He wantsme. Right now. Enough to say it out loud. Enough to use a word like that and watch what it does to me.
My legs feel shaky. My skin feels too tight. Everything inside me is vibrating at a frequency I don't recognize.
I force myself to move. One foot in front of the other.
Hurrying to catch up.
Ready to see exactly where this goes.
Chapter 8
Caleb
I'm starting to wonder if I might be obsessed. Not in the casual way I normally am, but… clinical definition.
Because here I am, sitting in a black Tahoe across the street from Iron River Fitness, with enough surveillance equipment to make me look like a Mission Impossible cliche.
The drink-holders are littered with empty coffee cups—three of them, all from different days because apparently I've made this parking spot my second office. In addition to my custom security setup on the dash, there's a laptop balanced on the passenger seat, feeds cycling through every angle I've managed to hack into.
Legal? Absolutely not.
Necessary? Apparently fucking so, because I can't seem to stop myself.
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to determine if your good little slut is actually… not yours at all.
The leather steering wheel creaks under my grip. I force myself to loosen my fingers, to breathe. This is what passes for restraint these days—not breaking inanimate objects while Iwatch her gym from across the street like some kind of deranged stalker.
Which, let's be honest, is exactly what I am. I've crossed so many lines I can't even see them in the rearview mirror anymore.
It's been nine days since I gave her my card with explicit instructions to find me when she's ready. To contact me. To give me some indication that what happened between us wasn't just a fever dream I manufactured in my own twisted mind.
Three of those days count as travel days since she went to Vegas for her little glow-up.
But actually, the third day doesn't really count as a travel day anymore because Ryan fucking Adamson bumped in to her at the baggage claim.
What if that was planned?
No I can't even consider that.
Why Caleb? It's an honest question. You have no idea what's been happening inside Iron River Fitness. You have no cameras in there. Not a single fucking one.
The point is, two days out of nine.
Two full days she was, for certain, not thinking about Ryan Adamson because she was in Vegas getting new hair, and new nails, and new clothes, and new makeup. A complete transformation. A reinvention.
Trying to forget me.
Trying to scrub away every trace of what happened in the maze. Trying to wash the blood off her hands with platinum blonde dye and Charlotte Tilbury foundation. Trying to bury the memory of my cock spewing long ropes of come all over a corpse.
Trying to put her past behind her—to putmebehind her.
That's what women do when they break up with a man, isn't it? They reinvent themselves. They emerge from the cocoon assomeone new, someone better, someone who never would have done those things in the first place.
They start over. Shiny, and new, and utterly unrecognizable.
Which is bad enough on its own—especially since she hasn't taken a single fucking opportunity to call me. To reach out. To acknowledge my existence. Does she have any concept, any remote understanding, of how many women would literally kill to have my card pressed into their palm with a no-strings offer to come find me whenever they wanted?
Not that I'd ever bring one of those corporate vultures back to my cabin—Christ, no. This is a hard line in the sand for me, drawn in permanent fucking marker. No professional women. Not the lawyers, not the executives, not the consultants who circle me at networking events like sharks scenting blood in the water.
