7. Merritt
merritt
. . .
I turned the knob carefully, sure that lights and sirens would flash at my back at any moment. Cops would come storming for me any moment, pushing me down to the ground to place me under arrest.
But when I closed the door behind me, I was left in nothing but the light purple hue of the TV screen my girl had left on. I almost wished someone would catch me in the act.
“I can see why you like her,” Oleg had drawled tauntingly over the phone. My jaw had clenched when Oleg said that to me. I’d known it was a mistake to ask him to get some things delivered to her. I didn’t want just any random man coming to her doorstep. His men had been doing it, posing as Amazon or UPS drivers for the last week.
But this last one, he had done himself for some fucking reason.
“Relax. Not for me. I can see her with you. Though, maybe you should make a real move soon, eh?” he’d advised. I shook away the conversation.
Soon. The word played in a loop like a prayer and a promise while I stood at the closed door. My eyes locked with her sleeping body on the lumpy loveseat. The thing looked like it had been bought used a couple of generations ago. Not that her face would tell you it was uncomfortable. If you tried to guess, just by looking at my cutie, Scarlett looked so damn relaxed, you would have thought she was sleeping on a fucking cloud.
But I knew how lumpy and hard it was.
I’d sat on the couch multiple times when I’d stopped by at night to watch her sleep. To be closer to her. The first two nights, I’d stayed exactly where she was sleeping. On the couch. Lumpy and hard. I’d paid for it the next day. I’d sat there those two nights, forcing my body to stay in its place, ignoring the way everything in my body yelled at me to step foot into her most private space.
But by the third night, the temptation had mounted to insurmountable heights, and I’d caved. Me, the man who could live without anything, was made weak by a sweet cutie with bedroom eyes that called to me like a siren song.
I’d stood at the threshold of her room like a sentry. Watching over her as she dreamt. Every night since, I couldn’t take a full breath, afraid her scent would burrow itself deeper inside my lungs, engrain itself into my DNA. Not that she wasn’t already there. I was sure of it. I worried she would wake up and see my shadow in the darkness.
But not once did she stir.
Every night, she lay there, facing towards the door, dark lashes fanning over her cheeks and the peace on her face making my knees weak. Night after night, I stood in the shadows and didn’t give in. My hands itched to touch her, and my body ached to lie next to her, but I didn’t break..
I simply watched.
Watching was enough to take the edge off, but I was afraid the thread of self-control I was holding on to was starting to fray.
Every night, I told myself that I’d have her soon. That I would approach her. But she stopped showing up at the brewery. Her sisters would still go, but not her.
Soon. The word was starting to irritate me.
I took a step and winced at the hardwood floor that groaned beneath my weight. Scarlett shifted in the couch, turning around without opening her eyes. I should have left. Walked out and figured out another way. She was enjoying the gifts, and the fruit arrangement had looked like it worked like a charm.
I am her secret admirer, and she is the stalker’s Valentine, a voice perked up in the back of my head. But instead of it talking some kind of sense into me, it made me grin. I am her stalker. Obsessed with everything about her. From the beautiful dark hair at the top of her head to the pretty soles of her feet. I was hers.
I stepped closer, too close to my cutie to back away and leave. No way would my body let me. I didn’t stop until I hovered over her. My cock throbbed along with the beat of my heart. Jesus, I’d never been so hard. It would have been easy to take my cock out of my dark jeans and stroke myself right above her. Let my seed fall on her bare thighs. My dick strained, protesting the fact I hadn’t touched myself. Not yet. I knew the moment I touched her, that I had her in my arms, letting go would be impossible.
I kneeled down, reached for the throw blanket I’d had delivered she had set off to the side of the couch, and covered her sweet body with it. She turned, and my heart stopped. Her sleepy eyes opened, and I froze, positive she would jump up and scream bloody murder.
But not my girl. I let my deluded self believe that even in her sleepy state, she knew she belonged with me. That when it came to me, she never had anything to fear. She sighed and smiled before closing her eyes and whispering, “It’s you. It’s always you.”
Oh yeah. It would be me for her, just like it was her for me. Always and forever.
I didn’t move until I made sure she had fallen back asleep. I rose off my hunches and walked out, making sure to lock the door behind me.