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“Are you done?” he asks, looking amused. His enjoyment fades when he sees my grimace of pain, so he adjusts his hold on my wrists. Raw pain comes across his face when he looks up and sees what I’m sure are red marks.
“Fuck,” he mutters and brings my hands back down to inspect them. He lightly runs his fingers over the rawness he caused. “Will you please just listen to me?” he asks, his voice soft but husky, like he’s trying to hold his emotions in.
“I don’t really have a choice, do I?” I ask with bitterness.
“No. I need you to know everything,” he murmurs, still rubbing and looking at my sore wrists.
As much as I don’t want to hear it, it looks like he won’t give up until he tells me what he wants me to know. If hearing him out is the only way to get him to leave me alone, then that’s what I’ll do.
“Whatever. But can you get off of me first?”
“No,” he replies simply, sending my hackles rising again. “You’re going to hate me even more by the time I get done talking. I’d rather stay here for when you freak out again so I can finish.”
Warning bells start going off in my head. What else could there be? He’s been practically stalking me for a year, been following me around for almost as long. Knew where I lived from the beginning. Orchestrated a job interview so I would work for him. Sending me flowers for months. Found out and then followed me on a date with a criminal. Slept with me while holding onto all these secrets, and has lied to me over and over again. How much worse can it get? I get the sense I haven’t even heard the half of it.
When I stay silent, he deems that as permission to continue. And what he says next rocks my world, flips it over, sends it spiraling, and completely freaks me the fuck out.
“When I left after following you that first day, I went straight home and did an extensive background check on you. My need to know more about you was unlike anything I had ever felt before. It literally took over every part of my life. I went back to your house the next day because I needed to see you again. I needed to know if that need was just as strong as the day before. I sat out there for hours, waiting on you to come to a window or step outside. When you finally did, the need I felt the day before was obliterated by the need I felt right then. It had only gotten stronger. I knew it wasn’t going to go away. It was uncontrollable.”
He stops for a minute, his eyes flickering back and forth between mine. He closes his eyes for a brief second, pulls in a lungful of air, and releases it at the same time he opens them again.
“A good friend of mine owns a security firm. I had him hook me up with high-tech cameras that were inconspicuous. When I went back to your house the next day, while you were out, I broke in and placed them in each room, except the bathroom.”
Before he even has the words all the way out, I’m frantically trying to get away from him again. I shove with all my strength against his hard chest, but he lays his weight there, pinning my arms to my sides with his legs.
“Stop it!” he demands. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“You sick bastard!” I shriek, trying everything I can to get away from him. He grunts when I pinch the ever-loving hell out of his side, but he just pushes my hands so the tips of my fingers are shoved underneath the bottom of my thighs, affectively trapping me.
“Please,” he whispers brokenly and lays his forehead against mine. I turn my face away and his head lands against my temple. His breath fans over my ear as he breathes heavily. “Just let me finish, and I’ll let you go. I need you to know everything first.”
Knowing it’s useless, I lay there, not saying anything, feeling sick to my stomach knowing he’s seen me at my most vulnerable moments. Unbeknownst to me, for the last year, my privacy has been stripped from me. I feel violated and used.
“I also put a tracking device on your car.” I close my eyes and feel a tear fall down my cheek. He keeps his head against my temple as he continues. “I have no idea why I felt the need to watch you and to know where you were all the time, but it wasn’t something I could control. Maybe I was just doing it to protect you, because the thought of something happening to you had my heart feeling like it was being splintered into a million pieces. Maybe my mind is just warped, I don’t know. I just knew I had to watch you, had to see you any time I wanted. Had to know where you were at all times.
“I would stand at your bedroom window and watch you,” he whispers. Revulsion slithers in when I think about prancing around my room naked, unknowingly baring myself. “My day didn’t start until I saw you at work, or watched you from my computer or phone. Weekends were the worst for me because I was stuck watching you on camera. I had to wait until it got dark to watch you from your window.” He stops again for a brief second. “Sometimes, I would break in and watch you sleep,” he murmurs.
I jerk with that. My heart breaks further and the feeling of betrayal grows.
“As much as I wanted to, I never touched you beyond pushing your hair back from your face. I needed to see your face. You looked so peaceful and sweet while you slept.”
I start to tremble when a new emotion starts to form. An emotion I never thought I would feel toward Asher.
Fear.
Fear of what he could have possibly done to me while I slept. Fear of what he could do to me right now. I’m vulnerable and I know it. Asher could literally do anything he wanted to me right now and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop it. And obviously, his limits are very low. He’s shown he’s willing to do just about anything. Does that include hurting me? I don’t want to think Asher is capable of that—he’s never hurt me physically before—but it’s obvious I don’t know him as well as I thought I did.
I tremble as I lay beneath him. He still has his forehead against my temple. Tears silently trickle from my eyes and onto the bed. The pain in my chest hurts worse than anything I’ve ever felt before. It hurts worse than when my mom and dad died. Worse than when I found Grant cheating on me. It feels like my heart will never be whole again.
I close my eyes and whimper when I feel Asher’s fingers on my cheek, wiping away my tears. His voice is hoarse when he continues to talk, breaking my heart and making me fear him all the more.
“The reason I’m so good at my job is because I used to hack into computers. I started when I was eight years old. I never came across a system I couldn’t break into. Anyway, I found the dating site you were using and broke into their database. All the dates you went on, I orchestrated because I knew they would turn out badly. To me, you were already mine, so I wasn’t going to allow some man to come in and take you away before I had a chance to move in myself.”
I flinch and try to hold back my sob, but it slips free. The more he reveals, the more pain I feel. I can’t handle much more before I completely break down. I focus my eyes on the vase of flowers on the nightstand and try to block out Asher’s voice, but he’s right there in my ear.
“The day you were supposed to meet Eric, I slashed his tires. When I found out you were having dinner with him, it took
everything in me to not put my fist through his face,” he says softly, but there’s a hard edge to his voice. “I couldn’t let him near you like that. The stars in his eyes when he talked about you… fuck, Poppy. He’s been my closest friend for years, but I swear I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to knock every thought of you from his mind. I hated myself for thinking like that, but I did. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do, nothing I wouldn’t give up to have you.”
