Picking her up off the floor, I gently untie her wrists and bundle her under the covers, my heart rapping against my ribcage. And when I climb into the bed beside her and she tucks her head under my chin, I’m the happiest man alive.
That doesn’t mean I’m letting my guard down.
Not when I can still hear her words ringing in my head.
I d-don’t know if I want to let myself be okay with this. I don’t know what that means about me. I’m scared of who I’ll become…
I band an arm around her, my body poised to chase her if she tries to escape.
Chapter Seven
Peyton
My phone buzzes on the nightstand, waking me up from the deepest, most boneless sleep of my life. I’m not even sure how or when my phone was placed there, but Granger must have grabbed it on the way out of my classroom, since the last place I remember seeing it was on my desk.
I try to reach for the phone, but the muscular male arm around my midsection refuses to budge, and helplessly, I sink back into the warmth of him. It’s so simple to let the contentedness take hold, safety and security making me almost drowsy.
But I fight against it, forcing my eyes to stay open.
I’m in bed with a man who stalked me. Based on how he’s holding me now, the possessive way he spoke to me, I don’t see him stopping.
And it excites me.
Makes me feel needed and important for the first time in my life.
More than anything, I want to ignore the warning voice in the back of my head telling me this is dangerous and let Granger consume me. He gives my body unimaginable pleasure. He loves me. Wants to care for me and protect me.
With the deepest recesses of my soul…I want to let him.
I want to give myself over to this obsession I feel building inside of me. It’s not one-sided. I’ve been fascinated with him to an unhealthy degree since the beginning—I just didn’t realize it. Didn’t know what the hot quaking of my body meant. Or the constant, rupturing sensation in my chest. But I know now that our deep, abiding fascination is a two-way street. Now what am I going to do about it?
Let myself get carried away?
Or break free before I end up in a dark, co-dependent, sex-fueled relationship with a man who spied on me, followed me, all but admitted he’d been fantasizing about pinning me to the floor, covering my mouth and taking me without mercy?
Realizing I’ve grown wet between my thighs, I struggle for focus.
What is the right thing to do for me? Stay or go?
As if Granger senses my thoughts, he stirs behind me, that arm tightening ever so slightly. Almost like he doesn’t want me to notice.
And I like it.
I like him holding me as if he’s ready to fight to the death to keep me.
I shouldn’t, though. I shouldn’t be breathless and achy over his treatment.
“Who would be calling you this early in the morning?” Granger asks in my ear, his voice deceptively calm.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “Can I look?”
When his sex thickens against my backside, I sense he liked me asking for permission. Oh God, I liked it, too. I loved it. So much that I can almost feel my pupils dilating, my nerve endings zapping. “Yes,” he says, finally, but he keeps a firm hold on the back of my neck as I lean toward the side table to retrieve the phone.
“It’s the school,” I murmur, frowning at the screen. “I hope nothing is wrong. They left me a voicemail.”
“Listen to it.” His open mouth glides along the breadth of my shoulders, making my eyelids flutter. “On speakerphone.”
I nod jerkily, tapping the screen and settling the phone back onto the table. I’m stunned when I hear the principal’s voice sounding grave on the recording. “Yes, hello. This is Principal Laughlin from the Royal Oak Academy. Miss Pruitt, if you’re listening to this, we know you’ve been taken. The security cameras captured footage of your abduction last night. We have sent the police to your apartment to determine if you’re there.” He clears his throat. “If this is Miss Pruitt’s captor, please return her home safely. We have your imagine on camera and the police will be much more lenient if you cooperate.”
The voicemail ends.
Neither one of us breaths, but the tension coils in the man behind me.
“The school has this address?” he asks mildly.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I updated their records when I moved.”
“So they’re coming. Here.”
Without saying the words out loud, I know we’re thinking the same thing. The police are under the impression that Granger abducted me—and to be fair, they aren’t wrong. He caught me when I ran, put me over his shoulder, took me home and tied me up. But I have a choice to make. I can allow the police to believe Granger is my abductor and free myself from these addictive shackles.