Chapter 24 Winnie
WINNIE
“Seriously?” I yell at Olive and Kathy. The espresso machine is clanking. All the customers have fled. “Something’s broken. It sounds expensive.”
“We were trying to clean it. We did what the YouTube video said.” The girls show me their phones.
“The YouTube—” My eye is twitching. “There’s a manual, Olive. We went over this. Also, I thought I told you not to touch the espresso machine anymore?”
“We’re sorry, Winnie, but we didn’t want you to cut your date short. Gran texted and said your billionaire boyfriend was there to see you as a surprise,” Olive cries.
“You work too hard. You deserve to have some fun, Winn.” Kathy grabs my arm.
I’m about to pull my hair out. “Yeah. Fun.”
The manual for the espresso machine is sitting in the drawer.
“You read Italian?” Olive’s eyes bug out.
I flip it around and open the English side.
“Ooh.”
I mash a hand over my eye. “Okay, you know what? You guys can leave. I’ll close up.”
“Are you sure? We can—”
“Just leave,” I snap at them.
“They’re just trying to help. They made a mistake,” some random douche-faced finance tech bro says from where he’s doctoring his drip coffee. Of course he sees pretty girls and automatically gives them grace.
Olive and Kathy, arm in arm, take Fidget out, all while finance bro flirts with them, trying to get their numbers. Giggling, they agree to meet him and his friends at a bar down the street.
This is a good thing. They both need rich husbands to take care of them.
I try to calm down while I wait for the machine to reset.
This is why I don’t date.
My life was perfect before my family showed up, bringing all their chaos and digging up all my insecurities that I’d carefully buried in the yard.
Okay, perfect is maybe an overstatement, but it was fine.
I had my business.
I had my dog.
So what if the stalker was the most exciting thing to happen to me since I tripped and fell in front of everyone at my college graduation?
I had a nice house. Carolina and I had movie night twice a month.
I shouldn’t want more. I gave up on having the husband and the kids a while ago.
Why am I chasing after someone unattainable?
It’s pathetic. So pathetic.
I’m hot with embarrassment at how the dating event went down.
What was I thinking at the mixer—flirting, well, attempting to flirt with Fitz?
I don’t know how to flirt.
“And it’s a bad idea to try,” I remind myself, turning off the main lights so people will know we’re closed.
Of course he doesn’t want me touching his stuff. He probably doesn’t even really want me touching him.
God, I’m so embarrassed.
The espresso machine clanks to life.
Thank god I don’t have to replace it. The business can afford it—I’m not Kathy or Olive, so I don’t need a guy to save me—but it would be an incredible inconvenience.
I flip through the apps on my phone, needing some sort of distraction from the evening.
Oh, look at that. Somehow, I just happened to stumble on Knox’s Facebook page.
He’s already changed his profile picture to him in an Orcas jersey.
“Seattle is a big town. I’m not going to see him.”
It’s throwback Thursday. There’s a picture of him at Decar Lake High School, a ten-minute walk—though it feels like thirty in the cold—from my parents’ old house.
He’s grinning.
The little bit of my heart that just can’t get over him tugs.
I was only ever the girl he’d fuck. Kathy was the one he wanted to date. She was always the one he wanted.
I scroll down, soaking in all the pictures, the memories I’d tried to block from my new life.
I’m in a weak moment. There wasn’t any food at this dating event.
“Put the phone down and make some pasta, Winnie.”
All that does is make me think of last night when Fitz invited himself over.
I pull the notes out of my pocket that I saved from yesterday—not the one from the peep show, which I still can’t believe I actually did.
“No more wine for Winnie.” I unfold the paper and make myself stare at the notes while behind me, the espresso maker drips forebodingly in the silence.
You can’t escape me.
I see you with him.
I’m going to make sure another man will never be able to touch you.
The note wasn’t there earlier in the day. At least, I don’t think it was.
It was so chaotic, though, with trying to get Kathy ready for her date she bailed on, and then Gran had her knitting club over.
Maybe it had been stuck somewhere and migrated.
Or maybe Logan, the neighbor’s son that my mom invited over, is the stalker, and he put it there.
Gosh, I hope not. Then this really will be a low point.
More likely, the stalker slipped in during the day. I wouldn’t put it past my family to invite some random stranger disguised as a delivery guy into the house just for a slice of cake and some water.
I’m scrolling through the video camera feed on my phone, trying to see anyone suspicious coming and going, when the lights go out.
Shit. Heart pounding, I slide off the chair and crouch down, eyes darting around in the dark.
Outside, thunder rattles the windows. Lightning flashes.
