That didn’t mean I was ready to stop toying with her yet. Our game had just gotten started, and as much as I wanted to stay here and watch her fall asleep, I was excited to make the next move and see how she reacted.

“Hey,” I said, tilting her chin up to see her eyes.

Her expression softened, turning into something my traitorous mind tried to tell me was longing. “Yeah?”

“I’m gonna go so you can eat and then sleep in peace.”

Her face fell, and I probably shouldn’t have felt so triumphant at seeing her open disappointment, but I couldn’t help it. Aly didn’t want me to leave. Good. It might not have been a declaration of her undying love, but it felt like the first step toward getting there.

I leaned down and bumped my masked forehead against hers. “I meant what I said earlier. You were perfect. The hottest thing I’ve seen in my fucking life, and the next time I get the chance, I’m going to find some way to make you come even harder.”

Her eyes flashed wide. “Is that safe?”

I chuckled. “Only one way to find out. You in?”

She let out a shaky breath and grinned up at me. “Fuck it. Yeah, I’m in.”

“Good. I’ll see you later, baby.”

I turned to leave, but she surprised me by grabbing my hand. “Wait a second. I want to make sure it’s healing okay.”

“I was joking about the infection,” I said.

She shot me A Look. “I know that, but I would never forgive myself if I didn’t check and something went wrong.”

I flinched as she tugged up the bandage and then poked and prodded the area around my wound, testing the skin and then leaning in close to inspect the stitches. “It looks okay. Have you been following the instructions I gave you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

She released my hand and shook her head at me. “Then I guess you’re free to go.”

I snagged my backpack from her chair but paused before her on the way out to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear, unable to stop myself. It was impossible to have her so close and not touch her. “Take care of our son while I’m gone,” I said, forcing myself away. “And don’t give him any more bacon. He’s had enough.”

Her laughter followed me out of the room. “You are so presumptuous!”

I paused and leaned back through the doorway to have an excuse to look at her one last time, perched on her bed in her prim pajamas, balancing the food I made her in her lap, dark hair tumbling around her, sunlight streaming through the cracks in her blinds.

“Presumptuous?” I said. “Nah. I noticed how you look at me and decided not to fight your inevitable claiming.”

She chucked a pillow at my head.

I laughed and ducked out of the way, pausing to say goodbye to Fred before turning off her front door camera and leaving.

I tugged my mask off as soon as I stepped outside, sucking in my first unincumbered breath in over an hour. God, it felt good to be out of that thing. I was going to scrub my face raw when I got home because, otherwise, I’d probably end up breaking out.

I pulled the hood of my jacket up to hide from Aly’s view if she decided to peek out her window, then turned my back to her house and strode down the front walk, pausing to wave at her next-door neighbor, Wendy, who was out getting her mail.

Ten minutes later, I was in my car, heading back into the city. My phone was propped on the dash, showing Aly sitting in the middle of her bed beside her half-eaten breakfast while she stared intently at her open laptop, tracking me. I grinned and palmed the quarter-sized device she’d hidden in my bag. It was good that I’d been watching her, or I would have stumbled into her trap.

See, this was why you had to keep your eye on women. They were always up to no good, invading your privacy, pushing right past the boundaries you set for them, with no care for things like societal norms or laws. What next? She broke into my house?

I chuckled at my own bad joke as I turned right and drove east for several blocks before turning left. I went north for two blocks, watching my map so I knew when to make a U-turn and drive back to the street I’d turned off. I got onto it again and headed east for two more blocks, writing out the letter L before making another carefully timed left, heading north again for two blocks, and then making more lefts until I spelled out the letter O.

“What the fuck is he doing?” Aly asked, leaning close to her screen.

I was grinning so hard it hurt now. This tracker brand came with a trace on it so you could watch everywhere it went, which meant that any second now, she would realize what I was up to.

Fred jumped onto the bed beside her as I made another left, but she intercepted him before he could reach her forgotten piece of bacon.

“Does he think I’m trailing him or something?” she asked. “Is he trying to lose me?”

I made yet another left, drove for two blocks, then made a U-turn and went back down the same street I’d just come up.

“No,” Aly said.

My shoulders shook as I tried to hold back my laughter.

She grabbed the edge of her laptop and shook it, startling Fred. “Don’t you dare take another left.”

I took another left and gunned it, cracking my window to drop her tracker onto the road, leaving her staring at what I’d spelled out for her.

“LOL?” she yelled. “LOL, you motherfucker?”

God bless the city planners who’d decided to lay these streets out in the grid pattern that made what I’d just done possible. This was, perhaps, the proudest moment of my life. If I died tomorrow, it would be with the knowledge of this one perfect prank.

Aly’s head whipped up, her gaze locking onto the camera. “Damn it. He watched me while making breakfast?” She slid off the bed and stalked toward the device. “Why? I was only a room away from him. Wait. Are you watching me right now? You must be.” She crouched down to look into the camera, which, in a happy coincidence, gave me a great view straight down her shirt.

Hello, boobs. I’ve missed you.

“I bet you’re real proud of yourself right now, Josh,” Aly said.

I jerked my gaze back up to hers. Uh-oh.

“You think I don’t know who you are, but I do,” she said, looking furious. “None of your bullshit threw me off. In fact, it did nothing but confirm my suspicions. I tried to do this the nice way, beat you at your own game, but fuck it. You’re not playing fair, so neither will I. Guess what? I plucked a few pieces of hair off your sweatshirt while rubbing your back yesterday, and if you think I’m not going to DNA test them against the bloody bandages I stashed in my freezer, you’re dead-ass wrong.” She winked. “Later, Boo.”

The screen went black as she ripped the camera from the socket.

Well, that just happened.

Unfortunately for Aly, I’d grabbed that sweatshirt from Tyler’s dirty laundry basket just in case she was as devious as I was and did something like this.

She was going to be so mad when the DNA didn’t match.

I spent the rest of the drive home laughing maniacally, picturing the range of emotions that would play over her face when she realized she was either wrong or, even worse, had been outsmarted again.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 13Aly

What do you mean it’s going to take a week?” I said.

I was three stories up from the ER in the hospital’s clinical forensic lab, calling in a favor.

Veronica, a whip-smart Latina lab tech with flaming pink hair, held up the two baggies I’d brought her. “You gave me three pieces of hair that may or may not have viable roots and some bloody rags. This isn’t like a fully automated paternity test that I can bang out in an hour, Aly. I have to follow a whole process of purification, quantitation, amplification, and capillary electrophoresis if you want the results to be accurate, and I’ll be squeezing you in between my other work.” She set the baggies on her counter and shot me a deadpan look. “You might have noticed; I have a lot of other work.”