Chapter 4

Pierce

She slips on the rug in front of the door, bunching it up as she slides into the damn thing with the force of an explosion. I don't know how she hadn't fallen down any of the steps and broken something. When she kicks it to the side and makes her way outside, she slams the door behind her.

Not once had she looked back to get a peek at what she's running from.

I knew it had been stupid, stepping out of the wall and into her presence. But it couldn't be helped. There was no fucking way humanly possible I could watch her jump one more time to reach the string on the ceiling fan.

She enters the room where I'd stupidly left the light on past dark. I saw her notice as I watched her approach the house with determination in her brows and a heaviness in her steps. Slipping back into the walls, I try to control my breathing as I hear the creaks of her coming up the stairs slowly. She might have been on a mission before she started up them, but now she's questioning herself.

I smirk to myself. She should be.

She likely thinks the place is haunted. Because the brain doesn't go straight for delusions of grandeur, like someone living inside the walls and stalking them at every turn.

She moves into the room a little hesitantly. She's on the phone with someone, and my stomach clenches at the idea it might be a man. I'd found no evidence online that she's married or entangled with someone, but her limited footprint on the web tells me she's a very private person.

She puts the phone onto speaker and sets it on the end of the bed before she jumps the first time and tries to capture the swinging string to the light. My body sets on fire in an instant. Her round, perfect breasts bounce, her toned thighs flexing as she leaps off the ground to try to shut the light off.

I bite my fist, leaning in to the hole in the wall to watch her a little more closely. Whoever carved these delicate passages out certainly hadn't had this in mind, I'm certain, but they need to be thanked. They've allowed my obsession to grow as I've moved through them and watched her every fucking move.

She jumps a second time, missing it again and hitting the ground with a thud. A grunt escapes her chest, and I nearly moan. I can't take any more of her bouncing like that. I need her out of my space.

Blackness is curling through me like a sickness. Trying to pull me under so it can have its fun. I can't allow that. I can't let that side of me near her. She has to get out of this room.

"Hazel, what are you doing?" the voice on the phone asks.

She sighs, defeated. "Trying to turn a light off in the spooky upstairs room, okay?"

"Did you call me because you were afraid to go upstairs alone? You did, didn't you? You little sneak!" the voice says from the other side of the phone.

As soon as she turns around, I use the instant to slip silently from within the wall. Moving with the stealth that the United States Government trained into every fiber of my body, I click the light without her noticing me behind her.

She'll think it's a ghost. Or faulty wiring. I don't care which. I can't have her bouncing around anymore. I'm too on edge.

I hear her inhale, as if breathing me in. I close my eyes. I should back away. I should've stuffed myself back into the wall, but I couldn't move. I was stuck in her orbit. Cemented to her presence, like a promise. Like a threat.

"There's someone in the house," she whispers shakily.

And my dark side purrs in approval. She knows we're here.

"Run," the voice tells her.

And so she does.

Fuck, I love a chase. How does she know I love a chase?

My feet are moving faster than my brain can think, following her down the hall as she screams and thunders through the house like a summer storm.

By the time I reach the top of the stairs, gripping the banister with both hands, she's sliding into the door.

I open my eyes as the memory fades. It's one I know I needed to cement in my mind, so I didn't lose any details.

Because I love a goddamn chase!

Get it together. You've got to get out of here.

Sprinting down the stairs, I hurry out the back door. She's on the steps speaking to who I can only presume are the cops. I have to get to my truck down the road and get home. Because, as the owner of this fucking house, they'll be coming to inform me they were here. That they took a call from a worried tenant.

And I'm always home. I'm a shut-in.

Or so they think.

So I was.

Before her.

* * *

A knock at the door breaks me away from the whiskey in my glass. I set it down and plod to the door, opening it as nonchalantly as I can.

"Sean? Is something wrong?" I ask the officer. His new female partner is next to him with a grin plastered on her face, but she doesn't say a word.

"Sorry to bother you so late, Pierce, it's only we had a call to your residence—that is, your family residence—and we wanted to loop you in." He lifts his hands to his utility belt and sighs, shaking his head and looking toward his boots.

"Oh? Is everything alright? I was just over there checking on it a couple of days ago, but I haven't met the new tenant just yet."

That's it, solidify your story with them. Make them think you were home being a good boy.

I inwardly chide myself and try to stay on task.

"Yeah, well, she's young, you see. And she looks a little… Well, she heard some noises, and something about a light going off by itself and some cologne. We cleared the place, though. No one's in there."

The female officer eyes me with a narrow gaze, honing in on what I'm going to say next. Training I'm sure she received at the academy. It's too bad for her that I received training that's far above her pay grade, and it's going to allow me to evade them this evening.

I chuckle, unconcerned. "These out-of-towners, eh?"

Sean laughs, his shoulders dropping as tension leaves them. "I told her it was the house or a ghost. One or the other. But I wanted to let you know."

