Chapter 10 - Aspen
TEN
ASPEN
As soon as the door slams shut down the hall, I’m running after Cade to lock it. Ideally he’s close enough to hear the metal turning and understand my intent.
With my back to the door, my hands come up to my face. First my lips where he lightly kissed me, and then my cheeks which he held. My arms pull tight on my shirt, damp from his mouth, which felt sinfully good and a betrayal to my attempt to remain unaffected by him.
His touch imprints now as firmly as he was holding onto me minutes ago—and as firmly as he did in the past. A tattoo branded onto my skin, as if making the claim with his touch as much as his words try to.
That I’m his.
It can’t be real. He’s merely a pen pal had for a couple months, nothing permanent.
Nothing that should have made him have such lasting effects on us both.
I’ve been going months believing once he’s out, I’d be a person from his past, a memory of passing entertainment, but deep down, I knew it was never so cut and dry.
I push off the door and rush into the living room, checking for Millie where she’ll often lounge on the back of the couch. She’s there, eyes shut, as I burst into the room and jerk the curtains shut, not giving him any leeway into my life.
“Sorry, girl, it’s for safety reasons.”
He claims he won’t harm me, and I have to believe that. At least, until figuring out what to do. If I called the police, how do I tell them an ex-convict broke into my house, but I have no idea where he is or how they’d find him to keep him away.
Or what he’d do to them.
Not that I liked Owen by any stretch of the imagination, a single date didn’t deserve the abuse—or worse—that he got. Cade is insane. There’s no if, ands, or buts. He’s crazy to react in such ways.
After checking every window throughout my place, I return to my room.
My feet don’t cross the doorway, the imprint of our bodies on the bed drawing me to a stop.
My mind constructs the image of us, him crouching over me, his mouth in my neck and chest. A memory that should bring only distaste and disgust, that should push me into the shower to scrub him off me, but instead fills my head with the same what-ifs they’ve been entertaining all year.
I’m starting to sound as insane as he is.
Bypassing the novel I’ve been slowly getting through that serves as an ongoing reminder of him, I yank open the drawer, compelled to inspect Cade’s letters—despite having read them over and over.
Nothing in them hints towards his strange possessiveness and insanity.
Nothing that raises the red flags. His request for a picture may be the closest, but it stemmed from curiosity.
Choosing to visit in-person was somewhat safer since my image went with me instead of remaining in picture-form within his grip.
But visiting was also ultimately my decision, as was my second trip, which leaves me wondering if I’m to blame.
Even asking myself leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
It feels like the equivalent of blaming a rape victim for what happened to them.
I was merely kind to him, whereas he took his interest to the next level.
Shoving the letters from sight, I curse myself for never burning them in the past. I get back into bed, trying to erase the past half-hour from my mind. My alarm will scream at me in six hours, and with the busy day ahead, rest is needed.
Easier said than done, of course, since Cade’s scent lingers on my sheets. It certainly doesn’t smell like the prison, but a spicy soap I can’t quite place but find myself pressing into deeper, taking it in with frustration.
As my eyes shut, I find myself wondering if he’s outside stalking the house or if he’s gone home.
Where is his home?
If he’s still around, the door being locked means nothing because it was also locked when I went to bed.
His insistence that I’m his is all that keeps me safe for the time being.
Somehow, someway, he found me. He broke in, knew I went on a date tonight, and where I live, all while acting like he didn’t just lose the last ten years of his life—for reasons still unknown.
It’s decided.
I have to take this to the police. They’ll do something…
surely? Cade claims not wishing to harm me, but he’ll hurt those around me.
The blood on his hands from tonight proves all I need to know.
Involving the law is the only sane way to deal with a man without boundaries, even though he’ll be pissed.
I’m mad he broke in, so it’s nothing less than deserved.
Hopefully the cops believe me. They have to. If they do, what changes? If they don’t, it leaves me in danger. Or not, because he won’t hurt me. Somehow, I trust it deep down even while barely knowing him.
Is he even a bad person? He’s charming, but doesn’t seem bad. Was everything with him a ploy?
