Chapter 20
Idecided to conduct a little experiment as soon as I docked my Knotty Boy.
If my theory was correct, I needed to go to sleep tonight as if nothing was amiss.
Including taking my regular nighttime cannabis gummies.
The only difference between tonight and the other nights I went to sleep, was the tiny little camera I had hidden on my dresser that faced the foot of my bed.
I purchased it before I went home, after my disaster of a date.
It was nestled in a pile of clothes I kept on top of the dresser. Used, but not dirty enough to warrant a wash. The pile was almost always present, and I felt like I did a good job concealing the camera in it.
I tested it on my phone and set up the settings so that the recording would automatically upload to the cloud if the connection was lost or the device turned off.
After testing some recordings and seeing for myself how clear the nighttime vision on the camera was, I popped two gummies and went through my nighttime skincare routine.
I went to grab one of my oversized t-shirts to sleep in but then decided to slip on a pair of men’s boxers, too.
It was a cooler night, so the extra layer wouldn’t be too odd. I cracked my window an inch, tapping the screen barrier on the outside to ensure it wouldn’t pop off easily, and crawled into bed.
I was hyper-aware of the gummies hitting me. My body felt both light and heavy at the same time. The bed sheets familiarly caressed my skin, and I dozed off with strange dreams and a flutter in my lower stomach that I didn’t want to focus on too much.
The next morning, I stretched my arms awkwardly above my head as I awoke. The sun poked through the crack in my open window, and I lay there in the lovely comfort that only a marijuana induced sleep could provide.
Then I remembered. Part of me wondered if I should be embarrassed by how quickly I jumped out of bed to grab my hidden camera. There was no light on the front, only on the back, and it was still bright red, meaning it was still recording.
Excellent.
I brewed some coffee and grabbed a protein bar as I settled in at my desk.
Powering on my laptop, I eagerly found the nine-hour-long video and expanded the image to fill the screen.
The entirety of my bedroom was in view. All three walls were visible in my smaller space.
My desk, my bookshelf, my nightstands, and the artwork on my walls.
The only thing the camera didn’t catch was the wall the dresser and bedroom door were on, because that’s the wall it was set up against.
I didn’t want to miss a single thing.
I pressed play and smirked at how nervous I looked setting the camera up.
The video was completely black and white because of the nighttime mode.
It made my t-shirt and boxers look brighter than they were.
After a few moments of watching me toss and turn to get comfy in bed, I decided to speed up the video.
It wasn’t until an hour after I had fallen asleep that something flashed by the camera.
My finger paused the video immediately.
My pulse was racing.
Obviously, I thought this was a possibility, but I knew that as I rewound the clip to seconds before the flash, and resumed normal speed, that I wouldn’t be able to unsee whatever I was about to see.
One deep breath for bravery later, I pressed play. Within seconds, a tall, masculine body strolled in front of the camera. Because the video was in black and white, his hair looked black instead of red, but I still knew it was him.
Anxiety filled my chest as Drustan slowly strolled across the frame, most of his face cut off from being too close to the camera. This meant that he came in through my bedroom door. Which was locked.
How the f—
Drustan had clearly been in my bedroom before while I slept. He tiptoed around with familiarity. Knowing exactly where to step so that he didn’t cause a creak or a shift in the floorboards underneath the carpet.
My hands shook.
Drustan was in my bedroom last night.
Drustan was in my bedroom last night.
He wore casual wear, something that looked a lot like the outfit he wore during the trip I had from the Hyvenmerian tea.
Which means that it must have truly been him that night.
I wasn’t hallucinating that night. Drustan was actually in my room.
He was real. I was pretty confident I licked his neck at one point.
Do you want it now?
His chuckle on the camera made me jump in my seat, and I had to press a palm to my chest to make sure my heart wasn’t about to beat out of my chest. In the video, Drustan had wandered over to my desk, pulled one of my favorite romances off the shelf, and sat in the very chair I was currently in to start casually reading.
He had flipped to a specific page in the book to do so. Ignoring where my own bookmark was.
Drustan sat in my desk chair, reading a romance novel in the dark for an hour.
I had to speed up the video again because I was going to lose my mind if that’s all the siren prince did while he was stalking me.
