Page 66 of For Fillies and Monsters

Her eyes sparkle angrily at me, and then a small feral smile tips her lips, nearly sending me to my knees.

“I guess we won’t find out, will we?” Her words are bitter and angry, but I know underneath, it all is fear. And as much as I want to reassure her, I know words mean little to Stetson. She is an actions-or-nothing kind of girl. So, I nod, turn on my heel, and stomp back down the deck stairs.

I haven’t changed my clothes in six days, barely slept a full night’s sleep, and could use a damn shower.

But I’m done putting things off.

I’m turning the ignition in the truck when I hear her voice cutting above the engine. “Where the hell are you going, Gus?”

“To find out,” I yell back and peel out of the driveway. Stetson doesn’t know how far I have gone to get this moment with her. And she certainly doesn’t understand what I will do to keep moving forward—to get her to love me completely. I will burn down this house, this town, this world, and every person in it to be with her.

I watch Nathan from the secrecy of my truck cab, his swollen, purple face making me smile. Honestly, he looks close to normal already, which only makes my knuckles ache to finish what they started. Someone shouldn’t look that good after receiving a good beat down. I obviously didn’t get him hard enough, and that pisses me off.

The strumming of my fingers against the black wheel is the only sound filling the cab beyond my breathing, as I watch the afternoon sun fade into evening shade. Nathan is some kind of town celebrity, especially now that he got so tragicallyattacked, because people continue to show up to sit with him. They bring casseroles and cakes, cards, and small gifts—showering him with praise and sympathy.

And he fucking eats it up.

Pathetic.Little do they know the pussy didn’t even lift a finger to defend himself.

He smiles at each person, wincing every so often, or gingerly touches his face if the conversations stray too far from him and what he has gone through. It’s sickening, and the longer I sit here watching him, the more I want to snap his stupid neck. The world could do without one more self-absorbed asshole in it.

I won’t, of course. I can’t risk getting caught, not with Stetson in my life. But fuck, do I want to.

The last car leaves his freshly washed driveway, and Nathan remains sitting on his deck watching the street—waiting for more people to arrive, no doubt. Seizing the moment I’vepainstakingly waited for all day, I grab the small black phone from the glove box. The same phone that has a stream of messages between Stetson and me; the same one with the picture of my dick in her mouth. My burner phone, and the one I will soon be getting rid of.I won’t need it.

I have his number saved in the phone, along with several other guys I’ve watched over the years, and quickly type up the short text. It won’t take much—money and standing are the only things that matter to Nathan and his family. It wouldn’t take an FBI agent to figure that much out, but lucky for me, I’m close. Ten years of stalking will make you an expert in such things.

I watch him reach for his cell, the blue light of the screen illuminating his smiling face. And then I watch that smile melt from his features, replaced with panic, eyes wide and mouth slack. He looks up from the screen, his eyes scanning the streets, but he can’t see me parked around the corner, the sky black now, concealing the truck.

He rereads the text over and over—his lips moving with each of the words, and then he stands, straightening his back. Defeat paints his pathetic features—fitting for the man who just laid there and took a beating—and he walks inside, closing both the screen and inside door, sealing out the world, and the demons that haunt him. I sit in the truck for several minutes, waiting for the reply I know is coming.

When my phone buzzes, I glance at it before firing my old truck up with a smile and head back to the small ranch that has become my home.

And the woman who has become my life.

ME: Drop the charges, and any contact with Stetson, or I will tell this town and your ‘betrothed’ about how much gold the golden boy really has. Think her family will want you then?

NATHAN: You win.

TWENTY-NINE

AUGUSTUS

May 10th, 2024

I wantto tell Stetson everything. Correction, Ineedto tell her everything. Every day I don’t becomes another small weight on my chest, piling so high now I can barely breathe—it’s suffocating. I need to go about it in the right way, make her see both the monster and the man are deserving of her love; I want her to need me, all of me, as desperately as I need all of her—good and bad, innocent and filthy, comforting and painful.

The question isn’t if; it never has been. It’s only how—how can I show her the man who has haunted her, is the same man who is helplessly in love with her and has been for ten long years? How can I ensure she can reconcile the two masks I wear belonging to the same face?

Another floorboard squeaks and I pause, exhaling my frustrations—I’ve nearly worn through the old wood with my insistent walking. My nerves sizzle just beneath my skin, my stomach swarmed with horse-sized butterflies; I’m a fucking wreck, and I’ve never felt more pathetic in my life.

How does this woman turn me inside out so easily, light me on fire so effectively, consume me so wholly?

Like the coward she is, she retreated from me whenshe realized Nathan would no longer be her barrier. I solved one problem, only to make ten more—which is maddening. Stetson didn’t give me time to talk to her, much less confess my deepest secret to her, before she had run away from me like she always does.

I don’t understand what she’s so afraid of. Is there something I’m missing?

It’s not just me and my dominance. Even if Stetson hates her soul’s reaction to me and my brand of dominance, she can’t fight against it. I know—I’ve watched her for years, trying to overcome her kinky desires, but they win out every single time.

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