“Okay.”
“I need some space,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“I’ll text you later.”
I force myself to nod again. “Okay.”
She picks up her phone from the floor, gives me one last look, then quietly walks out the front door. The apartment is silent again. Only this time, it feels emptier than when I found it trashed.
It takesme the better part of three hours to clean up the disaster that used to be my apartment.
By the time I’m finished, my entire body aches. Every broken picture frame has been tossed into a garbage bag, every shard of glass has been swept off the floor, and the busted furniture has been dragged outside for the dumpster to pick up tomorrow morning. The place doesn’t look like a crime scene anymore, but it doesn’t feel like home either. It’s too quiet. Too empty. Every bare spot where something used to sit is another reminder that some piece of shit stood in my apartment while I wasn’t here and decided to make my life a living hell.
After I’m done cleaning, I spend far more money than I originally planned on shopping for new furniture. A new couch, television, and coffee table to replace the ones that got destroyed. Then I order an entirely new security system, refusing to settle for the cheap crap I had before. Every entrance is getting a camera, every window and blind spot, motion sensors, door alarms.
The whole damn package.
If that coward decides to come back, he isn’t walking away without me knowing exactly who he is.
Once there’s nothing left to clean, I head for the bathroom, strip out of my filthy clothes, and crank the shower as hot as it’ll go. Steam quickly fills the room, fogging the mirror while I pull my phone from my pocket one last time.
I don’t know why I bother checking again.
Nothing.
Maddie still hasn’t texted me.
I stare at her name for a few extra seconds before locking my phone with a frustrated sigh. Maybe she actually broke the damn thing when she threw it earlier. God knows she launched that thing hard enough. The thought sticks with me long enough that I make a mental note to stop somewhere tomorrow and buy her a new one. Hell, I’d buy her a dozen phones if it meant she’d never disappear on me again.
I leave my phone on the counter and step beneath the spray.
The hot water pounds against my shoulders, slowly working some of the tension from my muscles, but it does absolutely nothing for the knot twisting itself tighter and tighter in my chest. I scrub both hands through my hair before planting one against the shower wall, letting the water beat against the back of my neck. My gaze drifts down through the steam. I’m already rock hard, standing at full attention and aching with a desperate, painful need for release.
“Fuck,” I curse, my mind drifts to an image of Maddie spread open for me on my bed.
She was so fucking wet, her skin glistening, body wrecked, and entierly mine. I grip myself hard, the memory of how she tasted hitting my gut like a physical blow. I can still hear the exact pitch of her whimpers, the way she screamed my name when I drove my fingers deep inside her soaking cunt.
I think about the tight, possessive way her walls clamped around me when I added a second finger, the desperate arch of her back as I buried my face between her thighs, licking up her clit until she came all over my face. I pump my hand faster, my breath coming in ragged gasps, chasing the memory of a high only she can give me.
“Ugh, fuuuuuck,” I groan, the sound torn from my chest as my spine goes rigid.
I blow my load into my palm, my body trembling under the water. I stroke myself a few more times, watching as the cum drips from the tip of my cock onto the shower floor. She’s driving me crazy. I want nothing more than to bury myself inside her, to feel her tight pussy wrapped around my cock instead of just my own hand. If she decides to shut me out, I am going to tear this city apart looking for her.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe being around me really is making everything worse. The problem is…I don’t fucking care. That probably makes me selfish, maybe even a little obsessive, and I know she thinks she’s protecting me, but all she’s really doing is leaving me alone with my thoughts. And let me tell you, those are a hell of a lot more dangerous than any asshole trying to scare me away from her.
I shut the water off a few minutes later and wrap a towel around my waist, staring at my reflection in the fogged up mirror while I wipe away the condensation with the palm of my hand.
“You’ve lost your fucking mind,” I mutter.
Fuck, maybe I really have. I barely know this woman, and somehow she’s managed to become the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about before I fall asleep. Shit, I can’t even take a damn shower without thinking about her.
As I dry off and pull on a clean pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, one thought keeps repeating itself. If Maddie isn’t ready to tell me about her past, then I’ll find out on my own. Someone is targeting her, and I’m done sitting around waiting for answers to magically fall into my lap.
The asshole who tore my apartment apart made sure of one thing—my computer is completely fucked. The local electronics store isn’t exactly known for carrying the kind of equipment I normally use, but any decent laptop will get me by until I have the time to build another workstation.
Unfortunately,what should’ve been a quick trip turns into an absolute nightmare. Apparently, buying a laptop requires listening to three separate sales pitches about warranties, antivirus software, cloud storage, extended protection plans, and every overpriced accessory they can possibly convince me to buy. By the time the store manager finally accepts that the wordnoisn’t a negotiation tactic, I’ve wasted nearly two hours of my life that I’ll never get back.