"You should really leave some literature on how to get the thermostat running and where it is somewhere in the home for the guests," the female officer adds, pursing her lips at her obvious disapproval at how my new inhabitant had been treated.

"I hadn't thought of that. Why? Was she freezing or something?" I ask, pretending ignorance.

She nods. "She was. Sean helped her get it going, though. Just a thought. For the future. You have a good evening, Mr. Augustine," she says. "I'll be in the car."

We watch her walk back to the squad car and get it, slamming the door behind her.

I whistle. "Firecracker, that one, Sean. You've got your hands full."

He rolls his eyes. "I know. She's from the big city. She sees burglars, stalkers, and psychos around every corner. I don't know if she's going to make it here very long."

She's got keen senses. Steer clear of her.

Mental note added.

"Well, thanks for coming up to tell me about it. I'll leave the next guest better prepared."

He nods, tipping his hat to me. "Stay warm, Mr. Augustine."

"Likewise."

When I shut the door, I turn my back to it, standing there for only a moment before ambling back to the table and downing two more glasses of whiskey.

I know I shouldn't, but I know right where I'm going next.

But first, I'm going to make sure those keen senses of Officer Smith's don't lead her and Sean to sit on my house for any reason.

* * *

Small,tranquil snores of bliss leave her plump, pink lips as she sleeps on the bed. I'm standing on the dark side of the room, near the windows. She won't be able to see me through the moonlight. Even if she looks as hard as she can.

The few moments of how close I'd come to her body earlier in the night play over and over. Her scent was like a deep, musky vanilla. And I bet she'd taste as equally sinful as she smells. I'd known I'd be back, even if I tried to talk myself out of it on the way over. I'd hidden my truck down the road in the trees, trudging here through the building snow.

A few more days and I won't be able to get back and forth from my house to here.

Moving from the shadows is stupid, but I do it anyhow. I have to see her up close. Watching her from the walls isn't enough. Standing next to her in the dark room earlier had solidified that it wasn't.

When I am near the edge of the bed, I wait a moment. Making sure she doesn't stir from my movement; I try to rein in my breathing. My heart is pounding, and my palms are sweating. I wipe them on the comforter without thinking.

And she doesn't move.

I press into the mattress further, testing.

She doesn't rouse.

I sigh, a little giddily. Feeding the dark side of me isn't wise, and I know it. But I can't stop. I sit on the edge of the bed, freezing momentarily to watch over her features.

She does have freckles across her face, and her arms. And fuck, they even disappear down the thin, silk top she's wearing. I bet they rim the edges of her tempting nipples, too.

I bite my fist, leaning over her slightly to close my eyes and breathe her in. And as she washes through my senses, caressing my iniquitous side like a hit to an addict, my cock stiffens behind my jeans.

The throbbing grows incessant as the moments tick by, and my mind starts thinking of all the things I could do. But none of them involve waking her up and taking a thing from her. That's not me.

And this is?

I push the thought backward as I stand and do the unthinkable.

Letting the more wretched nature lurking below the surface bob to the top, I free my cock from the confines of my jeans and firmly grip it. A stroke down it makes me grit my teeth to cage in a hiss behind them.

Fuck.

I work my hand up my shaft, roughly tugging out the tension with every sinful breath she takes. Just her presence is driving me into a tailspin. And it has me wondering what her touch could do.

But I can never touch her.

I'd infect her with everything that I am. Everything that I've seen and done. And I can't do that to her.

I don't wish that on anyone.

My hand works me into a frenzy as I remain close to the edge of the bed. Testing my resolve and tempting fate, I bend my knees slightly, letting some of my weight rest on the bed. My cock is casting a beautiful shadow over her sleeping face. Her mouth is hung wide open, and I imagine she's alert and begging for me to shoot decorating streams of cum across her lips.

My eyes grow heady, but I fight to keep them open. I have to. She could wake.

In my mind's eye, her tongue darts out and laps at the cum on her face, and her throat bobs as she swallows.

I add another hand, working slower, but deeper, as I sink into the makeshift channel my hands serve as.

A moan leaves her throat and, for a moment, I think she's woken. But she hasn't. But it hadn't caused me to skip a stroke. No. I'm too far gone.

Too far down the rabbit hole of her.

I want nothing more than to paint strips of white into her hair while she sleeps. To watch in the morning as she wakes and tries to figure out what happened to her in the night. But my mind fights against the idea.

I stand, taking my weight off the bed as I pump into my hands furiously. I don't want to come yet. I want to draw it out all fucking night. But my balls draw upward, and my spine begins to tingle.

Fuck, fuck!

What have you done to me, little ember?

The thought sends me over the edge, and I barrel for the corner where the shadows lie right as my dick erupts and stars pepper my vision. My mouth hangs open as an orgasm rips through me like a blade.

When I turn back, my body working out the last jerky movements of orgasm still, I eye her sleeping form.

I don't know what she's done to me, but I know one thing.

It's dangerous for us both.

Her, especially.