Page 1 of Restless Obsession

ONE

VICTOR PORTER

My eyes skimmed over the mess on top of my desk, and I sighed.

Old coffee mugs.

Empty energy drink cans.

The mess was nothing new.

When I started working on a project, I tended to lose myself in it, unable to focus on anything that wasn’t work. My mom, well, my foster mom, who adopted me, used to say I was a bit of a compulsive workaholic. My dad used to tell me I needed to get that kinda shit in check because one day, a woman would come into my life who would need attention from me, and I’d be in a bad way if I lost her because I was too busy staring at a screen.

I’d thought he was crazy.

I could still remember the way I would roll my eyes at him. Scoff at the idea and tell him no woman could ever get me to put my work down. I loved what I did. From the moment I was allowed to use a computer in elementary school, tech intrigued me. Like your typical kid, I’d wanted to go into formatting to create shit like video games. But as I grew older and honed on my skills, it turned out I was so much better than I could have ever imagined.

Hacking and finding information came second nature to me. I loved a challenge, and it became an addiction I couldn’t shake.

Now, I knew better. Because of her.

I regretted not being able to pick up the phone and call my dad and mom to tell them I’d found the one. They might not have given life to me, they might not have had the same blood running through their veins as mine, but in the short amount of time they’d been in my life, they’d given me a place to belong.

They’d been my parents, my family, in every sense of the word.

And thanks to them, I also had four seriously stubborn pain-in-the-ass brothers. The four of them alone could have kept me in business with the shit they needed from me. I shook my head, and when the soft ding of a notification rang in my noise-cancelling headphones, I immediately closed my work down and opened up the window that had multiple screens open.

Live feeds of my sultry little neighbor came to life.

Lucy.

Breathing became just a little easier as I reached for the mouse, glancing at the second screen on the right-hand side of the screen in the middle. I waited for the chat box to open and waited.

Patience had never been my thing, but Lucy had changed all that. She’d changed a lot.

Two months ago, after a long, tedious job, I’d been online, looking for something to jerk off to. I know just how pathetic it sounds, but I had never been the kind of guy who was okay with one-night stands. Some of my brothers were. Hell, Trager lived off them.

But then again, the fucker was charming as hell.

I, on the other hand, was not.

I might have only been thirty-five, but I felt old as hell. I wasn’t charming. I hardly smiled, according to my brothers and best friend. I didn’t go out unless I had to, usually at the insistence of my brothers. I had no idea how I’d come across the cam girl site, but I had. And when I’d scrolled around, just about to close the window to head to my usual porn site, I’d seen her.

Ray of Sunshine. Her cam girl tagline still made me smile every time I looked at it. How couldn’t I when that’s exactly what she was?

My personal ray of sunshine in my dark, boring world. She’d lit it up and flooded my black soul with technicolor that could have rivaled any Lisa Frank painting. Hitting Subscribe had been the easiest yet most dangerous thing I’d ever done to date.

I was fucked after that. My life quickly spun out of control.

The tight control I had on my work life slipped through my fingers, and I found myself unable to help myself. My obsession started off easily. After one-on-ones and watching her lives, I searched for her online trying to find every little morsel I could.

Her social media accounts had been easy enough. I went through every picture, every story, savoring each detail I found like a man on death row devouring his last meal.

Then, because I couldn’t help myself, and with the skills I had at my literal fingertips, I dug deeper. Dove into finding her real name. Where she lived. Who she hung out with. All while I became her number one fan. A fan who took up as much of her one-on-one time on the site as possible. Sending her obscene amounts of money, tipping her more than anyone, just to be the one she thought of. To be the one she wanted to see.

That’s how I ended up moving two buildings away.

When I found out my girl not only lived in the same city as me but only a block away, I’d felt like destiny was laughing at me. Having an angel so damn near yet so far. I’d sat on it for an entire day before I cheated and hacked my way into getting the apartment next door to hers.