It doesn’t explain that when his lips brushed mine, an untamed jolt of power rocketed through me, demanding I press into him. That I open both my mouth and life and let him do whatever he wants.
MA thesis aside, I hated ending things with Cade. Had he not broken in tonight, stained with the blood of my date, maybe I’d have been thrilled to see him again. No matter how ridiculous, Cade nonetheless altered something in me from that first letter.
Months of pitiful attempts to erase him from my mind feel even more silly now. With him around, I won’t need to.
Whoa. Exhaustion clearly to the max degree has me insane. I have to turn him in. Have to stay far away from whoever he truly is. Have to because he’s a—
“You shouldn’t judge a person. Half of my appearance is to purposely give that impression to people. It’s called defence.” I said that to him—about myself. How am I supposed to do the same in return then to him?
With my mind running ragged in every direction, sleep eventually drags me away into the darkness.
Into a place Cade meets me in.
With my alarm, I roll to smack my phone quiet, something soft annoyingly right there, brushing my cheek. It’s soft, but not my blanket either.
“Ugh, Millie, off.” My hand swats but doesn’t find the furball. Rather, as my legs shift, she moves with me from her place by the end of the bed.
If not my cat, then… My lids flick open to the white flower resting beside me.
A calla lily.
“Oh my god.”
Gripping the flower, I shoot upright in bed, scanning the room for him. Cade came back. He’s the only man other than my dad to know I prefer these, and certainly the only one to ever have sent them.
There are two more calla lilies, one in the centre of my room and the second connecting the path to my doorway. The door, which is opened farther than it was when I went to bed.
“Fucking asshole.” I hiss the words through clenched teeth, praying he’s still in my house and overhears. That he knows what’s coming his way.
The trail I may be dumb to follow leads to the kitchen, where there’s another lying just inside the doorway. The rest are in a glass vase that’s normally kept in the cupboard above the fridge.
Not only did he return at some point in the night, but he ensured I knew he did. The build-your-own bouquet he’s scattered is reminiscent of the one from last year, and with a weight in my stomach, I walk to the table to grab the card sticking out from the flowers.
Be Mine.
You’re Mine.
It’s in the same handwriting I spent months poring over; the same slants to his letters; the same pressure where his pen dug in the hardest. There’s no question this time, just a blatant stated fact. A command my thumb brushes along.
Millie enters the room and rubs against my ankles, her tail winding in request of her morning treats. “What do I do about him, girl?” I murmur as I follow her request. If I have any hope of getting ready for work in peace, appeasing the animal is step one.
Her meow is in response to her treats, not my question, so I’m forced to go on without an answer.
To say my morning worsens isn’t a lie.
It seems Cade was a very busy person, as displayed by the second bouquet I discover when opening my front door to leave for work.
It’s smaller than the one he decorated my house with, made up of four red roses resting on top of the fresh inch of snow that fell overnight and dying every second it’s out here without care.
“You have to be fucking kidding me,” I growl, snatching up the flowers and retreating inside to toss them out.
A glance at my phone reassures me there’s five minutes until the bus’s arrival.
The stop for which is only across the street, giving me time to deal with this shit—so long as the bus doesn’t arrive early today, which it sometimes does.
Inside the kitchen, I slam the second set of flowers beside the vase holding his first. The rough motion draws a card from the bouquet, and I swear to fucking Christ—if there’s one more possessive comment, the flowers are getting shoved up his ass.
Sadly, my creativity regarding threats is a whole lot less fatal than his.
Except, as I read the words, everything about this one is different. Cade’s first note, albeit irritating, sent a heat through my sternum I’ll spend the day pretending doesn’t exist. Whereas this one freezes out that warmth for every wrong reason.
You’re beautiful
Beneath it, a small circled V is lightly etched.
Different kind of message. Different writing. Different flowers.
Cade sends calla lilies and declares his possessiveness like I’m an object. He doesn’t compliment. He also ensures I get the flowers directly, by breaking in and proving there isn’t anywhere to hide from, whereas these were left outside. A taunt without the legal ramifications.
So if not him, who the fuck sent me these?