Page 3 of Dagger

Those five words had become a constant refrain, playing over and over in my head until they were all that I could hear. But knowing what I was doing was wrong and stopping were two different things. One was a constant reminder that I wasn’t a good man, not that there was ever any doubt. The other was an obsession. A constant ache deep in my gut, a rattling in my brain that could only be satisfied by the very act that was so fucking wrong.

I’d only intended to watch Sinclair until I knew she wasn’t hiding anything that might put my daughter at risk. But even though I found nothing, I couldn’t keep away.

She was so buttoned up, constantly wearing long sleeves even when the temperature crept up to the nineties. It made me wonder if she really was hiding a shit ton of ink under those sleeves, in addition to the tits not even her loose shirts could hide. My favorite was her love of jeans because the things denim did to her thighs, her ass, and her hips? The most magical form of torture. It almost became a game to see how she dressed up those curves and, it took all the willpower I could muster to keep my distance.

Based on what I’d see over the past week, she was a sensible woman. Practical down to her bones. Sinclair arrived at school thirty minutes early each morning, parking her dark green compact car in the middle of the lot where itwas guaranteed to be surrounded by other cars. She greeted her students with a friendly smile, often engaging in actual conversation with the fourth graders.

When it was warm, she took her lunch outside, often alone, immersed in a book while she ate a salad or a sandwich, depending on the day. When the school day ended, she returned to her classroom to straighten it up and within fifteen minutes she crossed the parking lot and slid behind the wheel of her car. She sat there for a full minute—every single day—with her eyes closed before she opened them, started the car, and left the school grounds.

Every other day Sinclair made a stop at the supermarket ten minutes from the small cottage she rented from a retired couple who crisscrossed the nation in an RV. The property sat on the border between Steel City and Vegas, giving it a slightly country feel right in the city.

I was able to confirm that Sinclair did not have a boyfriend, girlfriend, fuck buddy, or anything else. She spent her evenings alone, usually curled up with a book and a glass of wine. Some nights she took the wine and gazed up at the stars. She seemed content.

Her life was peaceful, if lonely.

It was those times that made me feel guilty about watching her, about invading her private moments that weren’t meant to be shared with anyone else. I shouldn’t be watching her the way I have been, but I couldn’t stop. She was becoming like an addiction. I told myself to go home, to go to a titty bar, to find a woman to sink my cock into for a few hours and leave Sinclair alone.

I couldn’t.

It was her plump lips I fantasized about pushing my cock past until it rested on her warm, wet tongue. It was her juicy cunt I wanted to plunder until she begged me to let her come. It was her tight asshole my cock got hard thinking about fucking. It was Sinclair, not some nameless, faceless woman I’d forget about before the condom hit the trash can.

Which meant I was well and truly fucked, because this obsession meant just one thing, I couldn’t go anywhere near this woman. She would ruin me. She would make me care and then any enemy within two hundred fucking miles would know my weakness.

They would use it against me.

So I kept my distance and instead I stepped into a hot shower and fisted my cock, pumping hard and furiously until streams of come hit the wall and slid into the water as it swirled down the drain. It was too much, this outrageous fucking need I had for a woman I’d never met, but felt I knew all the same.

My desire for her made me feel like I was losing my fucking mind. I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t stop.

***

By the end of the second week, I knew what I had to do.

Keep my distance.

What’s that saying? The best laid plans of mice and men…

That shit didn’t work, and by the start of the third week I had a new plan. Fuck distance, I needed her.

I left a single rose on her windshield just after lunch on Friday, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, at the time it seemed romantic but while I was waiting for her to see it, I realized it might come across as creepy shit. I watched as she picked up the flower and looked around the parking lot to see who would have left it for her. Finding no one, she let her eyes slide closed and pushed her nose against the fragrant petals. Her smile grew just a little wider as she slid into the driver’s seat and headed for the grocery store.

She liked it.

On Monday I planned to leave two. Little by little, I would win her over.

And then, I would claim her for myself. I would make her mine in all the ways that mattered and get her out of my system.

Chapter 3

Sinclair

I was going crazy.

That was the only explanation that made any sense for what was happening over the past couple of weeks. I was losing my mind. Imagining things. Maybe I spent too much time watching true crime documentaries and those psychological thrillers, especially as a woman living alone. Too many nights spent on the edge of my seat meant that every squeaky door, every creak of the floorboard, every car door that slammed in the distance, made me feel like I wasn’t alone.

But it was more than that. It wasn’t just sounds that made me jump when I was alone, which was pretty much anytime I wasn’t at school, it was the fact that I felt like I was being watched. I’d catch a glimpse of a shadow when I looked out my window and I would swear there was a person in the distance. But by the time I moved the blinds aside, they wouldn’t be there. At the grocery store I felt someone following me, but I stopped and turned around only to find two little old ladies chatting about their favorite brand of oatmeal.

No matter where I went, that feeling persisted, which only meant one thing. I was definitely losing my mind because I felt the weight of someone’s too interested gaze on me, but every single time I turned around it was just people. Regular people. Old people. College students. Couples. Families.

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