Page 30 of Creep

If he wasn’t interested in my beautiful, flamboyant friend, why would he be interested in me?

Besides, I had bigger problems than a silly little crush on a stranger whose name I didn’t know.

I had a stalker to contend with.

11

MAEL

Two days passedbefore I could see my girl again.

Fuck, but everything had been messy. Who knew one little black book would be so hard to find? And who knew a man with no mob connections, so to speak, and no importance in the public sphere besides being considered upper-middle class would be so hard to kill?

I didn’t usually spend so much time on a target.

Being paid to kill people—bad people at that—was easy. Mostly because they were usually the lowest of the low on this rotten earth we all occupied, and people didn’t usually miss those people when they went…missing.

But Leo fucking Briggs was smart. Smarter than I gave him credit for. And careful.

There was nothing on him that I could tie to the underground human trafficking ring he ran with Luckas Whitlock, Lia’s father.

It was a lucrative business.

So it didn’t make any sense to me why Leo would hire me to kill Luckas.

But I would find the reason soon. And once I did, I was going after dear old Leo myself.

Until then, I was stuck lying low and doing shit jobs the fucker threw my way, as if to show just who was in charge.

I nearly smiled at the proverbial dick-measuring contest.

I’ll let you have your fun for now.

The only downside to all of this was that it kept me from my girl. I stayed away from her that first week she saw me in her bathroom to give her some time to recuperate from the shock of it all, but fuck if I didn’t miss her. So here I was, at the coffee shop, hoping for even a small glimpse of her.

The place wasn’t busy for a Tuesday afternoon when I got in, and there was no line as I walked up to an unmanned counter. My eyes quickly found Lia, so drawn to her, I was sure I could make her out in even the darkest of nights.

She was bent down, grabbing something from the lower cabinet, her shapely ass on full display, encased in the tight black pants she wore. I shifted, feeling my dick twitching at the sight and my mouth watering.

Fucking beautiful.

She straightened after grabbing the stacks of paper cups and turned around, pulling up short when she noticed me standing there.

I held in my smile, fucking loving the fact that her eyes were eating me up as if she couldn’t get enough. She didn’t know how to control her facial features, and hell, if I didn’t find that to be so endearing.

Everything the girl did was endearing to me.

“An Americano?” she asked me.

“Yes, that would be great,” I said, stepping up to the counter. “Thanks for remembering.”

She blushed and looked away shyly. She needed to be careful. If she got any cuter, I might just forgo any plans I have involving her and take her back to my place, never to let her leave until she fully admits to being mine.

I shook away the thought and the possessiveness that ran through me as she put my order in. I paid, placing a twenty in the tip jar, and walked over to the counter, waiting for her to make my drink.

Her hands shook as she did it, her movements awkward. Finally, she brought the drink over to me. I let my fingers touch hers when I grabbed the cup, lingering a bit and feeling that strange jolt of electricity pulsing around my skin from the simple contact. The way her breath caught told me she felt it too.

I wasn’t the only one affected by this feeling… this connection.

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