“If only you hadn’t been so distracted by thoughts of me that you’d read the front of the package. There certainly weren’t any purple tentacle dildos in there.”
“It was a mis—” Her eyes go wide as she freezes mid-sentence. “You opened my package?”
“Tit for tat.”
Alyssa glares at me. “What are you—twelve years old? I wasn’t aware I was opening your package, but you sure as hell knew what you were doing when you opened mine.”
I shrug, completely unapologetic. “I had to make sure you were telling me the truth.”
“Oh, right, because I am clearly the suspicious one here.” Every time I keep inching closer, she keeps moving further away. Now, she’s only a foot from the bed, which is putting all sorts of ideas in my head.
That, in and of itself, is a shock. When have I ever fantasized about a woman after I’ve fucked her?
“I’m the suspicious one?” I ask, wrenching myself back to the topic at hand.
“You got a freaking finger in a box!” she exclaims. “A finger. In a box. In the mail. What kind of man gets packages like that?”
“The kind of man whose fence you should not be scaling.”
She throws her hands up in the air. “Yeah, okay, fair point. But it’s not like I knew that then. And anyway, my only concern was getting that package back before—”
“Before anyone knew all the freaky shit you’re into?”
“It’s not for me!” she explodes, practically frothing at the mouth with rage.
I have to try hard to suppress my laughter. I do a piss-poor job of it, though, which I know because her glare only gets more pointed. For a blush-prone wallflower, she’s got a lot of spice.
“Right. ‘Elle.’ Who most definitely is a person who exists.”
“She’s a real freaking person! And you’re a real freaking asshole. I’m sure the legion of women you fuck and forget on a nightly basis will agree with me on that one.”
“Unlike you, those women have realistic expectations of me.”
“It’s not an unrealistic expectation to want to get out of your neighbor’s house alive.”
I laugh in her face. “You think I’m gonna kill you?” She takes another unsmiling step backward, which is as good as an answer. “For fuck’s sake, princess: if I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.”
“Oh, well, isn’t that comforting.” Her legs hit the edge of the bed and she hisses in surprise. She mutters under her breath, an obscenity that makes my smirk twitch, before she straightens up again. “I won’t tell anyone about what I saw. I swear to you, I will take this secret to the grave. You can trust me. Just—just let me go.”
“You want me to trust you?”
“I know that’s difficult for a man like you, but I’m different. I can be trusted.”
My eyes narrow. The woman really needs to work on her convincing skills. “‘A man like me’？ Explain what that means to you.”
She swallows but her hands aren’t trembling anymore. “A man who can’t or won’t trust anyone else.”
The fact that she thinks she knows me is laughable. But I know the moment I push that point, she’s going to interpret it as defensiveness.
“Listen,” she continues, “you don’t know me well, but I am a woman of my word. If I make a promise, I will keep it.”
She’s emphatic—but letting her walk off my property is no longer an option.
I sigh. “Unfortunately, your word is not enough. For the time being—”
But I’m forced to break off mid-sentence because she springs forward, her eyes wild and unhinged as her knee flies upwards towards my crotch.
It’s reckless enough to take me by surprise.
Her aim isn’t as pointed as her glare, though, so while her knee brushes against my balls, it doesn’t make contact. At least not the kind of contact that would take me out for any length of time.
Not that it would matter even if it did. I made sure to lock the door when I walked in. Which Alyssa discovers a second later when she darts past me and tries furiously to pull it open.
She yanks hard but it remains stubbornly shut. “No!” she screams. “No! Let me out! Help! Someone! Let me OUT!”
She’s pounding those delicate little fists against the door frame but her screams are making more tremors than her hands are. I gather myself and approach her from the back, noticing how quickly her confidence has melted into panic.