Page 81 of Dark Surrender

“Oh. When?”

“This morning,” I explain, refusing to tell her I don’t actually see him, and I haven’t seen him since our shopping trip. But I wake up every morning to breakfast on my porch. He doesn’t leave a note, but I know it’s from him. There are no other visits. No texts. No nothing. Not that I expect him to come by. Not when my shopping is done. I have a house. I have furniture. I’m set up in my new life, in a new town. Dark doesn’t owe me anything, and it’s not like I have a reason to seek him out.

That would make it seem like I like him, and I don’t like men. I don’t date. I don’t do relationships. Not real ones. If I can’t give him sex, then what else can I offer? We’ve already kinda ruled out friendship, given his southern blood flow…

It’s better this way.

Shoving Dark and his appendage from my mind, I turn on the classic Scream to watch.

“Does this count for hot men and blood?” I check with Cell, knowing it totally counts.

Cell wrinkles her nose and pretends to think long and hard. “Eh.” She shrugs. “Not enough blood, but Mathew is hot. So, this’ll work.”

“This is one of your favorite movies.”

Drew Barrymore pops on the screen, and Cell sits forward. “Shhhh… My movie with hot killers is on.”

Chuckling at her enthusiasm, I leave Cell to fulfill her monthly Scream quota and head to the kitchen to pop popcorn and scrounge up whatever sweet and salty snacks I find in the cupboards.

The sound of Drew screaming floods the house through the surround-sound system, and my neighbors can probably hear it.

I shove a handful of warm popcorn into my face and carry the bowl along with everything else back into the living room for our girls’ night. Only I stop short when a certain jean-clad man comes into view, sitting on the couch, and Cell is gone.

“What are you doing here?”

Dark turns the movie down. “I’m here for movie night.”

“No. Cell is here for movie night.”

“Well.”

“You two planned this,” I accuse.

It all makes sense now. Cell asked to come over to see the house again, when she’d already been by three times this week. She asked to watch a movie. She planned the time.

Oh. This woman is in so much trouble.

No.

They’re in so much trouble.

Dark

Fuck.

Just look at her.

My woman.

Standing there all red-faced and flustered.

Her breasts move with every heavy breath, and her nipples are hard as stone, peeking through the thin cotton of her T-shirt. She’s not wearing a bra. Hell… She’s barely wearing anything.

“Dark,” she barks with a sexy bite when I don’t respond fast enough.

The real question is, what do I tell her?

That I’ve been stalking her for days? That Cell called me out on it, and we devised this plan, so I stopped bein’ a creeper?