Page 83 of Malice and Surrender
My hand clenched as Wilder mentioned the guy I’d seen leaving the bar with Raine. Why was Wilder following him around? That was the question that led to more questions. Was he really following me around, so he was technically following them around? Was I being stalked while stalking? Fuck, my head hurt.
“Why are you following Raine and the bartender around?” I asked, praying he didn’t say he was following me. I pulled on a pair of black sleep pants. I still had the goal of getting a few hours of sleep tonight if I could get Wilder out of my house.
“I can’t tell you that. It is on a need-to-know basis, and you are not yet needing to know,” Wilder said.
I pulled on a T-shirt and turned to face him. Wilder had made himself comfortable. He was sprawled out on my bed, with his arms behind his head, like it was his bed, not mine. Why the fuck not? At this rate, I should just let him fuck me. He’d invaded every other part of my life. Why not my ass?
“Fine. What can you tell me?” I leaned against the dresser and tried hard to be interested in what he was saying. I expected him to say something like the guy used to run with squirrels and dance in a circus.
“I can tell you that he has a checkered past and one that should be looked into. There are some questions that should be answered.”
“How very cryptic of you,” I drawled.
“Thank you.” He smiled as if I meant it as a compliment.
I’d learned over the last few months that common sense and sarcasm were lost on Wilder. He took everything as a literal fact that couldn’t be changed. If I said I loved toast for breakfast, he questioned why I switched from toast to cereal one morning. Then wouldn’t understand why I wanted variety. He reminded me a little of Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory.
“Why exactly don’t you have him under surveillance?” Wilder asked.
I shrugged. “Why would I? Raine isn’t my girl, and she’s free to fuck whoever she wants,” I said, but I wasn’t fooling myself. The thought of her not being mine was equivalent to tossing gasoline on the flames of fury in my gut. The earlier rage that had died down was waiting to re-ignite.
“But you like her, yes?”
“I feel something,” I said, not wanting to admit that I may still like her. Fuck, I couldn’t even think that without calling myself a liar. I fucking loved her.
I had zero interest in sharing that piece of information with Wilder, though. We’d be here the next two days as I tried to explain emotions I didn’t fully understand.
“I know this sensation. I feel something too for the object of my interest.” He tapped the pen off his lower lip. “Sometimes I like to watch her, sometimes I want to kill her, and many times I like to fuck her. That is proving to be fun when she stops screaming. Well, I better get going. I need to get some rest.”
Oh fuck, he really did have someone he was torturing. I pressed my lips together and beat back the urge to ask who the lucky girl was.
“Such a novel fucking idea,” I said instead.
He jumped from the bed and was already marching out the bedroom door. He was still as light as a cat, and I reached the bedroom door just in time to see him make the last few strategic steps to the top of the stairs.
“I’ll follow you down and lock the door.” I stepped into the hallway to follow Wilder, but he held up his hand.
“No need, I have my key,” he said and smiled. “I find that easier than breaking in all the time.”
I opened my mouth to ask, ‘why the fuck are you breaking into my house all the time?’ and, more importantly, ‘where the fuck did you get a key?’ Then I realized it didn’t matter. I had visions of the guy going all Mission Impossible on my ass. I actually pictured waking up in the night to find him hanging over me like a giant spider on a string as he waited to ask his next ridiculous question.
Crawling into my bed, I set the alarm, knowing I would feel like a bag of smashed assholes with so little sleep. But I was after answers, and I knew exactly where to start.
Kaivan
Roach’s munching made me want to pull a gun and splatter his brains all over the window. I watched as another large and overly crunchy triangle was plucked from the bag and went into his gob of a mouth. Unable to take it anymore, I put my window down before snatching the bag from his hands.
“Hey, that’s my breakfast,” he complained, but I only smiled as I stuck my arm out the window and dumped the rest of the bag on the ground.
“It was either that or I shoot you. Since I actually like you, I decided this was better,” I said, tossing the empty bag on the floor of the truck as Roach glared.
“Dude, you dragged my ass out of bed at the ass crack of dawn, and we’ve been sitting here staring at this stupid shop for over an hour. Other than a coffee, I haven’t had anything to eat. You need to find new friends to hang out with that can put up with your sour attitude.” Roach crossed his arms like he was a sulking child.
“Oh, really? And you’ve never yanked me out of bed, ordered me to get dressed, and forced me to stalk a certain girl with you?” I tapped my chin. “Now that I fucking think about it. This is all your fault, so you have no one to blame but yourself.”
“How the hell do you figure that?”
“Well, you befriended me in prison. That was your first mistake. Then, when your ass was getting out early, you agreed to look out for Hollywood’s sister. Now you’ve taken stalker to all new levels, and lastly, if you’d never taken my ass to that bar, Eclipse, I still would’ve been completely oblivious about where Raine was.” I shrugged. “See, this is all your fault.”
