I stop pacing long enough to take stock of her pale face, her chattering teeth. She’s scared. Might as well rip out my insides. Peyton experiencing fear is the last thing I want. It’s worse torture than the cock cage.
“Granger, you can’t keep me tied up forever,” she says, pulling on the restraints. “Please. I’m scared.”
“Scared?” I rip my fingers through my hair, frustration clawing at my throat. “Don’t you know I’d put a bullet between my own eyes before I hurt you?”
Processing that, she wets her lips. “I won’t call the police.”
“Peyton, the police are the last thing I’m concerned about.” My voice is threadbare, raw. “I just can’t have you running away from me. I’ll go insane.”
She goes limp on the bed and I can’t help it, her surrender turns my dick hard. I’ve never seen anything more luscious in my life than Peyton tied to my bed with her blouse unbuttoned to her navel, the skirt rucked up from struggling. Maybe I am sick. Maybe I’m a psychopath. Her fear horrifies me, but this…this offering she represents has a very different effect on my body.
A voice in the back of my head urges me to kiss her, fuck her until she gives in and understands this relationship is inevitable. Until she wants me back again. But my refusal to do that is what separates me from her stepbrother. I need her to need me back. I need her to look at me like she did when I showed up at the school. As if I was her savior. As if she couldn’t live without me.
“How long have you been following me?” She watches me carefully. “Did it start b-before that night on the road?”
“No.” I shake my head. “No, we met by chance. I turned the corner and there you were. A beautiful fairy. Mine to love, mine to keep safe.”
Her lips part on the word love. And I want to say more. Want to tell her exactly how deep my feelings run. Love? Love is only the tip of the iceberg. But I bite down hard on my tongue and tell myself not to dig myself a deeper hole.
“You’ve been dressing like the janitor so you can watch me,” she whispers, squeezing her eyes closed, tipping her head back on the pillow. “These last couple of days, I felt something odd. A tingle at the back of my neck.”
There’s something about the way she says the words in that throaty tone of voice…it’s how she called my name while I was planted inside of her. Curiously, I study her body language and find her thighs pressed together tightly, her stomach dipping and creating a hollow, as if her pussy is flexed and it’s uncomfortable for her. It’s too much to hope that she’s turned on by my stalking, though. It’s purely wishful thinking.
“After that math teacher asked you out, I couldn’t take any chances,” I say, turning away from her and sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I physically couldn’t do it. Let you dance off every morning looking so fucking sweet and pretty, knowing there would be men around who’d covet you. Allowing that would be like hammering a nail into my skull, Peyton.”
“Well you didn’t need to worry. The next time I saw Paul, he ran from the room as if I had the plague…” The bed springs creak behind me. “Did you have something to do with that?”
“Yes.” I look at her hard over my shoulder, unable to disguise my possessiveness. “And I don’t regret it.”
“You’re crazy,” she whispers, but her eyes turn slightly glassy, her legs shifting, rubbing together beneath the raised hem of her skirt.
Stop reading into everything she does. She thinks you’re crazy.
You are crazy.
I take several bracing breaths, searching my mind for a way to make her understand me, my actions. “Where I come from, the way I grew up, Peyton…” It’s unnatural to talk about my past. I haven’t done it before. Confided in anyone. “I spent most of my days starving, trying to find scraps just to stay alive. My parents were never home. They tried to make ends meet in the beginning, but feeding three kids on minimum wage is hard. It’s a daily grind. And when they lost those jobs and leaned heavily on alcohol, that’s where all the money went. In my house, in my neighborhood, if you wanted something, you had to fight for it. Power, food, money, sometimes my life. Same in prison. Everything is life or death. And then you…you appeared.” I dig my fingers into my knees, wishing I was touching her instead. “You’re the first person I’ve ever needed. I had to fight to keep you the only way I know how. Playing dirty. Playing for keeps. Playing not to lose you.”