My Husband, My Stalker - Jessa Kane Page 0,4

back, standing abruptly and knocking a hip into the table. Christopher shoots to his feet as well, shoving long fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m…please. That was too much.”

“No, it’s me. It’s…” I look around, my cheeks turning numb when I realize the sun has almost completely gone down. How long was I sitting at this table, looking into this man’s eyes? Did I leave the house later than I thought? It’s possible. I spent a long time trying to psyche myself up to go outdoors. And now. And now…I’ll be walking into my house after dark.

My worst fear.

“Jolie,” Christopher says in a calm, resonant voice. “What is it?”

I turn in a circle, alarmed to find that most of the neighbors are heading back inside, the music has stopped and the barbeque is no longer smoking. “I just, um…” I wipe my perspiring palms down my dress. “I don’t like coming home after dark.”

“Why?”

“You really don’t know?”

His brows pull together. Slowly, he shakes his head.

I lower my voice. “I was taken from my home. Kidnapped. After work one night. He’d been hiding in my bedroom for days. The…the man was an older co-worker of mine. He’d formed some kind of…infatuation with me and imagined this whole relationship between us. There was nothing, um…sexual. It was almost like he was courting me.” I stop for a breath. “I played along until he let his guard down. Until I could call the police. It…it was in the news.”

I wish I didn’t have to talk about this out loud. Not to this normal, good-looking man who has every right to avoid a girl with baggage like mine. Not when he made it possible for me to feel light for a while. To be the kind of girl who flirts and has drinks with cute, easy-going insurance salesmen.

Christopher has been very still while I related the story. Now, he says, simply, “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t glance away uncomfortably or try and relate my experience to another horrifying story. He just says the right thing and leaves it at that. Right where I need it for now.

“Thank you,” I murmur, stepping away from the table. “And thanks for the drink. But I think I’ll head home now.”

Putting his hands in his pockets, he nods gravely. “Good night.”

But when I reach my front door, I can’t seem to get a foot over the threshold.

The lights are blazing inside. I’ve turned them on with my phone. There’s no reason not to walk through the door, but I can’t. I can’t—

“I could go in with you.” Christopher’s voice carries from the sidewalk behind me. “I could check the rooms and make sure it’s safe. Then I’ll leave.”

I nod without turning around and he appears to my right, tall and strong and reassuring. My immediate neighbor. A man everyone saw me with. Surely letting him inside briefly is safe.

I want him to come inside, too, I realize.

There is something about him that puts me at ease. It’s the manner in which he speaks to me, as if he’s well aware of the invisible boundaries.

Without another word, Christopher steps inside and I follow him. We move room to room. He checks even the ridiculous places, like inside my kitchen cabinets. Behind the vacuum. Everywhere. He goes down to the basement and does a thorough sweep, his manner efficient. Powerful, even. So able and masculine, I once again become aware of my damp underwear and the coil in my loins. My sensitive skin.

Logically, I know I can take care of myself.

But I…like this man being protective. I like his care. His attentiveness to detail.

The way he doesn’t judge.

“There’s no one here,” he says, looking me in the eye, letting his assurance sink in. “Everything is locked. You’re safe.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“Any time. I mean that. Any time.”

He hesitates, his chest expanding, then starts to leave. Makes it all the way to the door.

“Wait.”

His back muscles tense, his hand pausing on the doorknob. “Yes?”

This is crazy. I can’t really be considering asking this near-stranger to stay the night. We just met. I’m not mentally healthy enough to do casual or serious. But I’m already walking toward him as if in a trance, already sliding my palms up the range of muscles on his back, absorbing his shudder. How can this feel so inevitable? Almost…foretold? “Stay.”

He braces a palm on the door, and once again, I marvel at the size and capability of his hands. The way one of his knuckles is crooked