He follows me into the cabin, and I turn on the lights as he closes the door behind us.
“Won’t it be super obvious that we’re in here?” he asks, looking around the main room. “With the lights on and it being dark out?”
“The windows all have a blackout coating on them that makes the place look dark even if we turn on all the lights.”
“Handy,” he says absently and looks around again.
The cabin isn’t anything fancy. It’s just a two-story structure with a main room/living room combo, a kitchen, a powder room, and a small den on the first floor, and three bedrooms and a full bathroom upstairs. The furnishings are pretty basic and well-worn, and most importantly, there are no cameras or microphones or keylogs, so it’s one of the only places we can talk without the risk of being overheard.
I motion to the large sectional sofa in the living room in front of the gas fireplace.
Damon sits on the chaise part, and I flip on the fireplace to get rid of the damp chill in the air, then sit next to him. There are a few feet of space between us, and it takes way more self-control than it should to stay where I am and not slide closer to him.
“Why have you been following me?” he asks, his eyes fixed on the fireplace as the flames crackle and flicker over the ceramic logs.
“You knew that was me?”
I already assumed he figured it out, but this confirms it.
He slides his gaze to mine and gives me a little smirk. “I mean, I’m dumb, but I’m not stupid.”
“You’re not dumb or stupid,” I say, not liking that he’s putting himself down.
“Maybe not, but I just meant it wasn’t that hard to figure out. Especially after we started…” His cheeks and neck flush soft pink as he swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing enticingly.
“Jordan asked me to tail you,” I tell him, circling back to his question. “He found out about you and Eden being friends, and he asked me to gather intel on you.”
“To see what my intentions were?” he asks, his expression amused.
“And to see if you were going to be a problem.”
He flicks his lip ring with his tongue a few times, and my body tightens at the casual move.
Thankfully he doesn’t seem to notice my reaction, and his brow furrows in confusion.
“But we were friends for a while before you started following me. Unless you were just really good before and I only noticed after you’d been at it for a while.”
“He didn’t find out about you two until he asked me to start tailing you. And you clocked me right away. You’re the only one who ever has.”
Something flickers across his expression, and it looks suspiciously like jealousy.
No, that can’t be right. Can it?
“You do this sort of thing a lot?” he asks, more of that possible jealousy sparking in his eyes.
“Follow people to get intel?”
He nods.
“Yes. But you’re the only one I’ve actually stalked,” I tell him truthfully.
“What’s the difference?” he asks, but I can see relief in his eyes, and I have to bite back a grin.
Is it possible Damon liked being stalked as much as I liked doing it?
“With the others, I just kept an eye on them and reported what I saw. With you, I didn’t just follow you. I watched you. And I did it because I wanted to. Because I liked it. And I didn’t report most of what I saw or found out about you to Jordan. You weren’t just a mark to me, and he didn’t need to know what I learned if it wasn’t relevant to his reasons for having me watch you in the first place.”
“Really?” he asks, and there’s no mistaking the hope in his gaze.
