Chapter 3
Shadow
“Damon!” Big Mike shouts out, the wicked grin he gives me missed by the woman who has been the sole reason behind the raging hard-on I have had for the last hour. Fuck, the last couple of months is more like it.
Aside from the tight gym attire stuck to her glowing post-workout skin, her not-so-subtle stare on me the entire time I have been here has me on edge.
An edge that has images floating around in my mind of me throwing her over my lap right here, pulling those cute pink spandex down, and slapping that delicious ass until it matches her cheeks.
I pull my hoodie on, making sure it covers the extent of my desire.
“Damon, I want you to meet someone.” Big Mike approaches with my obsession in tow, his shit-eating grin telling me I wouldn’t like this interaction.
He knew what she was to me. Knew the insatiable fascination I had. While I wasn’t as obvious as her in her constant perusal of me, it didn’t mean I wasn’t fucking smitten with the woman standing slightly behind Big Mike, her cheeks ablaze.
Certifiably deranged. Some might even say that I was a stalker. While an element of my business involved following people, it never filtered into my private life.
Not until one night in a club when a girl cried on my chest. The tear-stained shirt was tucked away in a box, a souvenir from our first meeting.
Since that day, I have made it my mission to discover everything about her—my Sienna.
“This is Sienna. Sienna, this is Damon.” Big Mike's introduction in his jovial tone underplays this moment.
The air in the room becomes thick, and I can see her throat working to swallow, her mouth as dry as mine.
My eyes squint in warning when he looks like he is about to follow that up with me being the co-owner of this gym. Hence, I directed her this way in one of my notes—just another way to watch her and to watch her watch me.
“Hi, um, it’s great to meet another regular here.” Her voice is just like I remember—soft, sultry, delicate—all at once. It's a conundrum that a woman so innocent can have a voice that calls to the wicked.
She steps forward, rubbing her hand against her thigh before holding it out awkwardly.
I step forward, my long legs eating the distance as I stand in front of her, my large hand engulfing hers. Fuck, her hand is so soft. An obvious contrast to my rough one.
I don’t say a word. Just stare at her until she starts squirming. She looks at Big Mike for help, and the smile on his face tells me he is well aware of the tension between us and will do nothing to alleviate it.
“Listen, Damon, you said you were looking for someone to help out at the club. Well, Sienna here is looking for a part-time job, so what do you say?” Big Mike asks, the wink he gives me reminds me that later, he will pay.
He knew she wasn’t here by chance and that it had everything to do with me. Why the fuck I told him these things, I don’t know. Perhaps because he is the closest thing to a friend that I have.
Maybe also because he runs this place all by himself, and I don’t have to do jack shit. Whatever it was, I was rethinking our relationship.
“A club? Oh really, you own a club. How exciting. I actually went to a club a couple of months ago. Met a stranger there. He was so nice to me. Helped me in a moment of need. I just wish I knew where to find him. To say thank you.” While telling this story, she looks at me closely, leaning forward even to see if I react.
“Well,” laughs Big Mike, “this must be fate then. You get someone to help you,” Big Mike says, pointing at me, “and you get to look for that stranger. Win-win all around.” His gaze jumps between Sienna and me, his smile growing as the seconds tick by.
“Ahh, Bennie, so good to see you!” Big Mike shouts to a regular who has just walked in. “I’ll be right back.” And with those words, he leaves, his ruse to talk to Bennie to leave us alone only apparent to me. Sienna looks at his retreating figure with alarm before her gaze returns to me.
“Soooo,” she drawls out awkwardly, her hand, which I have reluctantly released, clasping the other one in front of her.
Her big, green, Lake Tovel-colored eyes filled with innocence, looking at me expectantly.
Fuck, this was a bad idea. But having her at the club would mean I could keep her close. Get to know her outside of the file I already had on her or the snooping I had already done.
“Come,” is all I say as I walk towards the gym entrance. She follows like a puppy, almost running to keep up with me .
“Where to?”
“To my club. For an interview. You will work, and I will see if you are a good fit.” A good fit. Fuck. As I gaze over at her, all I can think about is how well my dick will fit into that sweet little mouth. She wouldn’t take all of me, but she would look good trying.
“Right now?” she asks, her voice strained as we continue out the gym. I nod at Big Mike, who greets us both as we leave.
“Do you want the job or not?” I stop in my tracks, eyeing her and hoping, for the sake of her virtue, that she says no.
“Yes. I just need to go home, shower, and change. Unless this is okay?” Her question is accompanied by her looking down, my eyes following as I examine her appearance.
While I loved this look, I ventured it would cause issues where we were going, and I wasn’t in the mood to fight off a swarm of perving men. Though, spandex or not, that fate might be inevitable. This woman was perfection.
“We will stop on the way.” I turn, continuing to my car parked in a dark corner of the lot.
“You are coming to my house?” she squeaks out, stopping just where the light ends before fading into the shadow of the dark where I am now standing.
Leaning against my truck, I watch her grapple with what to do.
Good. She has some sense of danger. She should follow that instinct and stay far away from me.
“Do you have a problem with that?” I keep my tone passive and my features calm, placing the ball in her court.
Say yes and leave, I encourage mentally, hoping she can see that this is where I live—in the shadows. And once she steps into the dark, I might not let go of her. I might consume her, swallow her up whole.
The gears are going, and her teeth chew the inside of her cheek. As I am about to get in and leave, she slowly nods and takes the step that seals her fate—the step toward me.
I move around my black pickup and open the door for her. She hesitates, looking me in the eye before dipping her head and climbing in—a beautiful butterfly captured in my web. I slam the door shut, smiling to myself.