“All the power’s out on the block,” I tell myself, trying to calm down.
But I just know… he’s here.
My stalker is here.
“He didn’t knock out the power on the whole block,” I whisper in the dark. “And he’s not here. He’s probably just at my house. Like normal. As long as I don’t go outside, I’m fine.”
Except now I’m thinking about that kiss, his hands on me. That heavy breathing.
When I swallow, it sounds too loud in the silence. The fridges and cases aren’t humming. Everything is too quiet.
I don’t hear anything except for the drip, drip, drip of the espresso machine.
“The doors are all locked,” I remind myself.
I don’t know why the emergency power backup hasn’t kicked in yet.
There could be leaves on it. Once, Olive left her laptop case on top of the air intake.
He’s not watching the café.
I’m being paranoid.
Man up, Winnie.
I can’t have all the dough I have proofing in the fridge go bad.
I wait for a minute, hoping the power comes back on.
But it doesn’t.
I push through the heavy back door.
In my hand, my phone beeps.
Unknown: You can’t escape me.
What?
I look up.
A flash of lightning lights up a dark figure.
It’s him.
I can’t even scream before the huge hand reaches out to grab the back of my neck, pulling me to him so he can crush his mouth against mine through the black mask.
I push at the broad shoulders as he half carries me, my feet scraping on the pavement through the rain, to shove me back against the rough brick.
“What are you—” The sentence collapses into a moan as he shoves his hand between my legs, spreading them.
The stretchy, low-cut sweater my mom insisted I wear gives way easily as he pulls it down to nuzzle the mask against my chest.
Damn, I want his mouth on my tits.
My hips jerk as he strokes me hard through the panties.
I shouldn’t be this aching and wet from a dangerous stranger in an alley, but all I want to do is get on my hands and knees on the wet concrete and let him fuck me till he’s satisfied.
One of those huge hands tangles in my hair, forcing me down on my knees.
He pushes my face into the hard bulge in the black pants.
The words of my mother: “Be good. Don’t be a slut. The boys are just after you because of those—” She’d gesture at my boobs. “Don’t give them what they want unless you’re in a committed relationship that will lead to marriage.”
I look up at him, gazing up against the lightning-streaked sky. This… is not leading to marriage.
“I should—” I clear my throat. “I should go. I’m not really the type to—”
The hand tangles tighter in my hair, jerking my head, shaking me like a dog with a rat until my teeth clack together.
“Okay, okay, okay,” I murmur, hands trembling. It takes me a couple tries to undo the belt.
I only have the top button of the pants fumbled open when he shoves my face back against his crotch, his cock rock-hard through the fabric. I pant against it, brain spinning, the water from the rain dripping down my face as I try to figure out the best way to give him what he wants.
My mouth and nose are mashed up against him. My fingers scrabble against the hard thighs, pushing back on his hand. The thighs flex as he drags me up higher so he can grab my breasts, hands hard as he pinches the nipples.
“I’m doing it,” I whimper, reaching for the zipper.
It drags down, metallic, then scratches the back of my hand as I reach into his pants.
Shit, that’s big.
I pull my hand away then quickly put it back when his hand tightens on my neck.
“I’m just gonna—” I stroke him, his cock slick with the rain that drips from my nose. “Maybe we can just—”
He grabs my jaw, rough, squeezing until my lips part and my jaw drops. I hear him hiss in a breath, muffled through the mask. His cock juts out—huge, menacing in the light from the storm.
“I can’t, um—” I try to say as he forces me forward. I rock forward on my knees as he angles the cock to my mouth.
In spite of its size, I’m salivating for his cock.
I suck a breath in through my nose as he rams the thick cock into my mouth. It’s fat on my tongue, salty-sweet from the rain.
His hips pump once, twice, the cock gliding in my mouth. The head of his cock jams the back of my throat then deeper.
I grab at his belt, trying to concentrate on breathing, my eyes squeezed shut as his hips snap and that cock is rammed deeper down my throat.
Take it, take it, I tell myself, trying to remember what I’m supposed to do with my hands. No, flailing awkwardly is definitely not it.
I’m not that great at giving head.
But I’m not giving him a blow job.
I’m getting my face fucked.
My tits are still out, hanging over the overstretched neckline of the sweater, bouncing as he fucks my mouth, the gloved hands forcing my head back so he can fuck down deep in my throat.
He doesn’t say anything.
The few other times I’ve given blow jobs, the guys were always like, “Good girl, you want my cum?” That sort of thing, trying to make it like a porno, I guess.
Not him.
Not my stalker.