“Hang up,” he says in a callous voice and I drop the phone, my jaw slacking.
“Stan...” I say carefully, my heart starting to thrash in my chest as he turns his body toward me and I lick my lips. In my periphery, I see the letters, the ones written by hand with a red pen.
Those words. So explosive with pain and longing. Obsession.
“You wrote the letters, didn’t you?” I slowly start backing away and he doesn’t blink when he looks at me. “You sent the roses...”
Swallowing I add, “You spied on me in the woods.” He was the one who made me feel chased and then when I ran into him he made me feel like I had been running to him all along.
He doesn’t deny it, prowling over to me with a frozen expression as I keep backing away until I hit a wall and I let out a whimper. The sound makes his eyes flare.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says in a voice filled with agony. “You don’t know what it does to me.” He raises his hand to brush my hair but I flinch and he drops it, his fist clenching. “Don’t be scared.”
His words are strained. Despairing. He sounds like a man who loves me so much that my heart does such a fast pump that it hurts.
I shake my head, trying to ignore the spikes of adrenaline. “B...but you orchestrated all of this, just so you could get close to me.”
“And I’d do it all again. It was worth it. It was all worth it.” His face distorts in torment and zealousness. He gives me my phone. “Go ahead, all mine. Call the cops on me. Tell them about the screwed up guy living in your basement and how much he frightens you and disgusts you and makes you cry bitter tears because you let him fuck you.”
My head spins. All I can think about is Stan behind bars. The sheer thought fills me with so much dread that it feels like being slashed by my knees. I push his hand away, the slight touch making a thrill rush through my veins.
He looks surprised and he quickly drops the phone as if expecting me to change my mind. But I won’t. I can’t.
“If you want to run, then I’ll let you go even if it will kill me. I’ll always wait for you in the background, hoping that one day you’ll come back to me. But if you stay..,” his eyes turn black, “your life will be in my hands.”
Give myself over to him like that? Completely.
He touches my lips with his fingertips and this time I don’t flinch. This time I melt. How can I ever say no to him? I know there’s good in him, I can see it, feel it and it’s what I choose to focus on.
“I love you,” he gravels, his jet black eyes turning sharp with emotions, “I love you so much it turns me inside out.”
I know better than to deny it because I know it’s not a lie. Inhaling as it feels like I can’t get air from how hard my pulse is beating, I shove a little at Stan but he doesn’t budge. His features stern with displeasure until I give him a pleading glance and he reluctantly moves.
“Where are you going?” he says in a low voice but his words drift when I open the door to the basement and I throw a look over my shoulder, my eyes telling him to follow.
With a somber look on his face like he thinks I’ve lost any sense for self-preservation, he follows and once we’re down in the basement, I shiver when the door closes behind us.
“Lock it,” I breathe and Stan raises his brows, hesitating but then something flips in his gaze and he locks it. Once he told me I was fearless. I don’t know if it’s that true but I know one thing for sure and that is...
“Maybe this is wrong of me,” I whisper, “but I don’t care. I need you; I want you because I can never want anyone else...”
He’s ruined me for the rest of the world. And he knows it.
He lets out strange sound, low and primitive, deep inside of his chest and his hands cup my face. They’re cold but I know his heart is the only warm thing, I can be too close to without getting burned.
Tugging at the rope around my robe, I let it pool down my feet and I’m a little ashamed that I’m so aroused. But my body is ready for him. My heart is ready for him.
I know who he is now.
And I’m going to embrace it.
12
Stanmore
It’s what I’ve wanted for so long.This. Me and her and no walls betweenus.Just the honest truth, no matter how crooked it is. My heart is thrashing in my chest, my skin feeling too tight and uncomfortable for my body.
She didn’t run away. She didn’t scream. She didn’t pound me with her fists and yelled that she hated me. I thought she would. I thought she at least would demand to know how I could do this to her.