This was easier than I thought. For months, I have been watching her and sending her notes and gifts.
I knew everything about her—what she ate for breakfast, what movies she liked, and even her favorite toothpaste—the eco-friendly version she buys from an online shop.
She donates to a charity monthly, pays her taxes on time, and doesn’t need this job based on her account balance. Boredom, perhaps?
Climbing in, I start the engine and look at her expectantly. The pulse in her throat is beating frantically, and she is rubbing her palms up and down her thighs. She is nervous.
“What?” she asks, when I sit there, staring at her.
“Where to?” I knew exactly how far her house was from here in miles. I had driven and walked it so many times that I could get there with my eyes closed.
“That way. I’m actually within walking distance from here.” Her hands wring out her gym towel nervously.
She blushes when I catch her looking at me. Fuck. She is magnificent.
Her body has changed since I met her at Nero’s. Her time in the ring with my best trainer, Ria, has created more muscle. But Sienna's shape meant that her curves remained no matter how much muscle she gained.
Her ass was firm and round. The pink spandex she wore cupped them in a way that had the regulars at the gym jacking off in the changing room to thoughts of her.
Coupled with the tight pink tank top and gym bra that hugged her c-cups, their delicious jiggling in the ring and on the treadmill further spank bank material.
I knew because I heard them talk. It was only Big Mike's warning that killing off our bread and butter would raise suspicion that they were even alive. God forbid they ever cancel their membership. All bets were off then.
Pulling my gaze from her face, I follow her directions the short distance to her house on the corner of a road.
Her deaf elderly neighbor on one side suffered from the onset of amnesia while the businessman on the other side was barely there as he traveled internationally for work.
The perfect neighbors for a fucking nut job like me.
I pull up in front of her house, killing the engine and climbing out.
This would be the first time coming into her house invited. While I thought the feeling would be like a voyeur who finally gets an invitation to join in and can't get his dick up any longer, it isn’t. Excitement buzzes under my skin.
Before I can get to her passenger door, she opens it.
“Don’t.” Her eyes widen with surprise, and another emotion flashes so quickly across her face that I can’t identify it.
“Don’t what?” she asks, schooling her features as she steps back.
“Don’t open your own car door when I am here, Sienna.” It’s a warning.
I expect anything but the smile that stretches across her face. Fuck. It floors me. It lights her whole face up and a bit of my black heart.
“You’re old-fashioned. That’s so lovely.”
You’re old-fashioned. That’s so lovely.
Her words repeat in my mind. Over and over.
Instead of feeling like a bucket of ice water being poured over my head, which I expect, as those words have never been used by anyone ever concerning me, a warm spot forms in the center of my chest.
Perplexed. Incredulous. Stunned. Words to describe how I feel and ones I don’t feel often. Definitely not this strange warm feeling in my fucking chest cavity where nothing is supposed to reside.
“We don’t have all day,” I grind out, trying to cover these new feelings that she has managed to pull from my black depths in just—I look at my watch—seven minutes and thirty-two seconds of being in her company.
My tone does nothing to her. She smiles and then heads down the cobblestone path to her brightly painted, multicolored front door.
My eyes catch one of my latest gifts hanging from her porch. A wind chime made from different colored Capiz shells, the same colors as her pots. A rainbow for my rainbow. That is how I saw her. It was how she appeared to me in the club.
Red hair, orange and yellow earrings, green eyes, blue, violet, and indigo dress. My rainbow in the darkness.
She unlocks her door and tentatively invites me in.
If she only knew. I have seen everything. Been everywhere. The only unexplored area is the owner.
“Do you want something to drink?” We stand in her living room, her hands clasped in front of her as she looks at me expectantly.
Would ‘your pussy’ be an acceptable answer to this question? Probably not.
“Water.” It’s the only drink she has in her fridge.
“Um, what should I wear?” Nothing. That’s what I want to say, but instead, I tell her jeans and a top.
Sienna is one of those women who would make a fucking burlap sack look good.
Which was a problem for me, because she’d stick out like a fucking lightbulb in the place I was taking her to.
A literal flame for the fucking moths. I just prayed they kept their hands to themselves, or else they would find themselves shopping for prosthetics in the near future.
Thoughts of other men even touching Sienna make the slumbering green monster in me unfurl while my eyes find the picture of her late husband on the side table.
His face was everywhere. The two of them always smiling at each other. The one in the passage of them on their wedding day irritated me the most. The love in Sienna's eyes shone through, captured by the camera with one button click.
It gnawed at me that someone else had earned that. Someone else got to have that before me.
What had it taken? I didn’t have a pleasant personality or a loving demeanor. I didn’t look like I mowed the lawn on weekends or helped old ladies cross the road. James looked like that. Like a fucking boy scout.
It’s probably a blessing he is dead. If I had met her when she was with him, there's no telling what I would have done. Just as well. She would have ended up hating me.
Competing with a dead man was a new experience for me. I wonder, and not for the first goddamn time, if Sienna still loves him. The thought makes me jealous, and I laugh out loud. The situation is absurd, but the feeling is no less real than if he were alive.
Restlessness gnawed at me, and the need to see her pulled my feet down the hallway toward her room—the one at the end, with the four-poster bed and floral bedspread.
I already had four pieces of perfectly measured rope, long enough to comfortably tie her arms and legs to the corners. Just the thought of her sprawled out, unable to move, squirming while I ravage her, has my dick twitching.
The problem was that as much as I had plans to ruin her, a nagging voice in the back of my mind was telling me something else. Whispering that I was a fool. That she would destroy me. And fuck if I wasn’t looking forward to that.