If someone looked upstupidin the dictionary, they’d find a picture of me. The definition would be of a man in his early thirties who was desperate enough when it came to his love life that he threw caution to the wind, ignored a parade of red flags, and was infatuated with a man who admitted to stalking him.
I rolled over in bed and threw my arm over my eyes, wishing I could block out the sun, and the doubts. A week had passed since Nate had followed me to the club and then taken me out to dinner.
A week since I’d found out the man I’d slept with and had continued to fantasize about being my Daddy for real, had continued to stalk me after we went our separate ways.
While I might have been an idiot and still been attracted to him, I wasn’t a complete moron and still at least acknowledged I was putting myself in a dangerous situation. One I damn well knew better than to do.
The problem? I couldn’t find it in myself to care. Something about him drew me in like a moth to a flame. I knew I was going to get burned, but I couldn’t help it.
My hand rubbed down my face as I tried to figure out what the fuck I was doing. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t a risk taker. My life was about order. Law and order. I was a police officer, a homicide detective. Yet, there I was, waking up hard as nails and horny as hell, wishing Nate were there to fuck me into my mattress.
I let out a soft moan as my hand continued down my body to my chest, and tugged on my taut nipple. A sharp hiss escaped from my lips as I gave it a sudden twist, my hips bucking as my cock sought friction it wouldn’t find.
The last thing I should do was tease myself, but then again, I didn’t have anywhere else to be. I had all day that I could lie in bed and think about how my Daddy could use me and make me come over and over.
But before I could get any further, reality crashed down on me as my phone rang. With a groan, I diverted my hand’s destination and reached over and answered just before it went to voicemail.
“Hey, Ma.” Shit. I needed to get myself under control. Last thing I needed was my mother asking questions because she was concerned that something was wrong. Hell would freeze over before I explained that I was just horny and had been about to masturbate.
No fucking thanks.
“Oh, so you are still alive. Good. I haven’t heard from you in so long, I was starting to wonder.” Her dry response left me cringing from the guilt she managed to lob onto me from the other side of the city.
“Shit. Ma. Don’t do that.” I wiped my hand over my face and rubbed my temples, hoping to relieve some of the tension that already started to build up from the conversation.
It wasn’t as though my parents didn’t have a good reason to worry. But it had been the center ofeverythingfor over fifteen years.
Everyone told me to move on. But how could I, when my mother still did shit like that?
With a sigh, she offered an apology. “You know your father and I worry about you, Aiden. And with that job of yours. I just… I wish you would have chosen something that was safer.”
It was an argument we’d been having since she found out I joined the Academy.
“You know why I do what I do, Ma.”
I sat up and got out of bed. That conversation required me to have a lot more armor covering me than the sheet that had been draped over me while I’d been sleeping. Not to mention, it was weird to talk to my mother while I was naked.
“Doesn’t make it any easier.” The weariness in her voice made me pause as I rummaged through my dresser for a pair of sweats and a T-shirt to pull on. While the reminder that I’d gone missing when I was seventeen and returned several weeks later with no memory of what had happened to me while I’d been gone still weighed heavily on all of us as a family, it wasn’t usually something that actively distressed Ma anymore.
Something was definitely wrong.
“You’re right,” I said, my voice soft as I thought back to that time. “It doesn’t make it easier. But it gives me a sense of purpose to get answers for people who are no longer able to fight for them anymore.”
“I know.” And she did. None of this was new information.
“What’s this really about?”
In the bathroom, I splashed some cold water on my face and quickly swiped my toothbrush through my mouth a few times while I waited for my mother to be able to compose herself enough to formulate her answer.
That was one thing I got from her. No one could rush me when it came to answering a question, no matter how impatient they were. It was why torture would never work on me.
At least, I didn’t think it would, given the scars I returned home with.
Mom made a huffing noise from the other end of the phone before finally letting out a sigh of defeat. “Your sister and Victoria both told me you’ve started to date someone new. I’m just wondering why I heard it from them and not from my only son, that’s all.”
All the air in my lungs got caught in my throat. I couldn’t breathe.
What. The. Fuck?
