A rising need to have some form of contact with Everett has me climbing out of the car without realizing what I’m doing. Feeling out of sorts and wired and hypnotized all at once, I go through a low gate and circle around to the back of his house. There is one chair on the patio. A barbeque. A round, glass table with a hole for an umbrella.
I sit in the chair in an attempt to be close with Everett, running my palms up and down the metal arms, but it’s not enough. I need more. I’m suddenly breathless. Fiending for connection with this man who has become my life, then taken himself out of it.
Turning in the chair, my eyes land on a series of rocks in the garden. One of them is ever so slightly askew and somehow I know there’s a key underneath. I get to my feet, anticipation building in my bloodstream. And I toe the rock aside, staring down at the shiny metal key in the dirt. Picking it up and all but throwing myself at the back door, fitting metal into lock, heart rapping with the need to get inside. To be near him.
I step into his kitchen and the scent of him attacks my senses immediately. Crisp aftershave with hints of pear and sandalwood. All I can do is close my eyes and suck it down.
It’s when I open my eyes, that everything I believed about Everett becomes a lie.
Just beyond the kitchen is the living room. And it’s in shambles.
The walls have been slashed so badly, one could almost assume he’s been robbed. Or targeted by someone with a vendetta. Or one might assume that if it wasn’t my name carved into every available inch of the wall. It’s a wonder they’re still standing.
I swallow hard and move farther into the living room, the space throbbing around me like a beating heart. My old swimsuits are tacked to the walls alongside pictures of me. Photos where I am unaware of being pictured at all. Oblivious. I’m sleeping in some of them, my leg thrown over the comforter. There are up close shots of my private parts. My sex. My breasts. My mouth. So many pictures of my mouth. Stolen panties and various items I thought I’d misplaced over the years surround me on every surface.
And there’s an electronic device siting on a side table.
Fingers numb, I turn it on and listen to the crackle of static that matches the white noise in my brain. A second later, I hear my parents’ voices through the device, tinny and distant.
“Margot? Honey? Are you home?” Then more quietly, “Her stuff is here. She must have been here at some point…”
Oh God.
There’s a listening device in my house. My room.
Everett has been listening to me.
He’s been stalking me.
How did I not have a clue?
I stumble backward and my back lands against a wall of photos and souvenirs, my breath sounding loud in my head. What do I do? I have to get out of here. I have to run, right? If Everett took a flight home after me, he could be home any second. I should…report this. I should tell my parents.
But I don’t move.
I can’t move because my thighs are squeezing together in an attempt to subdue the erotic dampening. The clenching of tiny muscles. I’m not turned on by this. I can’t be.
Am I?
My head tips back of its own accord and I drag a hand down over my throat, moaning over the soreness his grip left behind. He’s been in this room for what looks like months, maybe years, obsessing over me. Watching me. I left Tokyo upset, believing the man I love to be indifferent about me, but he’s the furthest thing from that.
He’s consumed.
So am I.
My fingers are trailing down, down, over my mound, preparing to slip under my dress so I can touch myself—but the door is kicked open in that moment, splintered wood flying in several directions, rattling the walls. And there is my coach outlined in the frame, nothing short of a man possessed.
Chapter 8
Everett
Margot has the nerve to look surprised when I kick open the door.
Did she think I wouldn’t follow her?
Did she think I wouldn’t knock on the door of her room back in Tokyo, ring box in my pocket, only to find her gone—and not go fucking insane? Because oh, I thought I was a lunatic before, but it was nothing in comparison to what I am now. I’ve had the entire flight from Tokyo to Austin to feed to flames burning out of control inside of me. I’ve gone an entire day not knowing if she was alive. Or hurt. Or being approached by other men. She wouldn’t answer my phone calls.
To say my anger and fear have ripped away my final layer of sanity would be an understatement. Despite the downpour of relief that she’s in one piece, I’m the goddamn devil himself right now. Too fueled by fury to be worried that I’ve been discovered.
Good.
Good. I’m glad she knows.
The monster wasn’t going to stay in its cage very much longer anyway.
“Like what you see?” I ask in a voice that, to my ears, sounds like it’s coming from deep in a cave. I grasp the broken door and slam it back closed behind me, securing the lock to keep it from falling off the hinges. I search the room for any other potential escape routes and see the back door is open. Keeping eye contact with a frozen Margot, I stride past her and lock the door in the kitchen, as well. Nowhere for her to go. She’s. Going. Nowhere.
Upon reentering the living room, I reach out and graze one of the tacked-up bathing suits with my index finger. “This one is personal favorite. It was too tight, but you wore it anyway. Constantly tugging it back into place. But never fast enough to keep me from seeing.”
I walk toward her slowly and her chest starts to heave. From fear? How can she be feeling anything else after seeing this place, the command center of my madness for her? I’m too pissed, too brittle from her deserting me to worry about that right now. I need to be fed.
“You rolled your eyes once while wearing that suit and called me “Dad,” because I reminded you to wear a jacket on the way home. It made my cock so hard, sweetheart.” I reach down and massage my growing erection roughly, almost coming from simply having her eyes on it. “You have no idea how close you came that day to being tied up and brought back here. Kept somewhere soundproof where mom and dad wouldn’t find you. And you don’t know how close you’ve come every day since. Now you know, though, huh? Now you know I’m sick. For you. You’ve climbed into my fucking head and chest and everywhere else. You’re inside of me.”
I have to be scaring her.
I barely recognize my own voice, it’s so strained and guttural. My teeth won’t seem to unclench, along with my arm muscles. The back of my neck. I’m burning up and I don’t have a fever. I just have this insanity and the source of it is right in front of me.
When I reach Margot, it takes every ounce of my control not to spin her around, flip up her dress and give her a rough pounding for the turmoil and terror she’s put me through since leaving Tokyo. Somehow I manage to hold on to my most pressing urges and simply lift her chin up with my finger. “What the hell were you thinking leaving Tokyo without me?” I’m shaking, muscles on the verge of snapping, vision bright red. “Do you have any idea what it did to me to find you gone? To know you were traveling on your own without me? Do you have any clue how scared I’ve been for a full twenty-four hours, Margot?”
Her breath puffs onto my wrist, eyes filling up with tears. “You left me. You were gone. I…” She looks around the room. “I thought you’d gotten what you wanted from me. The gold medal. And y-you were done.”