Chapter 8: October 25 - Your Halloween Stalker

Hey trouble,

I was in your fucking wardrobe last night, sweetheart, six feet away while you read yesterday's letter for the second time. Go on, check it now if that makes you feel better. I'm not there anymore. I had already been inside when you came home, and you checked under the bed, behind the shower curtain and inside the hall closet because the pastry incident has made you thorough, but you never opened the louvered doors beside the dresser. You changed into an old sleep shirt, took the black lace mask out of your bag and put it on the bed beside the letter, completely unaware that the bastard writing to you was close enough to hear the mattress creak when you sat down.

Then you reread the letter. You kept your face very serious, and it might've been believable if you hadn't pressed your thighs together halfway through. Then you must have read it again and stopped pretending, and fuck, sweetheart, I nearly forgot every sensible reason I had for staying quiet. I'm going to give you a second to swear at me before we continue. Finished? Good. You touched yourself with my letter open beside you, and I watched everything. There's no way to make that sound respectable, so I'm not going to try.

You lay there staring at the ceiling for so long I started wondering whether you were actually going to win the argument you were clearly having with yourself. Then you sighed. Not some delicate little sound either. It was that irritated, fed-up breath you make when you already know exactly what you want and you're pissed off for wanting it.

"Fuck it," you muttered.

Sweetheart, I swear to God, those two words nearly killed me.

You shoved the blanket down until it bunched around your thighs, shifted against the mattress and dragged the hem of your shirt up just enough for your hand to slip beneath it. Your palm moved over your stomach while you kept staring at the ceiling, and I stood inside that fucking wardrobe trying to remember how breathing worked.

Then your fingers drifted lower and that was when I noticed the black lace.

I'd seen pretty underwear before. I'm not twelve. I have managed to survive the sight of lace without suffering some kind of medical emergency, but apparently putting it on you changed the fucking rules. The black stood out against your skin, soft and dark and ridiculously distracting, and my brain immediately decided this was information worth keeping forever.

You hooked one finger beneath the waistband, hesitated, then let your hand disappear beneath the lace.

Fuck.

Beautiful, I had imagined you touching yourself before. Of course I had. More times than I'm admitting in writing because there's obsessive and then there's giving you enough evidence to have me committed. I'd imagined what your face might look like when you stopped thinking about everything else. I'd wondered whether you would get impatient, whether you take your time, whether you bite your lip when something feels good or let that filthy mouth of yours finally make some noise.

None of those fantasies prepared me for actually watching you.

Your breathing changed first. It got slower, deeper, then uneven when whatever you were doing beneath that lace started feeling good enough to steal your concentration. Your thighs shifted and your other hand curled into the sheet beside you, then loosened again. Every now and then you stopped moving completely for a second, almost like you were trying to drag the moment out, before your hand started again and your breathing went a little rougher.

Were you wondering whether I was somewhere nearby, whether I would have liked what you were doing, whether the man writing filthy things about you in those letters might have been thinking about exactly this?

I was six feet away, sweetheart.

Six fucking feet.

Do you have any idea what that did to me? My hands were clenched so hard my nails were digging into my palms because I knew if I let myself move even a little, I was going to make some stupid fucking noise and give myself away. My whole body felt wound too tight. Every time your hips shifted I had to remind myself that opening those doors would turn the hottest thing I'd ever seen into something you hadn't chosen.

So I stayed exactly where I was. Barely.

I don't know every thought in your head, sweetheart, and I'm not arrogant enough to pretend I do, but I'm also not fucking stupid. You kept looking at my letter. You whispered my favorite insult for me under your breath. You got quieter the closer you came, then turned your face into the pillow when pleasure finally tipped you over because even completely alone you still try to make yourself smaller than you need to be.

That fucking gets to me.

Afterward you stayed there for a few seconds catching your breath, your hand still beneath the lace, cheeks pink and hair stuck messily against one side of your face. You looked warm and wrecked and so fucking beautiful I wanted to tear the wardrobe door off its hinges just so I could tell you.

Instead you dragged your hand back out, pulled the blanket over yourself and muttered, "Jesus Christ, that was pathetic."

And there it was again.

That thing you do where you get something you wanted and immediately find a way to make yourself feel bad about it.

I nearly stepped out just to argue with you.

Pathetic? Fuck off, beautiful.

You were lying there flushed and breathless because something felt good. That's all. You wanted it, so you gave yourself a few minutes where nothing else mattered, and somehow your first instinct afterward was still to insult yourself for enjoying it.

Stop fucking doing that.

You don't have to earn pleasure before you're allowed to want it. You don't have to apologize because something turned you on. And you definitely don't get to call that gorgeous, messy little moment pathetic when I'm standing six feet away trying not to lose what remains of my fucking mind over it. You're allowed to be turned on by the letters. You're allowed to hate that you're turned on by the letters.

I stayed hidden because the moment belonged to you. Watching was already a violation big enough to make your friend spontaneously combust if she ever reads this, and I'm not pretending otherwise.

But my imagination did run away from me a little.

I imagined stepping out wearing the mask and stopping where you can see me. You would have plenty of time to throw something, scream, call me every name you know or tell me to leave, but in the fantasy you would spread your knees a little farther. That one imagined movement ruined my entire night. I want to stand there and watch you keep going while you look right back at me, fully aware of where my eyes are and what you're doing to me, and for once you don't make yourself smaller just because somebody wants you.

You let yourself enjoy it, and maybe you even make it worse on purpose because you know exactly what that would do to me. That's the heat I want from you now, beautiful, not frightened or confused or shamefilled. I want you looking straight at me while you knowingly drive me out of my fucking mind. I would only come closer when you ask, and I would only touch you when you want me to, but once you do, sweetheart, I'm not pretending I'd have a single calm thought left.

By then, I suspect both of us would be done pretending the letters were enough.

Instead I stayed hidden until I knew you were properly asleep. Then I left but I expect you'll check the wardrobe every night for the rest of the week after reading this. You're welcome, gorgeous.

Yours, with absolutely no claim to innocence left.

P.S. You hid the dog-eared dark romance under two other books this morning. Too late. I already saw the cover, and suddenly several things about you make even more sense.