Page 16 of Restless Obsession

Could I be wrong?

I hated questioning myself. No! No, I was not going to do this! I knew Victor was Daddy! I could feel it down to my bones. I was great with voices. It always creeped people out how good I was at figuring out whose voice was who in movies or random sound clips.

I lay down on my work bed and stared up at the ceiling I had painstakingly placed glow-in-the-dark stars to when I’d moved into the place. The sun was starting to set outside. I reached for my phone in my pocket and pulled it out, setting it on silent as I typed out a message and waited to hear the ping on the other side of the wall.

But there was nothing.

I frowned.

Victor’s phone had gone off a couple of times when we’d been together, but he could have easily silenced it the moment he walked into his place just like I had. Was I putting one and one together and coming up with a billion? Could I be this wrong all just because I felt a smidge guilty about being so attracted to my sexy, dark, and brooding neighbor? A man who I hadn’t officially met even though I saw him all over town?

If I thought back, I’d seen him before he moved in a month ago at the gym. But we lived in a small town without a whole lot of options of places you could go. It was the reason Porter’s Gym was as successful as it was. Porter. I wondered if he owned it or one of his many brothers did.

Does it matter? Not about his brothers owning businesses but about Daddy being Victor? No. The answer was quiet but sure. It didn’t matter. It was crazy and stupid and utterly wild, but it only made things a little more interesting.

Because at the end of it, I could only hope this ended in one way.

With him in my bed or me in his.

FIVE

VICTOR

I opened the door at the same exact moment she opened hers, as if destiny had somehow wanted us to meet up at that very moment and not me watching and calculating for it.

“Hey.” She smiled with a little too much pep in her step. I tried to think back if she’d had one too many espresso drinks she liked to make for herself, but nothing had stood out this morning.

“Hey.” I nodded, trying to act nonchalant as the two of us locked our doors.

“Four days in a row after you living here, what? A month?” she asked, and I nodded. “Must be my lucky day,” she added softly as her eyes roamed up and down my body with an open and clear appreciation.

“Going to the gym?” I asked, clearing the scratchiness in my voice. I could clearly see by what she was wearing that was exactly what she was going to do.

“Yeah.” She nodded, slipping her key into an itty-bitty pocket at the back of her leggings.

The overprotective part of me wanted to pull her into my arms and put my hand on the small of her back to touch what I undeniably knew would be the softest skin I’d ever put my hands on, before leaning down to kiss her and pulling that key out of there only to add it to my keyring for safe keeping.

Was that how she carried her keys all the time? Didn’t she know that wasn’t safe? What if it slipped out and she didn’t feel its loss?

But I couldn’t do that. Not yet at least. There would be a time, in the very, very near future, when I’d be able to. I just had to be patient even though it sounded like a timer was counting down with every beat of my heart.

“You?” she asked, rolling her shoulders before pulling the oversized hoodie over her head and blocking my view of the sexy lines of her body. We had ‘bumped’ into one another yesterday right outside the grocery store a couple of blocks away, and I had helped her carry her shopping home. The day before that, we’d met by the front doors of our building after she’d returned from a jog and me from visiting my brothers. I had visited them, but I’d timed it perfectly to watch her run through the park down the street so we could ride on the elevator together.

“Yeah, figured I should get a workout in, in case I didn’t get any trick-or-treaters tonight and get stuck having to eat bags of chocolate all on my own.” This earned me a laugh and a cute little brow raise.

“You bought candy?” Her words were soft, but I could see the curiosity in her eyes.

“I did. I even bought some stuff to enter that door decorating contest even though I saw some on the second floor I know there’s no way I could beat.”

“I thought you weren’t interested in having little people knock on your door?” she reminded me.

Fuck! If I didn’t have anything else big planned for us tonight, I would have suggested she come over for a scary movie, popcorn, and giving candy out. Like a sane, normal fucking man would. I could see it, too.

Clear as a goddamn picture.

Both of us nestled up together. Teasing touches and longing stares that would be interrupted by trick or treaters. But at the end of the night? When the candy bowl would be empty, I would gorge myself on her sweetness.

“Guess you changed my mind,” I remarked, meaning it.