“You should have told me to stop,” he said, sitting with his back to my bed, me straddling him.

“Oh, G-god, no,” I choked out. “You were perfect. That was perfect. Everything else from tonight just hit me.”

He let out a heavy breath and squeezed me tight. “Just tonight? Or have you been holding onto other things?”

How did he already know me so well? I couldn’t even blame it on the stalking. You could only learn so much by watching someone through a soundless video camera or reading their files online. No, this man had an almost intrinsic understanding of me, like he was more adept at seeing through bullshit than most and could reach right down to the core of a person.

“It’s okay to let it out,” he said, rubbing my back.

“I can’t. This is such awkward timing.”

“It’s perfect timing,” he countered. “One release triggered another. Let go. I told you, I’ve got you, baby.”

Goddamn it. He was going to be my undoing, wasn’t he? Just hearing that made me feel like I finally had permission to stop hiding, stop bottling everything up and letting myself go numb instead. Tonight was terrible. Last night was almost as bad. This whole fucking month had been a non-stop shitshow, except for the man holding me, who was the only bright light in it.

And what had I tried to do? Push him away. Why did I think I didn’t get to have good things? Was it because so much had been taken from me at too young an age, Dad passing from a heart attack only months after Mom died in the crash? Was that when I’d stopped letting people in and started pushing them away, only proving to myself that everyone would eventually leave me?

I needed to stop. Josh was right when he said Mom wouldn’t want this for me. Knowing her, she was somewhere in the afterlife cursing me out for how hard I worked and how much my social life had suffered as a consequence. I could almost hear her now: “Just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I don’t expect grandbabies from you!”

The thought stemmed the flow of tears. Everyone I knew who had lost someone talked about their deceased relatives like they’d been saints. My mother had been a hellion: fiery, unapologetically outspoken, and the bravest woman I’d ever met. I once watched her face down an attempted mugger by reaching into her purse and yelling, “I see your knife and raise you a gun, motherfucker!” He’d taken off running, and she’d chuckled as I’d looked on in horror. There was no gun in her purse.

“Thank you,” I told Josh. “I think I needed to hear it was okay to be upset.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, stroking a hand up my back. “For a second there, I thought I ruined everything.”

I sat up and yanked off the eye mask. His balaclava was back in place, and I hated that I stared into the icy blue of his contacts instead of the warm brown eyes I knew he hid behind them. “You couldn’t if you tried,” I told him.

He glanced away from me, brows pinching together like he didn’t believe me.

I turned his face back to mine. “What we just did changed me.”

He huffed out a laugh. “You and me both. I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight than you speared on that handle. Look.” He jerked his head down, and I followed his gaze straight to the wet spot on his crotch.

I frowned. “Did you…?”

“Come in my pants when your ass clenched around my finger, and you came so hard that you squirted on me? Abso-fucking-lutely. That’s how fucked up you’ve got me, baby. You don’t even need to touch me to get me off.”

I lifted my gaze back to his. “If it’s like this now, what’s going to happen when I finally get you inside me?”

He groaned, head falling back against the mattress. “The poles will probably re-align, and we’ll be responsible for an extinction-level event.”

I couldn’t form a response. Now that my tears were drying on my cheeks, I realized two things: I was still naked, and I had the man of my dreams sprawled out beneath me. The sight of him was arresting after I’d been deprived of his beauty for so long. My gaze drank in the way his muscles strained against his t-shirt before falling to the gorgeous kaleidoscope of color crawling down his arms. His body was a work of art.

He’d just rocked my world, and I’d just sobbed on his chest, but I was still hungry for him. I wanted him again. Now. All of him this time, to hell with waiting.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Josh said.

“You can’t even see me right now.”

He craned his head up. “Yeah, but I could feel you undressing me with your eyes.”

I ran a finger down the center of his shirt. “Can you blame me? You’ve seen me naked twice now, and I have yet to see you once.”

His eyes crinkled up at the corners. “If I get my way, you’ll see so much of me over the next two weeks that you’ll be sick of me by the end.”

I shook my head, letting my gaze wander over him again. “I highly doubt that.”

He pointed a finger at me. “Uh-uh. None of that. We need to get cleaned up, and then it’s food and bed. You had a bad night, and you’re exhausted. Your eyes are as sleepy as they are seductive right now.”

My heart somersaulted. “Are you staying?”

He started to rise, hauling me up with him. “Do you want me to stay?”

“I…” The words stuck in my throat for a second. I’d shown so much vulnerability tonight that pulling more out of me was hard. I felt raw and overexposed, but then I wondered if maybe he needed to hear me say it because, so far, all he’d done was show up uninvited. “Yeah. I want you to stay.”

He let out what sounded like a relieved breath, and I felt like I’d made the right choice.

“Then I’m staying,” he said, scooping me up and carrying me to the bathroom, where he cleaned us both off. Afterward, I dressed in comfy pajamas and tried not to laugh as he tugged on the sweatpants I’d lent him. They were too big for me, meant to be worn loose, but they looked more like capris on him. The man could have doubled as a middle linebacker.

A yowl sounded from my bedroom door, followed by the sound of Fred scratching at it. Honestly, I was shocked that he’d lasted so long; Fred usually whined at my door within five minutes of me closing it.

Josh turned toward it and yelled, batman-style. “Have you no respect for our alone time?”

Yowl.

“I’m not having this argument with you, young man!” Josh called back.

Yowl.

“Excuse you, sir. You better not talk to your mother like that when I’m not around.”

I shook my head as he strode to the door and yanked it open. Fred was right on the other side, tail swishing as he gave one final, almighty yowl.

“That’s it,” Josh said, scooping him up and carrying him out of sight. “Ow. Jesus, be gentle, Fred. You’re clawing through my shirt again. Yes, I know you’re glad to see me.” His voice grew quieter the farther away he walked. “Yes, I missed you too, but screaming at people isn’t the way to show that you care, and don’t you dare point out my stalking. We’re talking about your eccentricities right now, not Daddy’s.”

It felt like my heart grew three sizes listening to him. He needed to stop being so damn cute, or it was going to be a problem.

“Babe?” he called. “You want eggs and bacon again?”

Oh, shit, no.

I scrambled out of the room after him, trying to think of a kind way to ask him to please never cook for me again.

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Chapter 16Josh

The blaring of an alarm jarred me out of sleep. I shot up in bed, and for a second, I couldn’t see anything. Fear punched through me. Had the contacts rolled into the back of my eyes while I slept and severed my optic nerves? Was that even possible?

Aly groaned somewhere nearby. “What is that sound?”

“I don’t know. I’ve gone blind,” I said, voice laced with panic. Fuck, that was the second time I’d forgotten to disguise it.