AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Pushing aside all the anxiety that constantly sits with me, I’ve managed to survive the first few weeks of living in the house with Ghost. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to keep using up physical energy every day to keep my sanity. But I know deep down that Ghost saw it that first night we spoke and made sure he made it possible for me to be able to train as hard as I needed on the equipment he arranged. I spend most days working out at least twice a day. Sometimes with Ghost and other times on my own. With music playing in the background, I can manage to lose myself in the repetitive nature of the exercises or running on the treadmill and forget about my life outside of this house. Not sure I needed to drop any weight, but it’s happening naturally, between the stress and the extra exercise.
I keep expecting Ghost to tell me to back off, but it hasn’t happened yet. Training becomes a bit of an obsession. And when I’m not working out, then I spend my time cooking for us because I can’t be idle. I have even gone so far as begging Ghost to get some paint delivered and let me start painting this dreary house. His laughter told me I was crazy and it’s not happening, that it’s someone else’s problem.
We have fallen into a good rhythm where I could almost say we're friends. If I’m honest with myself, what I’m feeling for him is more than what a friend should be feeling. I’ve just come out of a toxic relationship, yet I’m developing tenderness for a man that I have no right to be even looking at in that way. Although, every time I get a little close to him, he backs away and the distance is back with a wall between us. After getting him to admit in one of our late-night chats that he’s single, I can totally see why that is. He is so hard to read. His mixed signals confuse me most days, but there is still that dominant part of his character that I can’t seem to turn my hormones off to. I just wish he would use that voice on me to tell me to do more than eat or getting me to stop overthinking something.
Last night when Ghost was telling me that they have arrested Jason and he’s been in custody for over a week awaiting his initial hearing, I felt numb for a small moment. Every word he spoke was bittersweet. I was feeling like all this was worth it, but then the realization hit me that my life just got so much more dangerous. Now he will be piecing things together, that me disappearing has something to do with his arrest. It’s too coincidental not to be connected. I have put a target on myself, which I knew would happen, but once Ghost delivered the news, reality sank in that he will already be using his connections to try to find me.
My bravado didn’t last long. We had just sat down to eat, and I couldn’t even stomach a mouthful until that voice across the table ordered me to eat. The panic that was building inside me had me snapping at him, telling him what I thought of his orders and how high-handed he is, standing and screaming at him like a possessed woman.
Before I knew it, he was up out of his seat and wrapping me in his arms. I was bashing at his chest with my fists, taking out every fear that was racing through my body on him.
Taking it all, he just held me tight until all the fight left my body, and tears followed straight behind the aggression. Collapsing into him and sobbing, my body shook with the outpouring of all that I’ve been holding inside me on a daily basis. I tried to stay strong, but last night, I failed miserably.
Walking me to the couch, we sat there in silence for a long time. The feeling of having his strong arm around my shoulders, my head resting on his chest was the safest I have felt in a very long time. Even before my life started to unravel, I don’t think Jason ever made me feel as secure as Ghost did in that moment last night. But the more I relaxed into his body, suddenly the stiffer he became. The change in him was so noticeable that I pulled away. I looked at him, trying to get some reaction, but instead, his non-reaction was even worse. I don't want to be that stupid woman who starts falling for someone who is just being kind because it's his job. And the way he is so hot and cold with me, I know that’s all I can be to him.
Another client, another job.
Needing to keep me calm, he just used his body to stop me from losing my mind, but that’s all it was to him. A means to an end, a way to calm me down.
Lying in bed last night, I couldn’t get the feeling of being in his arms out of my head. For that small moment, I know I felt something more from him. He might not want to feel it and thought he hid it well enough as he shut it down, but it was there, I’m sure of it. I’ll let him pretend all he likes, and I’ll try to make sure it’s not just my imagination, but I’m not letting that fleeting moment go in a hurry.
This morning, his mood tells me that something is bothering him. Or he didn’t get much sleep either. One way or the other, his single-word grunts are pissing me off. Since I walked out of my room in my workout gear that he bought online and had shipped to the house for me, he hasn’t looked me in the eyes once. Instead, he's just ordering me out to start our circuit, like he needs the release from exercise more than I did.
Standing in the shed this morning, staring across at him pulling himself up and down on the chin-up bar, I can see the strain on his face. I’ve watched him do this every day, yet today, the strain looks like it is more than just from hauling his masculine body up in the air.
Dropping to the ground, his eyes zero in on me.
“What are you staring at?” The grumpy attitude is back in his voice this morning.
“You.” I'm not ashamed to let him know.
“Don’t go there,” he growls at me as he grabs his towel and storms past me out of the shed.
Watching him retreat to the house, I can’t help it. I shout after him, “No point in telling me, since you won’t.” I smile like I got one up on him.
All I can hear is grumbling under his breath as he storms up the back stairs of the house and disappears inside.
“Yeah, go and cool off under the shower. Wash the grumpy Ghost off while you're at it.”
I don’t know if the testy mood is because of me or something he knows about my case that I don’t. Standing here for a few minutes, my temper just keeps building. I’m sick of being kept in the dark about things, so I’m not prepared to let it go.
I storm off after him into the house, but just as I’m about to tackle him on his shortness with me, I hear the bathroom door slam a little louder than normal and the water start running. Damn it, I was too slow.
Getting my back up, I decide he isn’t getting out of this. I’ll just sit here and wait him out.
Sitting down with my back against the wall opposite the door to the shower, my mind keeps running over the tenderness he shared last night. Why can’t he just let me see that side of him? Why is he so scared to let the shield down that he constantly keeps putting back up between us every time it falls even slightly? I remember he told me on day one that we could do this the easy way or the hard way. I chose easy, but he forgot to tell me he chose hard.
With the minutes ticking away, the urge to pick a fight with him dissipates as fast as my temper flared. With the pent-up emotions leaving my body, I start to panic and push off the wall to get away from here before he discovers me stupidly outside the door like some crazy woman. Noises from behind the door catch my attention before I turn to leave.
Hearing his voice over top of the shower, I know he has no idea I’m here, thinking I’m still outside working out.
My body is reacting to every sound I’m hearing of his breathing getting louder and slightly more rapid.
“Oh fuck.” The low rumble gives my imagination all it needs to start running wild. Closing my eyes and my head falling back against the wall, I can picture his hand around his cock. Squeezing just hard enough to bring relief as it starts sliding up and down toward the head that I’m sure is leaking by this stage. Those breaths becoming raspier by the second and the word fuck coming quicker and louder each time he lets it out, until the final one.
“Fuc…ccc…kkk…” growls out from Ghost, and I can feel my body shuddering at the thought of him coming behind the door in the very same shower I stand in every day, dreaming about him joining me in it. Then a voice not so deep and more like a plea for help confirms my thoughts from last night.
“Fuck, Cassie. Shit.” Then what sounds like the palm of his hand hitting the tiled wall in frustration, and I know I need to move. He can’t know I heard any of what just happened.
