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ZEKE
Maybe if I run fast enough on this treadmill, I’ll outrun my guilt.
Maybe I’ll be able to convince myself the past couple of weeks can be forgotten. That they haven’t been a mistake.
That I’m not somehow happier than I’ve been in my life.
I don’t deserve to be happy. I’m taking advantage of her. And eventually, she’ll realize that.
My feet pound on the belt, sweat rolling down the back of my neck, my chest. I’m punishing myself, and I know it, but that won’t stop me. Not when I deserve it. Not when I’m giving her so much less than what she deserves.
She’s upstairs now, oblivious. She has no idea her future has been planned for her. That she’s living in a fantasy. Reality will come crashing in eventually, and I’m not sure I want to be there when it does. That would be the cowardly way out, though. Destroying her, then disappearing before the fallout can hit me.
Just like I do every day, I tell myself to end things. Once I’m upstairs, I’ll sit her down and tell her it’s over. We can’t do this anymore. I don’t want her getting any ideas about feelings and all that shit. It’ll be cruel, but it will get the point across. It will make her hate me, which is what I need her to do.
She’s going to hate me eventually, anyway. Might as well get it over with now.
And once again, the same excuse I’ve given myself the past two weeks rings out in the back of my head. What if she’s so hurt, she tells her father? I can pretend all I want that’s not a real threat, that I’m not afraid of what will happen if he finds out. It just isn’t true. And I can’t get it through to her what a drastic reaction he’d have without revealing everything. That he’s had people killed for much less than defiling his only daughter.
That would break her heart, too. It seems like no matter which way I look, no matter which path I decide to take, she ends up losing out.
All because I couldn’t be strong enough to resist her. I let her down.
I pick up the speed, driving myself harder, faster. If I’m exhausted enough, I might be able to fight off the impulse to grab her the second I set eyes on her. That’s how it always is. All it takes is a single look—or the smell of her perfume, or the sound of her voice—and I’m gone like some slobbering animal without a brain. That’s what she does to me. Nobody’s ever done that to me.
I don’t even want to think about what that means. It doesn’t have to mean anything, does it? She’s hot. And she’s available. It doesn’t have to be any deeper than that.
Sure. Keep telling yourself that.
Finally, I reach the edge of my endurance, and I drop the speed of the belt to cool down. My legs are almost rubbery, and my lungs burn, but it’s still not enough. I still feel like the world’s biggest piece of shit for taking advantage of an innocent girl.
And dammit, I still want to ravish her once I get upstairs.
A cute redhead I’ve seen around the gym a few times gives me an approving look when we cross paths as I’m on my way to the fridge for a drink. I nod but leave it at that. Wouldn’t life be easier if I did more? If I picked her up the way she obviously wants me to? If I had never been weak in the first place? If I had remembered my job and my duty? If I had put Mia’s well-being before my own?
The most I’d have to worry about would be finding ways to sneak out of the condo while Mia wasn’t paying attention. Heading over to the redhead’s place for a quick fuck without being missed. The boss would chew me a new asshole if he ever found out I left his precious daughter alone, but I’d live to see another day.
And Mia might not end up with a broken heart. She’d be pissed as fuck, for sure. Hurt. Bitchy. She’d be the one to tell her father about me screwing around while on duty, now that I think about it. But she wouldn’t have to live one day with knowing the man she gave her virginity to, who she so eagerly fucked so many times, had fucked her while knowing damn well there was no possible future for them. Knowing she was as good as sold off to the highest bidder and nothing about her future would be hers, ever.
Should I tell her the whole truth? Get it over with all at once? She deserves the opportunity to make her own decisions. I could help her somehow. Could help her think it through, make a plan to get away with her freedom intact without having to give up every last shred of herself.
And where would I go once I did that? If she got away, would I go with her?
She’s not in the living room when I open the door. “Mia?” I hear footsteps somewhere—soft, rhythmic. “Where are you?”
Following the sound of the footfalls, I walk down the hallway and find her bedroom door partly open. She’s in there, listening to music with her earbuds in, half undressed like she was in the act of getting changed when the song got to be too much, and she had to dance. The tight leggings she wears don’t leave much to the imagination, and her lacy bra is see-through enough that her rose-pink nipples stand out.
I can’t help but watch. It feels wrong to do it when she’s unaware, but she would stop if she knew she wasn’t alone.
How am I supposed to lay off her when everything about her seems built to tempt me? The way she moves, the sound of her voice, the feel of her skin. She haunts me day and night. Even my dreams.
Finally, I can’t stay quiet anymore. I knock on her door before easing it open a little farther. “Hello?”
At least she can’t accuse me of sneaking up and scaring her, even if she gasps with a hand over her chest. “You need to wear a bell around your neck.”
“You need to stop listening to your music at deafening levels.”
“Thanks for the advice.” She looks me up and down, her nose wrinkling. It’s cute even when she wrinkles it at me. “Good workout? You look like you took a shower.”
