My gaze sweeps over the empty apartment again, my eyes darting back and forth.
A few little pieces of trash remain, detritus of a life that’s no longer here.
What in the actual fuck?
I hate Natalie, and I’ve wished she would move on more than one occasion. But I never wished for this. I never asked for this.
It’s Marcus. I’m sure it is.
Maybe he or one of the other guys saw our exchange on the front stoop last night—Jesus Christ, was he hiding in the fucking bushes?—and decided to take matters into their own hands.
Fuck. Did they kill her?
I don’t know shit about these men, except for the fact that they have no problem stalking someone, that they beat the shit out of the guy who tried to mug me, and that they lead the kind of lives that got one of them shot at. It’s not too big of a stretch to imagine they’re capable of serious violence.
But murder?
Fuck. I don’t know.
Panic churns in my stomach as I stare wide-eyed around the room. It makes my skin feel cold and clammy, and my mind races through dozens of different scenarios. But no matter how many possibilities it filters through, it always settles back on one undeniable fact.
Marcus is fucking with my life.
He and his two shadows are growing more and more bold. They’re no longer going to be satisfied with just following me around, showing up at the library or the bar. They’re insinuating themselves into my life, messing with shit that isn’t theirs to touch.
I don’t really care about Natalie, but that was my battle to fight. My shit to deal with.
Anger rises up inside me, burning away the confusion and panic.
I’m done.
So fucking done with this.
I put up with it for too goddamn long because I didn’t know what else to do, but that was obviously a mistake. I should’ve confronted it head on as soon as I realized they were following me.
Still gripping the 3B decal tightly in my fist, I turn and stride from the room, nearly stumbling on the stairs in my hurry to get back to my own apartment.
The napkin with Marcus’s name and number is still in the back pocket of the jeans I wore to work last night. I don’t even know why the fuck I took it with me, why I didn’t just crumple it up and throw it in the trash. Or soak it in whiskey and light the damn thing on fire.
But I didn’t. I kept it.
And now I think I’d like to have a talk with this motherfucker.
My hand shakes as I punch the numbers into my phone, but before I press the green CALL button, my finger hesitates.
This man has invaded my life in nearly every way possible. The message I told Ryland to pass along obviously didn’t do shit. So what makes me think a phone call will get through to this fucking psychopath?
Biting hard on my bottom lip, I swipe up on the screen, pulling up my internet app instead. I type in his phone number and name, and when an address pops up in the search results, I smile savagely.
Let’s see how he likes having his life invaded.
It’s a fifteen minute cab ride to his place, and I spring for the fare because I don’t think I could handle being on a bus right now. My body is buzzing with electric energy, my stomach tying itself into tighter and tighter knots as my mind keeps turning over and over.
I’ve had enough.
This has to fucking stop.
The cab driver keeps shooting me glances through the rearview mirror, and I know I probably look a little crazed. I can feel it in my eyes, in the tightness of my expression and the hard press of my lips. But I don’t say anything, and neither does he, and when he pulls up outside the address I gave him, I practically hurl a few wadded up bills into the front seat.
I slide out quickly before the car pulls away, and when I look up at the house that was listed as Marcus’s address, my eyes widen in shock.
Holy shit. It’s not a house. It’s a fucking mansion.
The large, modern-looking structure stands out compared to its neighbors, with sleek outer walls and large windows.
For a moment, I’m certain I must’ve come to the wrong place. This can’t be right. But then a flash of movement catches my eye through the window, and my heart stutters in my chest as I glimpse a figure walking across the large living room.
It’s him.
It’s Marcus.
The decal seems to burn like molten metal in my pocket, and I dig it out, letting the feel of the sharp edges against my palm ground me. Squeezing it in my hand, I march up to the door and pound on it with the fleshy part of my fist. I wait half a second, then do it again.
I’m about to bang on the door for a third time when it swings open. My fist freezes in mid-air as Marcus gazes at me, a look of mild surprise on his face. He’s shirtless, something I failed to notice when I saw him through the window, and the muscles of his chest and shoulders flex under lightly tanned skin. A pair of dark wash jeans sit low on his hips, and his chocolate brown hair is tousled.
Silence hovers between us for a long second. Then he smiles. “Ayla. I didn’t expect to see you here this evening.”
His casual, easy response to the sight of me only ratchets my fury up higher. I hold up the decal in front of his face, my hand shaking. “What the fuck is this?”
His gaze lands on it for only a second before flicking back to my face. “Are you really asking me what it is?”
“Why was it in my apartment?” I’m vibrating all over. “What the fuck happened to Natalie? What did you do to her?”
Marcus’s expression hardens, the half-smile on his lips disappearing in a heartbeat. “She shouldn’t have talked to you like that.”
My stomach flips over like a dying fish. He did see our altercation last night. And today, somehow, in the space of time I was gone at that office downtown, he did something about it. I think part of me expected him to deny all of this, to claim he has no idea what I’m talking about. But he’s made no attempt to even pretend it wasn’t him.
