26
Zander
She’s Going to Kill Me
I STOOD IN AN EMPTY PRIVATE WARD, glaring at my phone as Sailor triggered my camera sensors.
Still dressed in her linen shift from this morning, she gleamed like a fallen star in the sun as she placed Peng down and made a delicious, blatant display of stretching. In her left hand, something extremely phallus-like glimmered with silver. It looked almost identical to the image I’d chosen online.
It’d taken me ages to settle on that one: heavy glass designed to be classy and pleasurable—according to the website. I’d looked at a terrifying range of silicone penises and devices with vibrating rabbit ticklers, pearl beads, and a thousand different settings.
Thanks to working in the medical industry, I’d heard one too many stories of silicone allergies. However, if Sailor found it hard to reach that critical point, perhaps I should’ve gotten her something that stimulated everything all at once at an intensity that would leave her screaming.
Do you hear yourself?
These were not usual thoughts of a man who didn’t even have a girlfriend. I’d also never confess that I’d almost had a wet dream last night. I’d been the one to use that glass toy on her. She’d definitely found that pinnacle, and I’d woken just as the first ripples of release quaked through me. There’d been nothing I could do to stop it, and I’d flushed with guilt that I’d gotten off to fantasies of my neighbour—the girl who had no idea how I felt about her.
“Fuck’s sake, stop it.”
Cursing my hard-on that she’d caused with her messages, I glowered at my phone as the cameras recorded her lifting her arms over her head. She arched her back, hinting she wasn’t wearing a bra. The thin material of her dress clung to her in ways that should be illegal. Gathering her long sandy-blonde hair into a ponytail, she rolled her neck, then trailed her hands down her body, using the toy to torment me.
The damn dildo followed her curves, touching everything I wanted to.
“Christ, you’re going to kill me,” I groaned.
Even if an earthquake hit the hospital, I wouldn’t be able to move. I couldn’t look away as she bent over, grabbed the hem of her long dress, and hoisted it up to her thighs. Rolling the excess material, she didn’t stop until she somehow turned the floor-length skirt into something scandalously short.
Her long, lean legs flashed far too bare. The fading bruises were still visible, thanks to her pale skin. Peng wound himself around her ankle, and she smiled so freely, so prettily, she sucker-punched me right in the heart.
Staggering against the wall, I could only watch as she sat down cross-legged on the grass and looked around the flower beds and fruit trees as if searching for a glint of a camera lens.
And then, she leaned back until she sprawled in the soft greenery. She arched her back as if someone ran their fingertips along her cleavage. And held up the glass phallus as if she was going to use it.
She wouldn’t.
Would she?
Not there.
Not in broad daylight.
Slowly, sensually, she dropped her fingertips to her upper thigh where she’d rucked her skirt high enough to flash her pink underwear.
Lust exploded through me.
Longing clenched my middle as she dragged the glass toy down and down her body.
Jesus Christ.
A growl escaped me as a gush of overwhelming possession erupted.
For a second, she blinded me with black desire.
Then drowned me in animalistic rage.
Anyone could see her.
Sure, her fences were high, and her garden was overgrown, but what the hell was she thinking?
Gritting my teeth, I closed the camera footage and accessed our message thread.
X: Stop that immediately.
Splitting my screen into two functions, one window with the text bubble and the other with the video feed, I wanted to punch something.
I wanted to break every speed limit to go to her. To leap the fence. To pounce on her. To be the one and only man who ever brought her to an orgasm.
A vicious throb arrowed right between my legs as images of touching her, fingering her, licking her—
“Fuck, Sailor. You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”
On the video footage, she paused. Dropping the dildo onto her lower belly, she held up her phone with both hands, shielding her face from the sun with it.
My own phone vibrated.
Lori: Come and make me .
I almost buckled in half with how hot and hard and agonising my entire body became.
How had everything turned sexual? Come? Yes, please. Make her come? God, it’d be an honour.
“Get a grip, Zan.”
This wasn’t rational behaviour. Sailor had never been like this. Perhaps she’d finally snapped, and what I was watching was a woman having a breakdown, not a woman reclaiming her sexuality.
I should call Dr Klep and have her make a house call.
A little voice in the back of my head hissed that all of that could be true but…I had no authority to say what Sailor had been like before. Despite our family’s fondness for each other, we’d hardly ever spoken. There’d always been a wall of politeness between us.
I might’ve seen her grow up, but I didn’t know a thing about her. I didn’t know her favourite food or favourite TV show or even how someone as brave and sweet and gorgeous as her had ended up with a murdering bastard like Milton.
My phone buzzed again.
Lori: Are you really away for work?
I sighed in relief as she slowly sat up, removed the dildo from her stomach, and tucked her hair behind her ears in a familiar, innocent gesture.