After an hour of casual reading, he gently slid the book back on the shelf.
At the same time, I had rolled over in my sleep.
A loud, unladylike snort came from me as I adjusted.
Drustan’s back was mostly to me, but the camera allowed me to see him turn toward the sound of my sleepy snort. And he smiled. A lot was shocking me right now, but for some reason, watching Drustan’s cheek pull back in an obvious grin as he watched me snore in my sleep made me feel…confused.
Flutters erupted in my stomach, and I couldn’t finish eating my protein bar.
Drustan gently stood from my desk chair and strolled to the side of the bed. He bent his large frame down to pull open my nightstand drawer slowly.
Jesus Christ, my vibrators were in there.
He was just…snooping. When he pulled out a sleeve of condoms I had recently bought, I tugged the collar of my shirt over my mouth and nose, not knowing how to feel about what I was seeing.
In the video, I threw my arm to the side in my sleep.
The sudden movement made him freeze and turn to look at me.
His eyes were eerie looking in the nighttime vision.
It almost looked like bright lights coming from his face.
After waiting a minute to ensure I didn’t wake, he lifted the sleeve of condoms to his face with what looked like a confused expression.
Did they not have condoms in the magical realm?
He held the strip to his nose and sniffed before grimacing and inspecting it again.
Then he quirked his lips to the side and slowly tiptoed back to my desk and took a seat.
He clicked my laptop to life and quickly dimmed the brightness.
The vision on the camera adjusted from the sudden bright light a few moments before I realized that he still held the strip of condoms in his hand.
I couldn’t even hear him tap the keys; he was being so quiet. It wasn’t until I saw him hold up the strip again, while glancing at the keys on the keyboard, that I realized he was looking up the brand of the condoms.
I experienced a unique kind of embarrassment watching Drustan Shaw, the Mad Siren Prince of Lyndoruun, research what condoms were on my laptop. All while I quietly snored a few feet away. When he leaned toward the monitor to read what he found, I held my breath again.
Then he suddenly leaned back, looked at the condoms again, and frowned, before clicking out of the browser and closing the laptop.
I paused the video and opened my web browser to look at my internet history. Sure enough, my favorite condom brand was the last thing searched. When the list of results pulled up, the link he had viewed was highlighted in purple text. I clicked on it.
It was a Reddit thread, with various accounts discussing favorite condom brands. The first was from a woman going into detail about how much she preferred these condoms because she could still feel—and ohmygod Drustan read all of this.
Clicking back to my video, I pressed play, only to see Drustan clench his hand to bundle up the strip of condoms and shove them into the pocket of his linen pants.
That son of a bitch just stole my condoms.
I paused the video.
“Girl…” I scolded myself as I scraped a hand down my face. I was already losing the plot here. A killer was in my bedroom last night, and I was getting heated over the fact that he pocketed my condoms.
I needed to stay mad over the fact that a killer was in my room while I was sleeping.
I played the video again, not totally surprised to see Drustan saunter back to my nightstand and grab the rest of the condoms. A comical frown marred his face as he opened the box to pocket the rest of the strips inside it.
What the hell is happening?
After he carefully put the box back in my nightstand and closed the drawer, Drustan paused to stare at my sleeping form.
My skin felt hot. I leaned onto my elbows to steeple my fingers together and rest them against my face. He was still as he studied me. Was he…contemplating something? To kill me? To steal more of my contraception?
With dropped shoulders, Drustan released a sigh loud enough for the camera to pick up and slowly sat down on the side of the bed I wasn’t on. I had to force myself to breathe through my nose as I watched Drustan slowly, carefully, lie his massive body on top of the covers next to me.
He fluffed my other pillow and everything. As if he’d done this a thousand times. One ankle crossed over the other, one large hand tucked behind his head, while the other rested on his abdomen. His feet, obviously, hung off the end of my king-sized bed.
Drustan was a big man. Taller, wider, larger, everything. The visual of seeing Drustan lay next to me, even as I was bundled underneath my covers, was eye-opening. I had already understood that, as a relatively tall woman.
Lying side-by-side like this?
It was both terrifying and thrilling to witness.