Lights Out: A Dark Stalker Rom-Com

I couldn’t have been awake for more than six hours, and I was already exhausted. I guess having my house broken into, aiding in the kidnapping and killing of a rapist, hauling his body halfway across the state, getting screamed at by a mobster, driving back into the city in full-blown terror that I was being followed, and then waiting for two hours in a cold autobody shop while my boyfriend’s car was repeatedly deep cleaned by a middle-aged black man named Lucius would do that to a woman.

And no, Lucius did not appreciate being asked about his time in Azkaban.

I still wasn’t convinced he wasn’t some kind of wizard. The fact that he’d spent the past hour and a half trying to set me on fire with his eyes was suspicious as hell. Unless he’d heard that joke before, in which case…fair.

A yowl came from the back seat of Josh’s car.

“I know, bud,” I told Fred. “Just hold on a few more minutes. We’re almost to Daddy’s.”

Great, now Josh had me saying it, too.

I checked my rearview for what felt like the hundredth time. I’d ordered Greg not to follow me when we parted ways at my house, but I didn’t trust the little shit not to lie. Josh already owed my uncle a favor for this; the last thing I wanted was to lead Nico straight to Josh’s apartment. Although, if Josh ghosted me for much longer, maybe I’d get mad enough to change my mind.

The light ahead turned red, and I slowed to a stop behind a line of cars, taking the opportunity to check my phone. Again. Still nothing from Josh or any of my male relatives, despite my increasingly threatening texts to the latter. If they hurt my boyfriend, so help me, god, I was going to spend the rest of my life making them regret it. It would be a non-stop campaign of terror. Roadkill left on their cars. Thumbtacks in their shoes. Random pizzas delivered to their house with notes saying they were sent from the feds.

They would never know peace again.

I prayed that I was actually getting ghosted and something horrible hadn’t happened since Josh stopped texting me. The last thing I said to him was that I was happy he was happy. If he were any other man, I would have spiraled, thinking that I’d driven him away by being too romantic, too soon, but this was Josh we were talking about. He gleefully saw my “too soon” and raised me a “we now share a child.”

Which meant something had probably gone wrong. Fuck.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do about it. I had Fred with me, and if his increasingly pitiful yowls were anything to go by, he needed to get to a litter box, pronto. Even after I got him set up at Josh’s, it wasn’t like I could leave him there and go back to my uncle’s house. Greg told me to lie low for a while, which meant staying away from my fed-attracting family.

Going to them had clearly been a mistake. Josh and I should have taken our chances, hacked Brad apart ourselves, and dealt with the aftermath in therapy later. Or at least I should have. After Josh’s initial reaction to Brad’s body, jumping straight to dismemberment probably would have been a step too far for him.

The light turned green.

“Just focus,” I told myself, easing my foot off the brake.

Greg gave me a list of instructions I still had to follow, including scouring myself in the shower and scraping underneath my finger and toenails. I’d changed at my house, handing my dirty clothes and shoes over to a guy named Guido, minus the bra and underwear because, ew, no. I wasn’t about to give my unmentionables to some gross old mobster.

The phones Josh and I had been texting on were burners. He’d had a spare for me “just in case,” and yes, I had side-eyed him for that statement. We’d left our real ones at my house, so if our phone records were ever looked into, it would show we’d been there throughout the night. I had them with me now, along with Josh’s laptop and two bags filled with mine and Fred’s things.

Another yowl echoed through the car, louder and longer than before.

“Cross your legs or something,” I told Fred. “We’re almost there.”

A second later, I realized it wasn’t him but a siren.

The leather covering the steering wheel creaked as I death-gripped it. A check in my rearview revealed a cop car screaming up the street behind me, lights flashing. My heart slammed into my ribs as I slowly eased the car toward the side of the road along with everyone else.

Please don’t be after me, I prayed.

The cop slowed alongside the car, and I started to panic before I realized we were right before the intersection, and they were probably checking to see if anyone was coming from the other direction. I turned my face away as they eased past and then picked up speed again on the other side of the intersection.

“Holy shit,” I wheezed, dropping my forehead onto the steering wheel. Nope. I wasn’t cut out for a life of crime. Blood and gore, I could handle. Constantly worrying about being arrested? Hard pass.

