Page 73 of Psycho

He didn’t say anything to that, but I could feel his eyes roaming over my face, making me feel naked… vulnerable.

I blinked.

“I had one beer, then I came back home,” he said.

I shouldn’t have felt relieved, but I did.

I shrugged.

He grabbed the box from my hand and unwrapped it, pulling at the green ribbon and letting it fall to the bed beside me. I watched him, curious as to what he could have thought to get me.

When he opened it, I found a small, flat, circular pendant made of gold. I didn’t need to ask him if it was real, not when I recognized the logo on the box of a popular, expensive jewelry store.

He took it out and held it in front of me.

When I didn’t say anything, he grabbed my wrist and put the bracelet on me, clasping the lock with a click.

I looked at it, then at him. “Why?”

It was beautiful, but I was still confused as to why he got it for me in the first place.

Did he think gifts would make it better between us?

“Why not?” he asked mildly. “This isn’t the first time I gave you a gift.”

My frown deepened. “What do you mean?”

He didn’t answer me for a moment.

Gifts… Like the—

I gasped and stood on the bed, trying to move further away from him even though he hadn’t moved from his place. He straightened up to his full height.

Somehow, seeing him straightened up to his huge frame was so much more intimidating than when he had been crouching over me.

It wasn’t like I had forgotten how big he was.

His size was probably one of the first things anyone noticed about him, and his cold silver eyes would be a close second.

I swallowed. “You’re my stalker.”

He didn’t answer me, but I didn’t need him to. The words rang true. And he thought of giving me Garrett’sthumbas a gift instead of a fucking crime.

I shook my head. “Why?”

“Why did I cut off the boy’s thumb?”

Wordlessly, I nodded.

“Because he deserved it for trying to touch you. For abandoning you in the fucking mountains in the dark.”

“So that was because of me?”

I had thought so. Why Garrett had seemed so scared of me when I showed up. But to hear the words coming out of his mouth…

He shook his head. “What happened to the boy was entirely his own doing.”

He could say that however he wanted, but we both knew it wasn’t true.

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