She can’t wake and it’s worth the risk if I can calm her.
I gather her into me, pressing her spine into my front, my arm slides over her shoulder to cup over her neck, then up to her head, caressing her hair. The jerking of her limbs slows.
Then her breathing evens out.
The nightmare recedes and she slips back to sleep, unconsciously nestling into me for warmth.
I exhale with relief. She didn’t wake up and now she’s resting like the innocent she is. It’s not all wrecked. I can continue to visit her in this way, and she won’t know. Gradually, I allow myself to notice her again. To appreciate the feel of her slight frame. Her curves. The way she’s soft and small where I’m hard and bulky.
A deep sensation of peace settles over me as I lie in the dark, holding my girl. My breathing slows and my heartbeat thudsheavily into my ribs, as though that organ is trying to get even closer to her.
I continue to stroke her hair, and while this is more than I thought I’d ever have with her, my body craves further intimacy.
I imagine it. Pushing off her little pyjama shorts, notching my hardness into her. Just the tip. I think of breeding her without her knowledge, and my cock throbs with the rightness of the vision of her growing rounded and lush with my baby.
Barefoot and pregnant, she would be mine to take care of in every way.
For two decades I’ve taken what I want by force. I’ve stolen and tricked and manipulated. I’ve killed remorselessly.
The Devil of Croydon takes whatever he wants.
So why I lie in bed with Lily, stroking her hair and breathing in her cherry scent until dawn cracks light back into the room and I sneak away, I don’t know.
10
LILY
Is it normal to google your boss compulsively, every night? Asking for a… me.
Jokes. It’s not normal. I’m not normal.
My life has been taken over by thoughts of a man with soft brown hair and sharp cheekbones. A square jaw and the most amazing violet eyes.
I tried to get information from the women at work. Subtly. They look at me like I’m nuts, and shake their heads. They say I don’t want to know about the Devil of Croydon. That people who ask questions about him end up in body bags.
I haven’t heard from my aunt or cousin, which is a relief, and I choose not to wonder why they haven’t found me.
Instead, my head is filled with Mr Anderson. The more we work together, and have dinner together, the more obsessed I become.
Evidence: I imagine I see him everywhere. I don’t spend a lot of time away from Mr Anderson, but when I do go out to buy milk or take a walk, I see flashes of violet eyes in the strangers who pass by. I think I like—so much more than like—my boss to the extent that I’m attributing to him what’s just random good luck.
Repeat after me: billionaire mafia bosses do not stalk normal girls with brown hair and podge around the middle, who are half their age.
Also: stalking is bad, unhealthy behaviour and a sign of obsession, not love.
I wish he were stalking me.
Gah.
He’s been very kind, but if Mr Anderson stalked anyone, it’d be someone really special and beautiful. Someone who was his equal in brains and bravery. So as much as the evidence points that way, and I kid myself, I’m aware it’s a dream. Every time I convince myself that I’m being followed, and try to trap my stalker, I end up doubting my sanity. I feel him, but I can’t catch him.
Besides, it can’t be Mr Anderson. We’re together nearly all the time. I work in his office all day, then there are a few painful hours after work where I wonder if this will be the day that he decides he doesn’t want me to have dinner with him. I live for having dinner with him, and god but he’s so easy to talk to. About work, obviously, but other stuff too. Books and films and food. I don’t know a lot about the Waltham mafia, though I try to remember things that might be useful to him. But somehow it always ends up that I’m telling him about myself.
Every evening, he knocks on my door and asks me to taste whatever unspeakably delicious thing he’s cooked, or tells me he made too much pasta, or that the grocery service delivered two steaks instead of one. And I act surprised, then conceal that I’m finding ways to dawdle over my food like I’m a picky toddler so I can spend longer with him.
His portion control is terrible though. And he eats a lot of toasted cheese sandwiches for a man with an amazingly trim waistline. Not that I’ve been looking. Much.
Okay, I’ve spent the time between work and dinner with Mr Anderson—Kane, sometimes I allow myself the little treat of thinking of him by that name—examining every photograph of him that the internet can provide.
