My heart is racing. It never races. Not when I’m killing, anyway.
I move forward, stepping onto her porch. It’s strange, standing on it instead of watching it from afar. There’s the blue Adirondack chair where she works in the mornings sometimes. There’s the hummingbird feeder she hung a few days ago, the sugar water nearly empty. And there’s the door that will lead me to her.
I’ve picked dozens of locks in my long life. Hundreds, probably. But this is the first time my hands have shaken so badly. It takes me three tries to wedge the knife into place, and I stop and let out a long breath and force myself to focus. Not just on the lock but on her. I can sense her on the other side of this window. Her steady, sleeping breath and slow heartbeat.
My cock jolts. I wriggle the knife around until the lock gives.
Then I turn the knob, and I ease the door open.
Her scent washes over me. The other day, when she was in my territory, it blended too much with the scent of the woods. But here, it’s concentrated. It’s pure. I can pick out each individual element: lilacs, like the ones that carpet the forest floor in the spring. Cedar. Fresh oranges. It all makes the back of my jaw ache.
I step into the living room and pull the door shut behind me. It’s quieter in here, all the outside world muffled by the house’s walls, and that makes it easier to focus on Chloe. She’s upstairs, and it feels for a moment like she’s floating above me. I can tell she’s still asleep.
I snap my knife shut and slip it in my pocket. Then I go to her, keeping my steps as light as I can in my big work boots. Her floor is covered in a thick, lush carpet, though, and I have a predator’s gait. I don’t make a sound as I weave through the cavernous living room and up the staircase and into the dark, narrow hallway, where the sound of her body is thunderous. Living humans are so noisy. She’s louder than most, but it’s not noise, the way it usually is. Her body sounds more like music.
Her bedroom door is cracked open, and I nudge it with my toe, releasing more of that music. But then I stop in the doorway, feeling paralyzed because, honestly, I don’t know what to do next.
So I just watch her. The bed is huge, and she sleeps in the center of it like a queen, curled up on her side with the blanket tucked under her chin. Her hair curls on the pillow beside her and glimmers copper in the moonbeam shining in through a crack in the curtains that cover the balcony doors.
Every other time I’ve been in this situation, I’ve had a weapon in my hand. An axe or a hunting knife. A chainsaw, on one memorable occasion. But right now, my hands are empty, and the switchblade in my pocket feels as dangerous as a cheap ballpoint pen.
I risk stepping into the bedroom, keeping myself tucked away in the inky shadows. Chloe’s breath remains steady and even, which gives me enough confidence to move closer to the bed, although I stay out of that beam of silver moonlight. I inhale deeply, drawing her scent into my lungs, and then I close my eyes so the soft music of her body washes over me.
My cock pulses, filling with blood. I let my eyes flutter open and adjust myself, biting down on my lip at the pressure of my hand on my erection. Still, a noise of pleasure manages to escape my throat. A single, soft grunt.
I freeze, dropping my hand to my side. Chloe moans and mutters something, then rolls over, burying her face into her pillow. My heart thuds furiously against my ribcage. I can’t move. Ishouldmove, I know that. I should turn and go out the way I came, through her living room and down her pier and across the lake, back to where I belong.
But I don’t. I want to be in the same room as her for as long as I can manage.
She shifts again, rolling onto her back. I press my spine against the wall and admire the curves of her body underneath the thin comforter. Maybe I can pull it away. Not to touch. I just want to look.
I step forward again, my breath soft and shuddery, my eyes fixed on the pale hollow of Chloe’s throat. Her pulse is a soft, whispery rhythm in the background. I don’t know how many times I’ve stood in the shadows and listened to the sound of someone’s sleeping pulse. But this is the first time I don’t want to silence it. If anything, I wish I could record it and take it home with me and let it play anytime I try to sleep.
I’m so caught up in this fantasy, this idea that I could have even a small part of Chloe in my cabin, that I don’t realize the pulse’s steady beat is quickening. It’s not until there’s a sudden, rushing roar in the sound of her breath that I realize I’ve stayed too long.
She’s waking up.
Panic seizes me. I stumble backward, arms flailing out. My shoes feel too heavy for the carpet, and they make my movements clumsy. I should have taken them off. I shouldn’t have come here at all. I should have?—
Chloe’s eyes slide open. Just for a moment, they seem to glow in the moonlight. Just for a moment, I think it’s too dark for her to see me.
And then she starts to scream.
10
CHLOE
There’s a man in my room. A tall, hulking man with huge shoulders and big, muscular arms. That’s all I can see of him in the dark. This enormous, dark silhouette towering over my bed.
A million thoughts slam through my head, one right after another. I’m dreaming. I’m hallucinating. I hung a towel over the back of the closet door, and that’s what this is. Someone broke in. I’m being robbed. I’m being killed? Maybe it’s one of my relatives, angry that I got the house and they didn’t. Maybe it’s Oliver.
All this cascades through me in the span of a second. Then my vision solidifies, and it’s definitely not a towel or a pile of clothes or a relative.
It’s a huge, terrifying man.
I scream, the sound splitting the night in two. Then I heave myself out of the bed, the sheets tangling up around my bare legs. I’m in my fucking underwear, just a pair of plain black cotton undies and a flimsy little spaghetti strap top, and I can’t believe I’m even thinking something as asinine asI need to cover upbecause there’s a fucking man in my bedroom.
I shriek as I try to untangle my legs and wind up landing hard on my hands and knees on the floor. Then I scramble myself up to standing and bolt toward the door. “Help!” I scream. “Someone’s he?—”
