Page 12 of My Stalker, My Protector
An alarm goes off somewhere in the apartment, a tri-tone jingle, causing Cash to stiffen on top of me. “What’s that?” I ask, breathlessly.
“Fuck.” He slams a fist into the headboard. “That’s my phone. It’s my final warning to get ready for the game. It starts in an hour. I should already be there warming up.” His forehead finds mine and he rolls it side to side. “Fucking you is the only reason I’d miss a game, Scout, but…” He brushes a hand over my hair while looking into my eyes. “I think you need a little time to get used to what we just discovered. Don’t you?”
Yes.Tears prick the backs of my eyelids and I nod.
“Then time is what you get,” he says, kissing me thoroughly, a rumble sounding in his throat. “Speaking of time, of course, I lose it with you. I could lose decades without noticing.”
My heart lifts and flutters.
But…
Wait.
Is he being sincere? Or is he getting into the head of my stalker?
I have no idea what’s real anymore. I only know what Iwantto be real.
If Cash’s affection and feelings are only make-believe…what have I just revealed to him about me? That I like being smothered and choked and called names that should make me recoil? What demons has he dragged out of me with his playacting?
“I guess you should hurry up and go, then,” I whisper, trying not to sound conflicted.
Crestfallen.
“You’re coming with me, angel.” He picks me up and carries me out of the room, back into the dining room where he settles me on the table, dressing me with single-minded intensity. “You comeeverywherewith me now.”
5
Cash
Ican’t concentrate on the upcoming game.
I’m standing in the outfield stretching, but all I can see is Scout in the seat behind the dugout, licking an ice cream. My breaths flow harshly to my ears, deafening me. I’m sweating, even though it’s a cool evening. Cool enough that there is a breeze fluttering the edges of Scout’s short, white pleated skirt. She’s all I can see. All I can think about.
This has been the case since I met her.
But it’s different now. My God, it’s very different.
For one, I never imagined she’d laugh with me. Welaughed. In that precious moment in my bedroom, I could see us married, living in a house surrounded by a white picket fence, a dog snoozing at our feet, a fat diamond on her finger.
I groan with pure ecstasy into my leather glove, willing the image to subside, before I get an erection in front of a crowd of thousands. All eyes are on me. I’m the chosen one, the shortstop with the golden bat, the player with the promise of ending up in the majors. Even now, my image and my stats are on the jumbotron, people are calling my name from the stands. But I’m not here. I’m back in bed with my girl. I’m feeling her giggle pass all the way through me…and stab me in the heart like a dagger.
Because as blissfully normal as that moment was, we are not normal.
I am not normal.
I’m Scout’s stalker. I’m violently and irrevocably obsessed with her.
Violent and sick enough to enjoy watching her struggle for breath and wonder if shedeservesto be scared as payback for sinking her claws into me so deeply. Ravaging me, ruining me, turning me into a beast that lives to lick her skin, put marks on it. Watch her squirm for pleasure. Suck her whimpers down my fucking throat, so I can own them forever.
Christ, I don’t even know myself anymore.
And even more crazy and unexpected, she doesn’t know herself anymore, either.
Scout enjoyed me being in control of her next breath.
Our sinister playtime excited her.
She was ready to fuck, ready foranythingI decided to do to her. In the space of an afternoon, I’ve become her Daddy. Her protector. Her man. She’s looking at me right now, licking that ice cream, and she must know it’s making me hot. Shemust.I make an excuse that I need to tape my fingers and leave the stretching circle, jogging to the dugout, saluting a group of students who chant my name as I pass. I have tunnel vision, though. See nothing but Scout.