Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“Sit down, little doll,” he said.
“Why do you call me that?” I asked instead. “And how did you get into my house?”
These were questions I should have asked him before. Maybe I wouldn’t be here if I’d been more aware of the things he’d done that were red flags. Him calling me little doll had made me feel special. But it was an odd thing to call someone.
He moved the hair from my shoulder back as his gaze drifted over my neck until it made its way up to meet my eyes. “You don’t like it when I call you that?” he asked in a deep voice.
Well, yes, I had liked it a lot, but now that I knew the rumors about him were more accurate than I’d realized, I wasn’t sure I was okay with the nickname he’d given me. Even if the way he was looking at me right now with his dark eyes, hooded by long, thick lashes, like he was thinking naughty things, made warmth in my body spread and breathing a little difficult.
I swallowed hard and tensed as he ran a knuckle over my lips. “I’ve been watching you sleep for a while. I wanted to make sure you were okay, but then you were so fascinating while you dreamed that I kept coming back.”
Oh my God. He had been in my room more than once? I blinked, staring up at him, mixed with horror and—unfortunately—arousal. While I should be more concerned about his being in my house at night, there seemed to be a part of me that liked it.
“How?” I choked out.
The corners of his mouth curled as a devilish gleam lit his eyes. “Sweet little doll, I told you I’d been protecting you for years. You wanted your own place, and your mother took that from you. I fixed it.”
Hold up. I stepped back away from the warmth of his body and his touch. They were distracting. I had to get this straight because if he was saying what I think he was—no, I had to be misunderstanding.
“How did you fix it?” I asked him.
“I gave you a house.”
Shock was not the word I needed here. There was so much more happening right now inside me that I had no way to define it.
“You GAVE me a house?”
He chuckled then, and the sound was both unnerving and darkly addictive. “Well, maybe not gave. Maeme wouldn’t have been on board with that. I presented you with a house you could afford.”
Maeme. How did he know the lady I rented from?
“I don’t understand. I need more.”
He took a step in my direction. “Maeme owns the house—or rather, the Salazar family controls the homes on that side of town. She made that one available for rent—for you only.”
My eyes widened. Maeme was a Salazar. She’d never given me a last name. I paid my rent to G & M Properties via an electric withdrawal every month.
“Maeme is related to King?”
He nodded once. “His grandmother. Her husband bought up most of that section of town years ago. She leases properties under the corporation he set up to handle it—G & M,” he said with a touch of amusement. He knew I’d recognize where I sent my monthly rent money. “Gabriel and Maeme,” he added. “Her late husband’s name and hers.”
Did King know this? Was he letting me be … stalked? Was that what this would be considered? I shook my head. I couldn’t make sense of this. Why would Thatcher do all this? If he was going to stalk someone, then wouldn’t he have chosen some female that was … well, not me? I wasn’t his type.
“Can we eat now?” he asked.
Eat? How was I supposed to eat? I’d been living in a house for seven years that he had access too. How many times had he been inside?
I took the chair he’d pulled out and sat down. The burger smelled good, but the emotional chaos going on in my head was controlling my appetite. I wasn’t hungry. I was … leaning more on the side of terrified.
“Thatcher?”
“Yes?”
“Do you stalk me?”
He sat down across from me, grinning as if I’d just told him a joke. The question did seem absurd, considering who he was and who I was, but still. It was a valid one.
“I protect you.”
He seemed to be big on that description. Protecting me was something he truly thought he had been doing.
“Why?” I asked. “Why protect me?”
He picked up his glass and met my gaze. “You’re the only one who eases me. I need you safe.”
Eases him? Was I ever going to get a direct answer that I understood from this man?
“How do I ease you?”
He took a drink from his glass, then set it down. “My entire life, I’ve had little emotion. I see others have it, but that never came for me. My own mother rarely comes around me. When I did feel, it was always heavy, uncomfortable, often brutal. But you … you settle the stirrings in my chest that I don’t want. When you’re near, I get peace.”