“What did you do?” I grit out.
He narrows his eyes, the rich brown of his irises seeming to darken as the blue churns like a stormy sky. “I had a little talk with her, and we both decided it would be better for her to move out. So I helped her with that.”
Oh, Jesus fuck.
“You don’t get to do that!” The words burst out of me in a shout. I hurl the decal down, and it hits the floor with a metallic ping before skittering away. Then I step forward, shoving hard at his chest with the palm of my hand. “That’s not your fucking job! That’s not your right! I don’t need your protection, okay? I don’t need whatever the fuck you think you’re doing. I can take care of myself!” I shove him again and again, driving him backward with each strike. “Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. Life!”
There’s a tiny part of me that knows I’m not handling this rationally, that I’m not being smart. That I’m being monumentally stupid, in fact. That coming here was a huge mistake.
But I can’t hear that little voice in my head over the torrent of emotions cascading through me.
I step forward to shove Marcus again. But this time, his hand whips up to grab my wrist, deflecting the blow before it can land. His other hand grabs my shoulder, and he kicks the door shut a half-second before he forces me backward, pinning me against it.
My back hits the thick wood with a thud, and just like at the library, his large body boxes me in immediately.
He stares down at me, pressing my wrist to the door beside my head as his nostrils flare. “I know you can take care of yourself. I’ve watched you do it for the past two and a half years.”
There’s something almost like pain in his voice, and I don’t understand where it’s coming from. But as I process the meaning of his words, a knife twists in my stomach.
I guessed at the truth. I practically knew it already. But this is the first time I’ve gotten direct confirmation of the timeline.
This man has been stalking me ever since the night I saved his life.
I’m not a new toy, a shiny distraction.
I’m an old, deep obsession.
“Then why did you do it?” I ask, my voice raspy and low. “If you know I can take care of myself, why did you do anything? Why did you get rid of Natalie?”
“Because you didn’t.” His voice is blunt, honest. “Because despite everything you’ve been through, you’re still a better person than the world has any right to expect you to be.”
I almost laugh in his face. No one’s called me a good person in years. Maybe not ever. Not that I can remember, anyway. “You obviously don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
“I never said I know you.”
Something shifts in his tone as he says the words, and it makes goose bumps prickle along my skin. He shifts his body slightly, still keeping me boxed in against the door but releasing his grip on my wrist. The palm of his large hand comes to rest on the wood beside my head, and the fingertips of his other brush over my shoulder as he drops his gaze.
I’ve still got on the tank top I wore to the temp gig today, and the feel of his fingers dragging over my bare skin makes a shiver run through me. His gaze tracks the movement of his hand as he finds the scar from the bullet wound on my upper chest.
My breath catches in my throat, and I go absolutely still, although my ribs shake from the force of my heart slamming against them.
That bullet was the one that did the least damage. The one lower on my sternum and the one in my shoulder are the two that almost killed me. But all three of the circular scars on my skin are permanent reminders of the night I almost died.
Marcus’s fingertip stops on the small round section of scar tissue, covering it completely. As if all these years later, he can somehow stanch the flow of blood that poured from that wound.
“What…” My voice doesn’t want to work. I have to force the words out, and they’re barely above a whisper when they finally pass my lips. “What are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer, but that same look of pain passes over his face as he gazes down at my scarred skin. As if it hurts him to see the remnants of my wounds.
Then his fingertips move lower, tugging down the neckline of my tank top a little to reveal the second scarred bullet hole. The rough pads of his fingers brush over the swell of my breast, and my eyelids flutter as a rush of sensation pours through me.
I could run.
I could slip away, yank the door open, and flee down the front steps.
He’s not physically restraining me at all anymore. The only point of contact between us is the place where his fingertips softly caress my skin.
But that soft touch pins me to the door even more solidly than his heavy weight did earlier. I’m trapped, held hostage by something I can’t even name.
It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.
There are cracks in my skin, breaks in my armor. They formed the day three bullets shredded my body, and now he’s using those weak spots to crawl inside me.
To invade my life.
My being.
My soul.
He seems mesmerized by the light-colored scars that mar my skin, and his brows draw together as he moves his fingertips over to the third bullet hole. This one is messier, with more scar tissue surrounding it. This is the one that took my arm from me.
The nerves are fucked up around the bullet wound and in patches all the way down my arm, so my skin tingles as his fingers drag across it. It’s too much to handle, too fucking intense, so I let myself focus on his face instead of the feelings building inside my body.
A light stubble shadows his jawline, like maybe he hasn’t shaved since yesterday. The roughness of it contrasts with the smooth skin of his face and chest, which is unblemished and lightly tanned. His shoulders are broad and muscled, and even though he’s not wearing his leather jacket, there’s still a hint of leather mixed in with the clean scent of his skin.
I’m drawn to him despite myself, my greedy gaze soaking up every detail of his features the same way his brown and blue gaze devours me. As though if I just stare at him long enough, I’ll somehow make sense of the dangerous puzzle that is Marcus Constantine.
