Page 15 of Painted Scars
An hour later, I’ve survived the perky clerk at Pleasure Chest calling me “Romeo,” and the shame of asking for a replacement bullet “before my girlfriend kills me.” The shade’s wrong, but close enough.
Back at Kate’s, I climb up the tree and hop onto her roof, slipping through the unlocked window. PJ3 hears me and races up to greet me as I unbox the damn thing.
“Sorry, buddy,” I tell him, laying the new toy in the stash with the others. “I want to take you with me, but I think she’ll notice.”
I let him climb my chest, and lick my chin. I bribe him with more jerky, and leave the rest in the pantry.
I pet his silky head. “If that asshole from next door comes back around, draw blood, okay?”
PJ3 barks as if he understands.
“Good boy.” I give him a final pat and climb to my feet.
He whines when I leave him behind.
Walking back to my Camaro, I hope like hell Kate doesn’t notice the upgrades, or use it while we’re watching. God help me. My self-control and Grayson’s lifespan won’t survive.
CHAPTER 5 - KATE
Something crashes to the floor with a clatter. I bolt upright out of bed, my heart thundering.
Josh gives me a rolling groan from the floor. He’s proudly parked his butt beside my fallen nightstand lamp, the source of the noise. The silver crushed diamond lampshade is upside down, and the mirror-finish base lies on its side, the bulb flickering like a dying star. I always leave it on at night to scare away the shadows. My Yorkshire’s tail swishes, and his eyes are bright, pretending he hasn’t committed property damage.
“I swear, if you weren’t so cute…” I grumble, throwing off my comforter, dropping my toes to the soft carpet, and crouching to collect the evidence. “You’re lucky this isn’t broken, otherwise no more jerky for you, mister!”
He groans at me and nudges my leg like I’m a silly human for not understanding his reasons for climbing furniture.
I restore the lamp to the bedside table. Damn, it’s crooked. I adjust it. Still off. My fingers twitch to realign it. Once. Twice. Three times.
“There. That’s better.”
Josh isn’t so convinced. He watches me like I’m the one losing it, and I am. I ruffle his head.
Something cold drops onto the skin of my knee. Josh sits there, body rocking, tailing thumping, a miniature hunter presenting his master with a rabbit. Black, cylindrical, the size of a thumbtack, one side covered in a mesh grill. Also warm and dripping with slobber. Pleased yips come from my pet.
Slowly, I lift it and twist it in the light. Not a treat or one of his toys. He’s lucky he didn’t swallow it. And this doesn’t belong in my bedroom. I freeze. I’ve seen enough crime dramas to recognize a spy chip, possibly a microphone. Why the hell is it my room?
Silence screams in my locked lungs. My eyes sweep across my bookshelves, art frames, wall-mounted TV, and my heart-shaped pillows like they’re suspects. I don’t move for a long moment.
Rational me wants to know if Blackthorn planted this. The name tightens around my ribs.
No. No. No.
That chapter is closed. At least, I thought it was, until three nights ago.
Book Girlie me tickles the back of my mind with another explanation. I glance back at my bookshelf, and a secret thrill feathers down my spine. Spying on the heroine is precisely the kind of thing that happens in my books. That thought alone should terrify me. Hell, it does a little. Yet, I’m not completely sold that Blackthorn is behind this. The smut slut in me desperately needs to believe that someone else entered the sanctum of Morally Gray Alley and left me this little love note. The helmeted biker from last night, for example. Fantasies explode in my mind, and I can’t help but feel chosen like the female protagonists I pretend to be at night.
My hands come together in prayer. “Dear, God. I know we don’t catch up much. I hope you don’t hold it against me.”
I imagine the Almighty frowning and warning me to get to the point.
I get on with it since He’s busy. “If someone is stalking me, please let it be in a dark romance way and not in a political thriller way. Have a great morning.”
I get up and wrap the device in a tissue and leave it next to my lamp. Then I shower with one eye on the window, the other on my cabinets, paranoid that someone is watching. I refuse to let fear touch my body. Refuse to be a trembling, slick, hot mess. I lather up real slow with enough body wash to clean a car and brush it over my slick skin sensually. Let them watch. I’m done hiding.
“You want to watch, you creep?” I shout all the bravado I can into it to make my point. “Choke on it!”
Whoever they are, they’re not going to intimidate me or send me into a spiral again. They’re going to fuel my little investigative heart to uncover them. And if they’re connected to Blackthorne, well, fuck him, because I’ve got a surprise coming.
