Sunshine and The Stalker

“Tell me to stop,” I choke out. Tell me to be a better man.

But she does nothing of the sort.

“Please,” she begs. So many words hang thick in the air. She wants more than a brutal fucking over a couch.

She wants everything.

And I don’t know how to give it to her.

I fist her dress in one hand under her coat and dig my fingers into her fleshy hip with the other. Pound after pound, I try to fuck into her my feelings. My thoughts. My desires. But wordless proclamations mean nothing.

“Cerys,” I hiss.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

She’s driven me to utter insanity.

There’s no coming back.

“I know,” she sobs. “I feel it too.”

With her sad words, I groan out my release. I can’t be the man she needs. I’ll never be. Which is exactly why I need to get my dick out of her fertile cunt. But I can’t. I drain myself inside of her. Wishing and hoping and praying for futures I’ll never have. And when I’ve had her completely, I pull out and stagger away.

On shaky legs, she stands and turns her teary eyes my way. I stuff my wet cock back into my slacks as she pulls her panties back up into place. Her eyes plead with mine. Beg me to crawl out of my head and into her arms.

“I could cook you dinner,” she murmurs, her last attempt to save me from myself.

I reach my hand forward. My fisted hand because I’m so fucking furious at what an asshole I am. She grips my fist and kisses my middle knuckle. Her fingers uncurl my own and guide me to cup her jaw.

“James, say yes,” she pleads, her tears leaking out and soaking my flesh.

My thumb swipes one of her tears. “We’ll see.”

She swallows and nods.

I watch her leave, and this time, I don’t follow.

“I want you to cook me all my meals,” I mutter long after she’s gone from my home. “Even breakfast. I’d eat breakfast for you.”

Turning, I wait for her. Soon, in the middle of the snowstorm, a flash of yellow dances across the street. And before she walks into her building, she turns to look up. I doubt she can even see me from down there. Regardless, I palm the glass with one hand and rest my forehead to it.

“I want you to come back. I want you to stay.”

But my words go unheard.

10

Cerys

As soon as I step inside the apartment, I shrug off my drenched coat, hanging it against the door to dry. Shoving off my shoes, I leave them at the entrance. Silence greets me. It’s more stifling today than it ever was before. Dad isn’t home. Nobody is here for me to come home to.

For five years since Mom died, he’s been gone. Hidden away in his office or in Olivia’s bed. He gave up on me a long time ago. But it’s not that which now causes tears to sting my eyes. No, this time it’s the man across the street.

James.

Even his name sends a pain so acute straight to my heart. As if a needle is prodding at the thudding muscle in my chest. Swallowing the emotion balled up in my throat, I pad over to the kitchen. Opening the fridge, I stare at the contents.

My mind flits back to moments ago when I looked into his eyes, seeing the agony so clear in his gaze only solidified my want of him. I want to fix him. It’s impossible to change someone. There’s no guarantee that once they’re healed they’ll stay with you, but something shifted between us last night.

Strange how you can meet someone who burrows their way into your very soul in one night. It wasn’t the sex, which at first I believed it was. No. It was so much more than that.

His touch, the way he spoke to me, one moment he was wide open, a gaping abyss of melancholy and guilt, and the next, he would close up shop as if it’s five p.m. on a Friday afternoon.

If I’d only found him earlier, a few seconds would’ve made a difference. Maybe I could’ve spoken to him. Made him see I wanted to be there.

The shrill ring of my mobile startles me from my thoughts, and I shut the silver door of the refrigerator I still had open. With a quick glance at my screen, I notice it’s my best friend.

The problem with speaking to her is she’ll know something happened. We’ve been friends for almost ten years. Saskia has been beside me through everything from braces to my first crush on the most popular boy in school.

All of that was welcome. It was the growing pains most girls go through, but this . . . this is vastly different. I had sex with a man old enough to be my father. A man who’s so broken he can’t even ask me to stay and have breakfast with him.