Finally, he moves on from my third bullet scar. His fingers track down the upper half of my amputated arm, tracing the lines of my tattoo, outlining the vivid red flowers that bloom on my skin. When he reaches the elbow and then the abbreviated end of my arm, his gaze flicks from my ruined limb to my good one.
The fingers of his other hand drift down that arm, as if he’s trying to measure the differences between the two.
With both of his hands on me, it feels like an electrical circuit has been closed. Something hot and fierce buzzes through my body, and my head drops back against the door, my eyes falling shut. I’ve given up trying to fight him, too overwhelmed by the white-hot feel of his touch to do anything but ride out the sensations.
His fingers skim down the bicep of my left arm—my good arm—then over the crook of my elbow and down my forearm.
Then, suddenly, they stop. His hand on my right arm freezes too, and I swear the very air around us grows colder.
“What the fuck is this?”
His voice is hard, and my eyes fly open again, awareness rushing in quickly.
Fuck.
“It’s nothing. It’s none of your business.” I yank my good arm away from his fingers, attempting to press away from the door and slip past him.
But he grabs my wrist again, his touch no longer feather-light or gentle. Now it’s rough. Angry. He bends my arm, bringing it closer to his face as he stares down at the long vertical slash mark that covers nearly the entire length of my forearm.
The kind of slash that designates a serious attempt to die, not a bid for attention or a cry for help.
“I said, what the fuck is this?” His grip tightens until it’s painful, and fury darkens his voice.
I pull harder on my trapped arm, wishing I still had my other fucking hand so I could push him away. “And I said it’s none of your goddamn business.”
He raises my forearm even higher, showing me the slash mark as if I’m a dog who got into the garbage when I wasn’t supposed to, and now he has to show me what I did wrong.
As if I might not already know the scar is there.
As if I don’t remember every single detail of how it happened.
“When?”
The single word is hard and flat. It’s not a question. It’s a demand.
I clench my jaw, my gaze skating away from his. “When I was fifteen.” Then I huff a bitter laugh. “Why? Worried it might’ve happened on your watch?”
He steps closer to me, erasing the small distance between us. He’s still holding my wrist in his big hand, his grip still crushing my bones. “No. It wouldn’t happen on my watch, Ayla. I wouldn’t let it.”
Something about the surety of his voice, the determination in it, hits me right in the chest. He means it. This man doesn’t even know me, but he hates the idea of me trying to kill myself—despises it with a burning rage. I can hear the truth in his words; he would do anything in his power to keep me alive.
I don’t understand it.
And I don’t like it.
I’ve been alone for as long as I can remember. Even when I was living with foster families, I still felt like I was on my own—hell, sometimes I felt more alone in those homes than I would’ve been on the street.
Throughout my life, the one constant has been the knowledge that I’m all I have, that the only person I can count on is myself.
That if I died, no one would miss me. No one would mourn the loss.
But somehow, for some reason, I think Marcus would.
That thought crashes into the armor around my heart, making a painful ache spread through me.
“Why do you care?” I whisper.
“Why?”
His brows draw together a little as he repeats the word, as if he’s surprised by the question. Then he shifts his grip on my wrist, pressing my palm against his chest and resting his own over mine, trapping my hand between us.
The skin of his chest is warm and solid beneath my palm, and I can feel the rhythmic thud of his heart. It’s beating fast, just like mine is.
“You saved my life,” he murmurs.
“It was an accident.” I say the words by rote, out of habit, but I can’t even muster up any fake conviction in them this time.
Marcus gives me a look, tilting his head a little as if asking whether I’m really going to insist on playing this stupid game.
“You saved my life,” he repeats more emphatically. “Every day since then, every fucking heartbeat, I owe to you.”
The vibration of his low voice begins in his chest and travels up my arm through the place where our skin touches, making my own pulse skyrocket. The intensity of his tone sparks my fight-or-flight instinct, and I tug hard on my hand. But he doesn’t let go. Doesn’t let it budge.
“For two and a half years, my heart has continued to beat because of you. Do you know how many heartbeats that is, Ayla? One hundred million.”
I lick my dry lips, and his gaze zeroes in on the movement. “That’s a stupid way to measure time.”
Marcus chuckles, sending another vibration through my palm. “I think it’s the only way.”
“So, what?” I shake my head, feeling almost dizzy. My fingers flex against his chest, digging into his pec like they did that day in the library. Except now, no t-shirt separates us. It’s just bare skin against skin. “You’re here to repay the debt? Is that it? How? How can you pay back a hundred million heartbeats?”
“I can’t.”
“Then what do you want?” There’s an edge of desperation to my voice. I have to know. I need to know.
His expression shifts again, and for the first time since he crashed into my life in a flurry of violence and chaos, I see something like vulnerability in his eyes. His free hand moves to my face, his knuckles dragging down the side of my cheek.
“You, Ayla. I want you.”
