Page 37 of For Fillies and Monsters

Stetson turns around, her face falling just a fraction. She steps through the balcony door, and I release a ragged breath. My body vibrates with the need to go after her, to claim her, to comfort and be everything for her. It’s another birthday come and gone, another year spent apart.

I step backward, away from her building, away from the shadows that have become my closest friend. I have to keep waiting. I have to keep being patient. I will not ruin this, no matter how badly I want to ruin everything about her.

I have an appointment to make, anyway.

Turning on my heel, I quickly walk in the direction of the small twenty-four-hour tattoo shop, my heart hammering faster with each step—not with fear, but with anticipation. I love the pain, what it represents. The bell above the door rings, mixing with the low thumping bass vibrating the cluttered walls. The familiar smell of alcohol wipes and coffee fills my nostrils and I smile—only a little.

“Man! I was wondering if we were going to see you today.” Phil, a squatty, spiky-haired tattoo artist, who has done my tattoos every year, leans against the counter.

“Naw, my girl would be too disappointed if I didn’t get my yearly tattoo in her honor,” I state dryly and he smiles, a toothy grin far too bright for this early in the morning, waving me back.

Getting a tattoo on Stetson’s birthday has become my special tradition. Someday, she will see the patchwork of my love for her, my celebration of her life,our life, before she even knew me. Would others find that fucked up and creepy? I don’t fucking care. Stetson will love it—the devotion and obsession—and she’s the only person I care about.

“We’d hate to disappoint the Misses.”

I huff and nod, taking my jacket off as I step around the counter toward his chair. “You have no idea.”

“What did she think of the one we did last year?” I absently trace over the small black rearing filly on my calf and smile.My wild Little Filly.I just shrug. “Still didn’t top the one I got the first year.”

“Which is a damn shame! I hate that I didn’t do the first one for you—that you got it before you moved here.”

I grunt, slumping into the chair. I snap my jeans open, pulling my leg from the pants, exposing the canvas of our love story.

I can’t wait to show her someday.

“Enough talking, Phil. You know that’s not my thing.” I don’t like being a dick. But I also am not good at friends, and even worse at small talk. Plus, Phil doesn’t need to know my‘girlfriend’doesn’t know I exist yet. He chuckles, used to my abrasive nature.

“What’ll it be this year, boss?”

“I saw you had a heart made out of vines or some shit.” I point at the drawing on the wall behind me. “Can you do something similar, but in barbed wire?”

His eyes glitter down at me—always fucking happy, this one.“Strap in. It’s going to be a long day!”

“It’s been a long fucking year.”

March 30th, 2024

I know I shouldn’t have texted her. I hadn’t planned on “stalking” her once I moved onto her property, but she’s proven much harder to crack than I anticipated. I can barely be around her without wanting to bend her over and fuck her—with orwithout permission—so I’ve had to keep my distance. Even if it has made me a miserable bastard.

And then she took that as I hate her, and the thought makes me smile every time. I do fucking hate her, but in the most obsessive kind of way. I hate that I am no longer me without her. I hate that I am so close and yet feel so far from her. She’s pushing me away, which I expected. But I fucking hate her more for it.

I know by texting her tonight, I’m flirting with the line of blowing my cover, and I’ve only just started.But fuck!

I was sitting on the roof of the barn, innocently staring into her window, more to make sure she was really still right here in front of me—after all this time, it feels fake—and then I saw her roll over, throwing the sheets off, her naked body and motions perfectly highlighted by the hazy light, like she wanted to be seen. She was fingering her pussy like her life depended on it. Like she was on fire and the only thing that would put out the flames was for her to personally come all over everything.

And fuck—if there had been a fire, she would have been successful.

I’ve known a couple squirters in my time, but it’s been years since I’ve been with a woman, much less watched one come. Wouldn’t matter if I had fucked someone earlier today, Stetson puts them all to shame. She’s so sexy when she comes—brows pinched together, her mouth hanging open, legs quivering.

Even from fifty feet away, I could see the glistening proof of her arousal in the moonlight—on her fingers, on her lower stomach, on her sheets.

At first, seeing her fucking her hand had done nothing but send every drop of blood in my body racing to my cock, swelling it until it felt fit to burst against the seam of my jeans. It had been so hot, my own private show from my girl.

And then I remembered she wasn’t completely my girl—not in her eyes, anyway. And jealousy, hot and violent, bolted through me like a flash of lightning. Jealousy for the fact that she could touchmy pussywithout me present, that she could come withoutmy permission, that she could finish withoutmynamescreamed from her lips.

Who the fuck had she been picturing to make herself come like that, anyway?Nathan?

I’ll fucking kill him if I find out that’s who she was imagining.

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