Page 133 of Coveted

Lucan hugs me tightly around my waist, his face still against my back, oblivious to what I’m seeing on the computer monitors.

The room lurches as my gaze flicks around, taking it all in. He’s been spying on me, far worse than I knew.

There are police reports from when they were called to my mom’s house because of Russell. Loan paperwork bearing my name. Old photos of me he can’t possibly have, yet does.

And camera feeds. So many camera feeds, including at least one in my room that overlooks my bed. Alarm pierces the sexual pleasure still reverberating through my body.

Pushing myself onto my elbows, I frown at a number on a screen that seems to change in real time. The number sits alongside a diagram of what looks like the pendant currently around my neck. The heirloom that Lucan insisted I keep on at all times.

As my heart rate increases, so does the big red number on the screen.

My voice is hoarse with grim realization. “Are you tracking my heartbeats?”

Past readings for the whole day are listed, accompanied by graphs and charts. Is there anything he doesn’t know about me?

Lucan’s body pulls away from my back. He stays inside me, his hands resting on my hips as he regains his breath.

“Uh,” he says slowly, like he’s drunk on sex and can’t think straight. “Yes.”

Swinging my elbow at him, I hit his chest. “Get off me right now.”

He withdraws from me, spilling our combined cum down my inner thighs.

Snatching up my sweater from the floor, I put it on. I clean the mess between my legs with his discarded shirt, before balling the garment and throwing it at him.

Other than pulling on his pants and running his hand through his hair, he does nothing except stand back and watch me.

I guess that’s what he does. Observe every little thing about me.

Veins in his arms pulse. The fathomless look in his eyes scares me, like he just dragged me to a new level of the underworld and awaits my reaction.

“I knew you were a lot,” I say. “But what the hell, Lucan? What is all this?”

“It’s to keep you safe.”

“From what? Psychopaths? Because I feel like I’m looking at one.”

He doesn’t try to stop me when I return to his desk, where my steamy palm prints slowly fade on the marble surface. With shaking fingers, I click through the monitors to examine his activities more closely.

According to the diagram, the necklace isn’t really jewelry. It’s a high-tech bio-monitoring device.

Tugging the chain from my neck with a sharp sting, I dangle it from my fingers. The pendant swings back and forth like a hypnotist’s pendulum. With no pulse for the device to read, the red number on the screen zeroes out.

“No wonder your father didn’t mention me wearing a so-called family heirloom,” I say. “He’d never seen it before in his life.”

“I had to make sure you kept it on,” says Lucan. “I’m sorry I lied, but you had just run off alone at the gala and nearly got yourself killed. I had to do something.”

My hand drops. “But do I get a say? Do I get a choice? Because this—” I gesture at the monitors. “—isn’t a relationship, it’s your pathological need for control.”

His intense gaze falters, like maybe my words actually got through to him.

He exhales. “After we caught the guy, I was going to stop with the extra measures. I swear.”

“Why not just tell me what you were doing?”

“Because you’re stubborn. You didn’t even accept car rides to work from me. Fuck, Sadie. Do you have any idea how much I worry about you when I’m not with you? Every time my phone lights up, I think the worst. Every time I hear a siren in the distance, I worry the killer got you. I swear, I take your safety more seriously than you do. It stresses me out so fucking badly.”

Words falter in my throat as I process what he’s saying. I never thought of the situation from his point of view. That he might genuinely fear losing me.