pairing subroutine on my burner phone and hoped that the damned thing wasn’t ancient enough to ruin this.
Something told me she wasn’t ready for me to be inside of her space yet, so I didn’t want to bank on the fact that I’d be in the same space as her.
Which was fine. Women, in this day and age, had a fucking right to be nervous with new people, especially men.
But I still had a job to do, and we still had people dependent upon us.
So I took a step closer to her and watched as she almost immediately took a small step back.
I tilted my head when she snickered. “Sorry.”
I shook my head softly as I slid my phone back into my pants pocket. With the pairing app running that Ranger put on all of our burner phones, I hoped it would latch on. But he did say it would take some time.
I needed to buy time without making her feel uncomfortable.
“You’re fine, really,” I said as I held my ground.
Her eyes moved to the pocket where my phone was. “Everything okay?”
I chuckled. “I jinxed myself.”
Her eyes whipped back up to mine. Those beautiful caramel brown eyes. “What?”
“We’re here talking about work, and I just got called in.”
“Oh, noooo!” she exclaimed softly before she jutted out that plump lower lip of hers in a little pout. “I was going to show you Stardew Valley.”
I crooked an eyebrow. “Stardew Valley?”
“Yesssss,” she hissed as she dropped the groceries at her feet.
She began talking with her hands, and I found that a little more than adorable.
“It’s this relaxing farming sim game that’s sort of open world?
And you’ve got all of these NPCs that you can romance and marry.
And you can have kids, and decorate your farm, and put animals on it, and you can do all sorts of things.
Oh! And there’s this place after the main game called Ginger Island, and there’s a whole other farm on there to do stuff with.
Plus there’s another cave that you can explore, and it gives you these striped slime balls that, when you put them in the slime egg hatcher and hatch them?
They turn into these cute little tiger-striped slime balls! ”
She was fucking adorable when she was excited. “Sounds like a fun game.”
“Oh, I’ve spent days of my life in this damn thing,” she said as she continued on with her hands flapping about.
“I’ve got twelve farms made up with each playthrough being tailored to one of the twelve people you can marry in the game?
And they all have different personalities and different likes and dislikes, so I’m creating farms around all of them with their favorite things and stuff like that so they can live on the farm of their dreams, you know? ”
Her jaw unhinged with such a massive yawn that I no longer felt the need to find an excuse to dip.
She needed sleep.
And when I felt my phone buzz once in my hand, I pulled it out and tilted the phone screen to me.
“Cloning successful,” the screen said.
I slid my phone back into my pocket. “Boss is crawling up my ass, I should go.”
She nodded as she covered her mouth again and yawned. “Jesus, I don’t know how I got so tired.”
I chuckled a bit. “From all that overtime work you take.”
She shot me a look, but I merely found it cute.
Like a little kitten trying to roar at me when all it could do was mew.
She reached for the groceries, and I had to force myself to stay put.
I couldn’t go inside with her. She was exhausted.
She needed rest. And I needed time to sift through her cloned phone.
Plus, I still wanted to keep a watch on her place.
“Sure you don’t want to come in for a bit?” she asked before another yawn attacked her jawline.
“I’m sure,” I said with a smirk beneath my mask. “Maybe the next time your boss gives you some time off, we could get together, though. I could give you my number? In case you need anything?”
She walked her groceries into her apartment before doubling back to me. “Like if my car battery dies again?”
“Or if something else goes on it,” I said with a shrug.
She nodded as she patted herself down, and then peered over her shoulder at her purse. She held up a finger to me before backtracking into her space, and when she emerged again, she had her unlocked phone held out toward me.
“Number, please,” she said with a bright smile.
Who in the world could refuse such a smile?
I typed in my burner phone number as well as the clubhouse number. We never gave that out to people, it was usually reserved for club members only. But, I overheard both my president and his second-in-command giving their women the number, just in case of an emergency.
I figured this was enough of an emergency for her to have that number as well.
“There you go,” I said as I handed her phone back. “The first number is my cell, the second number is the landline. If you can’t get me on my cell, the second number is your best bet.”
I watched her do something on her phone before I felt mine vibrate, and then she beamed that bright white smile back up at me. “Now you’ve got my number, too.”
My cock lurched at the thought. “Good.”
She yawned again as she thumbed over her shoulder. “Sure you don’t want to come in for a quick snack? It’s the least I can do for all you did for me today.”
“Your number is payment enough.”
She blushed again. “Are you sure? I make a mean walking taco.”
But then she yawned again and it only pushed me onward. “We’ll raincheck the video game plans for another time when you’ve had some rest.”
She looked genuinely disappointed, and my cock only lurched more.
Fucking hell, I needed to wank one out of my system.
It was better this way, anyway. Safer. She was a target for whoever the fuck was following her.
She was my mark for information. Things were way too complicated for me to add sex and lust into the mix.
But those eyes…
I bet they’d look lovely staring up at me with those plump lips of hers wrapped around my—
“Will you let me know when you get to work safely?” she asked.
I snapped out of it. “Of course.”
She smiled softly as she closed the door. “Okay. Drive safely.”
“Rest even safer.”
She giggled before her door latched closed, and it took every ounce of energy that I had to make my way back down to my bike.
I looked up at the windows as I mounted my bike, wondering if she was peering down at me.
But with her apartment being a studio apartment on the front side of the building, I was hard-pressed to believe that any of those back windows on the third floor were her place.
And when I didn’t see any shadows moving behind the windows, I pulled my phone out.
I pulled up the application that allowed me to continue to monitor the cameras in her place from my cell.
“Gotcha,” I muttered.
Just in case she was listening, I struck up my bike and revved the engine. I placed my cell back in my pocket and rode out of the parking lot, circling back around. I drove for a few miles away from her place until I knew for certain my bike engine had faded into the distance.
Then I traveled back around to her place.
I found a completely shaded spot behind some overgrown bushes that lined the back row of the parking lot of her place.
“Showtime,” I muttered to myself.
I set a timer for an hour, so that I remembered to text her the fact that I had gotten to work.
With my bike engine shut off and the darkness of the shrubbery cloaking me, I toggled through the camera angles of her place.
I watched as she put all of the groceries away.
I watched as she made her way into her bedroom and I figured she’d go right to sleep.
But instead, she came back out into the living room with a portable gaming device and plopped down on the couch.
She rolled over onto her stomach and began mindlessly kicking her feet.
Goddamn it, she’s adorable.
After about five minutes of watching her perch on her couch and play a game, I guess, on whatever that device was that she had in her hands, I lifted my head.
Looked around. I wanted to keep an eye on who was coming and going, just in case that motherfucking vehicle showed up again.
With that woman being chased to us in broad daylight, there was no telling what time of day they’d come by.
These motherfuckers were bold.
I didn’t like bold.
“Gonna be a loooong night,” I muttered to myself.
But it would be all worth it to know that Jasmine was safe.