Page 142 of Creep

“I don’t think you can.” I looked back up at him, hating the emotions I could see in his eyes. “Are you going to kill my dad?” I asked before he could say anything else about it.

“Do you want me to?”

“Of course not,” I said. “I don’t want you to kill anyone at all.”

Especially not my dad. It would probably be the one thing I wouldn’t be able to forgive him for. But did that mean I could forgive him for everything else?

I didn’t fucking know anymore.

I looked down at his chest. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. I wanted to talk about something else, so I changed the topic by asking him, “How did you watch me? How did you even manage to learn so much about me without me ever seeing you or knowing I was being followed?”

“I have cameras installed in your place.”

I blinked. That was not what I was expecting him to say.

“You’ve been watching me?”

He watched me in my apartment, at the time I was most vulnerable.

He grinned as if he didn’t see anything wrong with this. “Yes, I especially loved watching you touch yourself in the morning. It has become my favorite part of the day.”

My hand twitched with the urge to slap him. He could probably sense the anger in my eyes because he pulled back a little. Not far away from me—his arms were still wrapped around me—but enough that I had a feeling he might be able to stop me if I tried to slap him. My fists clenched around the sheet.

“You just don’t understand boundaries or something?” I asked, trying to make sense of this.

“Between you and me, there are no boundaries.”

“So you would just be okay with me watching you masturbate?”

He grinned wickedly at me, and I wanted to take the words back. How had the conversation just veered off in this direction? He was a hitman. He killed people for a living. I should be focused on that.

Instead, I was talking about him masturbating?

“Don’t answer that,” I said when he opened his mouth to respond.

“What else don’t I know about you?” I asked.

He seemed to think about it for a moment. Then, “I own the coffee shop you work at.”

“Of course you do.”

He had entrenched himself so deeply into every aspect of my life, and I didn’t even notice it until it was far too late.

There was no escaping him.

I knew this now.

I swallowed as another thought occurred to me. “The police officers I called about my stalker—aboutyou?—”

“Were on my payroll. They never put in the official report.”

I looked away from him briefly. That would explain why the number the officer gave me didn’t work. That would explain their strange behaviors. But for a moment, I thought there was no one I could turn to. Did he not see how fucked up this was?

I shook my head. I didn’t think he did.

“Anything else, kitten?”

“Just one,” I said, opening my eyes and looking straight at him. Even with all these fucked-up things between us, the one thing that topped them all was the fact that he still just looked likemyMael.

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