Page 17 of Sweet Doe
"I brought you something," he calls out, his voice grossly warm and affectionate. "I thought you might be getting cold."
I back away from the desk, my heart hammering through my chest. The photographs on the walls seem to mock me—hundreds of moments from my life, stolen and displayed like trophies.
His footsteps are getting closer, moving down the hallway toward the bedrooms. I have maybe thirty seconds before he finds me here and realizes I've discovered his sick shrine.
Think, Sloan. Think.
I can't make it back to the bedroom without him seeing me. But maybe I can pretend I was looking for a bathroom. Maybe I can?—
"There you are."
The voice comes from directly behind me, and I spin around to find him standing in the doorway. His dark hair is tousled from the wind, and there are flakes of snow on his shoulders. He looks perfectly normal, perfectly harmless—until I see his eyes.
Those predatory eyes that miss nothing.
His gaze flicks past me to the desk, taking in the notebooks and photographs with a quick, assessing glance. I try to keep my expression neutral, but I know he can read the guilt written across my face.
"Find anything interesting?" he asks, his voice too casual.
"I was looking for a bathroom," I lie, the words coming out too fast, too breathless. "I got turned around."
"The bathroom is down the hall. In the opposite direction." He steps into the room, and suddenly the space feels much smaller. "This is my office."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to?—"
"Don't lie to me, Sloan." His voice is still soft, but there's a hard undertone now. "I’m not an idiot. You’ve been looking around. I get it. It’s what I’d do. It’s what I expected you to do."
There's no point in denying it anymore. He knows, and pretending otherwise will only make things worse. So I lift my chin and meet his gaze head-on, trying to project more courage than I feel.
"You've been stalking me for months," I say, surprised by how steady my voice sounds. "You have hundreds of pictures of me. You know so many things about my life that you shouldn't."
"I prefer the term 'research.'" He moves closer, and I instinctively back up until I hit the wall covered in photos of me. "I wanted to understand you. To know what would make you happy."
"What would make me happy is going home."
"Thisis your home now." He reaches out to touch one of the photographs—me laughing at something Cara said during our last brunch together. The memory feels different now.Tainted. "Everything you need is here. Everything you could want."
"I want my freedom."
"Freedom is grossly overrated." His fingers trail down the photograph, tracing my smile. "Freedom is just another word for being alone. You would have settled for less than you deserve."
"And what exactly do I deserve?" The question comes out sharper than I intend, but I'm too angry to care about managing his mood.
He turns to look at me then, his eyes burning with an intensity I'm starting to recognize. "You deserve to be worshipped.Cherished,Sloan. Protected from a world that would never understand what you really are."
"I’m a person. Ahumanbeing with my own thoughts and desires and choices."
"What you really are," he says, moving close enough that we’ll touch if I breathe, "ismine."
The possessiveness in his voice makes something twist uncomfortably in my stomach.
Despite the stalking and the murder and the kidnapping, there's a fucked up part of me that is being reminded how alive I was under his touch and how thoroughly he shattered every wall I’ve ever built. He’s too close.
And that terrifies me.
"I know what you're thinking," he says softly, reaching out to trace his fingers down my cheek. "I can see it in your eyes."
"I thought you were Alex." The words come out as a whisper.
