I didn’t put the camera in her room to watch her change or sleep like some sick fuck, though, now that I thought about it…

Wait, no. I needed to stop right the hell there. That road led nowhere good. This invasion of privacy was bad enough without adding sexual predator to my list of crimes.

The reason I put the camera in her room was to gauge her reaction and learn whether or not she meant what she said in all her comments. Was she actually into the same dark shit that I was, or was she just a tourist?

Judging from her open look of horror, she was the latter. Which meant I needed to start implementing my exit strategy. I had orders to cancel, plans to scrap, and cover-up work to do. I’d taken every safety precaution I could think of to obscure my digital footprint, and knew of only three hackers in the US capable of tracing my steps and, maybe, if they were lucky and avoided all the traps I’d left in my wake, finding me. Two of them worked for the NSA, and another one was currently in jail, so I felt safe in my work for now. Plus, I doubted the local cops would go so far as to call in the feds over a run-of-the-mill home invasion in which nothing got destroyed or stolen.

Even my social media account was secure, or as secure as it could be. Anyone who hacked it would be led straight to a mid-thirtysomething dad in Utah with a secret mask kink. He was a real guy named Carl with an actual mask fetish and a matching clandestine thirst trap account his wife didn’t even know about. Our tattoos weren’t the same, and he filmed different content, but the amount of work it would take for cops to figure all that out would give me ample time to cover the rest of my tracks and disappear offline.

Sorry, Carl, but sacrifices had to be made.

I should probably feel worse for the guy than I did, but, like boundaries, empathy was hard for me. Maybe that’s where I’d gone wrong with Aly. I’d been so excited about the prospect of living out our shared fantasy that I hadn’t stopped to consider things from her perspective. What would it be like for a woman living alone to realize a stranger had invaded her home?

I popped up a second tab and split my screen, watching Aly duck down and look under her bed, gun leading the way while I typed in a quick internet search.

The results were not good. Yup, this was where I’d fucked up. According to Google, Aly was probably terrified, angry, and felt like her home was compromised, violated even, turning from a sanctuary to yet another place where she felt unsafe.

How did I make up for such a colossal misstep? Roses? Men in movies and TV were always sending roses. That didn’t seem like enough, though. Maybe if I sent a lot of them?

I popped open another tab, pausing to watch Aly clear the rest of her room like a woman who knew what she was doing. It was hot. Despite her apparent fear, she moved confidently and competently, like she had formal training. And maybe she did. Maybe that self-defense course she took taught her how to do this.

I made a mental note to hack into their cameras and check as I bought out a local floral shop using someone else’s money. Theft, I didn’t feel so bad about – especially when my victim was a wealthy criminal who’d recently tried to steal millions of dollars from one of my company’s clients. I’d rebuffed their infantile attempt and slid right into their own system unseen, learning all sorts of interesting things about them, including their credit card information.

Onscreen, Aly finished clearing her bedroom and en suite and then strode out the door. I cranked my speakers as loud as they would go, hoping to hear if she called the cops while out of sight. Several minutes passed in near silence, with only the soft sounds of movement to tell me she was working her way through the rest of the small house.

I cursed myself for only placing one camera instead of two. What was she doing? How was she feeling? Was there any way to come back from this, or had I lost my chance with her already?

“Are you okay, Fred?” I heard her ask, and I immediately perked up, wondering who the fuck she was talking to.

Anger roared through me out of nowhere as I waited for Fred’s response. There was already another guy in her place? Had she planned to meet him there after work? I didn’t hear any doors open or shut, and –

“He didn’t hurt you while he was here, did he?” she asked.

A soft meow echoed out of my speakers.

“You were trying to warn me when I came home, weren’t you?”

Another meow.

Oh. Fred was her cat. My jealousy deflated, and I unclenched my hands from where they had a death grip on the arms of my computer chair. Wow, okay. This knee-jerk rage was new. And probably not a good thing. I’d have to keep an eye on it. I might not want to hurt Aly or her cat, but the thought of another guy in there with her had sent me straight to kill-him-with-knives.

My speakers went quiet, and I sat straining my ears as I waited for some sign that Aly was, I don’t know, okay? Or pissed? Or scared? Anything, really. Not seeing her was a problem after all the nights I’d watched her through the hospital’s cameras this week. She wore every emotion on her face, and I’d spent my sleepless hours learning each one.

Finally, she walked back into view carrying Fred in one arm and a dining room chair in the other, sporting a look of sheer determination. She set Fred on her bed and shut the bedroom door, bracing the chair beneath the knob and barricading herself inside.

I wouldn’t be canceling that anonymous purchase after all if a chair was what she resorted to in order to protect herself. She needed all the home defense equipment I’d bought her. Why didn’t she already have it? Her neighborhood had a relatively low crime rate compared to other parts of the city, and she could clearly defend herself, but hadn’t I just proven how easy it was for someone truly determined to break into her house?

I knew it wasn’t about money. Her mother’s life insurance policy had paid for nursing school and most of the downpayment on her home, and she made a respectable income thanks to her salary and all the overtime she pulled at the hospital. Had she merely grown complacent?

Maybe I’d done her a favor by breaking in and showing her the error of her ways.

I grimaced. Yikes. No to any more thoughts like that. I was obviously trying to rationalize what I’d done and lessen my guilt over it, which I shouldn’t, because if Google had taught me anything tonight, it was that I’d royally fucked up.

That revelation was confirmed when Aly strode to her dresser and swapped her gun for the wine she’d left there earlier, chugging it like a beer at a frat party. The glass shook in her fingers as she set it back down, and I cringed. Because, fuck. Her fear turned me on. I’d been avoiding acknowledging how aroused I was, but the way my dick strained against my gym shorts as Aly visibly trembled was impossible to ignore.

Okay, so I didn’t want to hurt her, but I did want to scare her. Potentially troubling but far from the worst-case scenario. And really, didn’t that confirm something I’d already known about myself? For fuck’s sake, I regularly covered my chest in stage blood and held a butcher knife while sitting in the dark and staring into a camera like I just got done slaughtering an entire family.

I got off on all the comments from people telling me they were both turned on and slightly terrified by my content. Those comments stirred something inside me, making me feel powerful, feral, and dangerous, like the world was mine for the taking. The fact that there were so many others into my specific kinks also normalized my desires. I didn’t feel wrong for liking mask play or like I toed the line of dangerous territory that skirted too close to what my dad had done.

This felt like it was all for me. And that’s why I wanted Aly to be all for me. Not just because she was a beautiful woman with a mask kink who regularly propositioned my alter ego, but because, technically, she’d stalked me first. Or she’d tried to if the search history I’d discovered when I hacked into her laptop was anything to go by.