Peng immediately crawled all over her, sliding off her bare legs and no doubt leaving little claw marks amongst her bruises.
I groaned and yanked my glasses off.
Digging my fingers into my eyes, I cursed myself to hell. I’d told her X was away to put distance between my schedule and my alter ego. I needed her to keep seeing us as two separate people because after her thawing toward me in person, it only added to my terror that she’d one day look at me, see straight through the disguise, and call the police.
Christ, if she ever called the police on me again?
I wouldn’t just be done for stalking; I’d be done for sexual harassment and lewd behaviour. Our texts would be all the evidence they’d need to send me straight to jail.
Me: I am, and I’m not comfortable with you putting yourself in danger. I know you’re mad at me, but please, go back inside or at least lower your dress.
On the video, she stood, placed the dildo inside on the kitchen bench, then headed toward the veggie patch. Peng bounced alongside her as she unhitched her dress, and let it cascade to her ankles.
Every inch of me clenched.
I somehow found watching her cover up just as erotic as watching her expose herself. Maybe more so because it seemed so…intimate. She’d done that for me. She’d listened and obeyed and I should not have this reaction.
I was not that type of guy.
I didn’t get off on bossing women around, outside or inside the bedroom. I wanted a partnership, a friendship, a forever after. Yet…the mere idea of having her drop to her knees because I asked her to?
I bit my fist and whacked the back of my head against the wall.
She is your neighbour.
She is suffering from trauma.
She is not kneeling for anyone.
Dropping to her haunches by a spinach plant, she plucked off a few leaves. She laughed a little as Peng leaped into the overgrown beds, attacking a row of beans strung up with string. Already those two were inseparable. I couldn’t picture her without him now.
My fingers shook as I texted her again.
Me: It seems my role as your protector has been taken by something orange and fluffy.
She continued to fill a small basket with greenery and a couple of carrots before standing upright. Sighing, she pulled her phone from a dress pocket and scanned my last message.
She didn’t move for a while, then glanced around the garden, most likely still searching for my cameras. At least those weren’t on her property. I hadn’t technically broken any law with them. Then again, some rule probably stated a neighbour couldn’t use his own security system to spy on someone else.
She let Peng run amok in her veggie garden as she tapped her phone.
Mine finally chirped.
Lori: He’s definitely keeping the nightmares at bay. Have a good work trip. Thanks for the gift.
Dumping her phone in her harvesting basket, she marched up the two steps of her back deck.
I blinked at her cool tone.
My heart twisted. I’d handled that wrong, didn’t I? Had I made her self-conscious? What was I supposed to do? Leave my shift and go over there? Haul her over my shoulder and carry her to bed—to hell with her mental health and all the consequences?
No way.
I was doing this for her, not for me.
I’d bought her a masturbation aid so she could reclaim the pieces she said she needed to claim by herself. No man required. It wasn’t up to me to give that back to her. She had to take it back for herself.
So why did I feel so wretched?
Why did an icy emptiness creep through me as all signs of the sexy tease who’d lain in the grass stiffened into shyness as she darted inside?
I wished I had a camera in her kitchen.
I wished I had audio to make sure she was okay.
I wished I could go over there, but I’d doubled down on my lie that I was away and now had to keep my distance.
“Shit. Shit. Shit .”
Turning off my phone, I jammed my glasses back into place and stalked from the ward.
* * * * *
Eleven p.m.
Another long day from hell thanks to a couple of emergencies and a surgery complication by the trainee anaesthetist. Luckily, it’d all been handled, but now I was exhausted and in desperate need of a shower, food, and sleep.
At least I’d sent X on a trip, so I wouldn’t have to go over to Sailor’s house in the middle of the night like the last time I’d pulled a long stint.
And if she has another nightmare?
What are you going to do? Not go?
Scratching my five o’clock shadow that’d grown in, I pushed that question away. Obviously, I wouldn’t be able to leave her alone if she had another setback. I’d go to her and make up some excuse of coming home early, but right now, as Zander, I was free from responsibilities.
So why, why , did my feet change direction and head toward Sailor’s front door instead of mine? Why did I knock when most people would be in bed?
I stood with my heart drumming, waiting for her to open the door.
I forced my exhausted brain to come up with an excuse as to why I’d found myself on her doorstep. I’d ask about Peng. I’d discuss the bloody weather if it came down to it. I just had to see her in person after her performance in the garden and cold shoulder via text.
Two minutes passed and her door remained stubbornly closed. Checking my phone to make sure she hadn’t messaged me as X, I knocked again.
And waited.
And waited.
And when it became awkward and weird—especially to anyone peering at me behind their curtains—I turned, jammed my hands into my slacks pockets, and stalked back to my place.