Page 48 of Stalked By the Assistant Coach

“Red—"

“But you promised, and I’m sorry, ladybug, a promise is a promise. And I'm going to make you keep it. You’re mine, Kait.”

“You think I’m going to bring my things over?” I gasped.

I was obviously not thinking straight. I was turned on, standing in a room that was dedicated to me. My brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders. I had no idea what I had woken up to.

I’d gone to sleep wrapped up in Red’s arms knowing we were going to be living together only to wake up to… I looked around the room. To this!

A nightmare? No. I didn’t think so, at least.

Or maybe I hadn’t decided what to make of what he’d been doing for so long.

“You really think I’m going to move in?” I asked softly when our eyes connected. He stood taller. Confidence and arrogance radiated off him.

“I do.” He nodded, bringing my attention back to him. “You promised.” His reminder made me shiver. “You said no matter what.”

I opened and shut my mouth before I looked around again. I tried to make sense of what I’d woken up to. There was a bed. A desk. A computer with screens showing a live feed of my bedroom. I stared at the boxes in the corner marked Pictures. Then I noticed the small pinprick marks left on the now empty walls. Every piece seemed to come together, yet one plus one felt like a million.

He’d had pictures on the wall.

Pictures he had boxed up to hide away from me.

Maybe with you here, I won’t need the room. His comment from earlier replayed in my mind. He’d started to put things away because he hadn’t wanted me to find this. You would run away if you knew how damn in love I’ve been with you.

“The picture in the frame.” I licked my lips. “The one of us, that wasn't there before.”

“No,” he answered even though I hadn’t asked a question.

“You had pictures of us on the wall?” I pointed and was surprised to see him staring at me. A dark brow rose high. He was shirtless, only wearing a loose pair of navy-blue basketball shorts that hung low from his thick, muscular body. He was distractingly beautiful, but I tried to focus. Red’s bearded jaw clenched, and he somehow seemed bigger, taller. Stronger.

Like he was standing at his full height for the first time.

“Of us. Of you,” he shared, but for some goddamn reason, it still didn’t make sense. None of it. From the things he kept in this room to the way I wanted to react.

I knew how I should have felt.

I should have been freaked out.

My best friend, the man I had been in love with for almost two decades, had been stalking me. Lurking in the shadows, deep in love with me. Waiting for some perfect moment that only existed in his head to make us an item.

I nodded, trying to catch my breath as awareness started to creep in. The room had a lock on the outside. A room I was inside with him. I glanced at the door behind me.

I should run.

I should want to run.

But even though I knew the moment I tried, there was no way I’d even cross the threshold, part of me, a very dark disturbed part of me, didn’t want to. Or maybe I do?

Maybe I wanted to run and have him catch me?

“You won’t make it to the front door,” he reassured me, somehow reading my thoughts.

He leaned against the desk. Anyone who looked at him would think he was completely relaxed as he tossed one long leg over the other and crossed his long arms over his broad chest.

But I knew him better.

Or I had thought I did.