Someone behind me honked, and I jerked upright. Now wasn’t the time to have a breakdown.

I waved to the person and started driving again, careful to keep beneath the speed limit. Yes, the car was clean, and no, there wasn’t any reason for the cops to be after me so soon, but telling myself that didn’t magically erase my paranoia. I had a feeling it’d be weeks, if not months, before I could fully relax again. What would happen to Brad’s body? Could Lucius be trusted? He’d seen my face. He could ID me to the cops if questioned.

Goddammit, I just had to go and piss him off with that Azkaban joke. Maybe I could send him flowers or a new wrench set by way of apology and weasel my way back into his good graces.

Five minutes later, I pulled into Josh and Tyler’s parking lot and rolled into the guest spot next to Tyler’s SUV. Fred was non-stop meowing, so I eased the strap to his carry bag over my shoulder and grabbed his litter box before heading up. I had their entry code but paused to buzz in instead, giving Tyler a heads-up that I was there. It’d be super awkward to walk in on him when he wasn’t expecting it, even though Josh said he was cool.

“Hey, Aly,” his voice crackled through the speaker before he buzzed me up.

He met me at their door a few minutes later, holding it open. “Well, hello.”

His dark blond hair was still wet like he’d just gotten out of the shower, and it looked good slicked back from his face like that. He was shorter than Josh, maybe six feet, and just as muscular, though he appeared more so somehow, without any tattoos to mask his physique. There was no mistaking how handsome he was, but he didn’t hold a candle to his roommate in either looks or personality, and I felt nothing for him as I strode past.

“Sorry,” I called over my shoulder, heading toward Josh’s room. “Cat bathroom emergency.”

I saw nothing as I rushed inside the bedroom, too focused on getting the litter box set down and Fred out of his carrier. He bolted straight into the box once free, and I swear I heard an audible kitty sigh before he started peeing. Poor little guy.

I lifted my head and – oh, damn. I was here. On the set of all my favorite videos. There was the couch along the far wall. To my right was a massive bed, complete with hook holes for bondage play. Straight ahead was the wide bank of windows that Josh had stared out of while pretending to be sad.

I was instantly, painfully aroused. My lizard brain expected me to turn around and find the Faceless Man waiting just behind me, chest heaving and covered in blood, and, god, I hoped Josh got home soon. I’d never been so ready for kinky, athletic sex in my life.

Of course, that’s when Tyler knocked on the still-open door. “You want coffee or anything?”

I grimaced, glad my back was to him so he wouldn’t see my expression and misunderstand. “Coffee sounds great, thank you,” I said, my voice two octaves higher than usual.

So awkwaaard.

I waited until I heard him walk away before turning around. Fred was pretty well-behaved, but I didn’t know how Tyler would feel about him having free rein in the apartment, so I closed the door to Josh’s room behind me to keep him sequestered.

“I’m just going to grab the rest of my stuff!” I called as I paced through the entryway.

“You have the code?” Tyler asked.

“Yup.”

“Cool. Just leave the door unlocked then.”

I raced out of there, glad to have the frigid winter air on my too-hot skin once I was back outside. Somehow, I hadn’t paused to think about what staying at Josh’s place would do to me. So far, it was a strange combination of emotions. I had fantasized about doing the darkest, most lascivious things with a man I was obsessed with in one bedroom, while in the other, I’d had real-life, boring sex with a man I had no feelings for.

Josh said Tyler was fine with everything, but now I wondered if I was. Was I adult enough for this situation? Or would the awkwardness of it prove to be too much? I wanted to be chill. Hell, I thought I could be, under normal circumstances, but after the night and morning I’d had, I’d just about reached full mental capacity, and making small talk with a guy I used to get naked with felt like a step too far right now. I’d have to avoid him until I could catch my breath.

I popped the car’s trunk and was just reaching in for my things when my phone rang inside my jacket pocket. I whipped it out.

“Josh? Are you okay?”

“Uh…not Josh,” a woman’s voice said.

I pulled the phone from my ear. It was Veronica, my lab tech friend.

“Shit, sorry, Vern,” I said, grabbing my bags and shutting the trunk. “I thought you were someone else.”

“No worries,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you I finished your bloodwork early.”

“Vern,” I whined, punching in the apartment door code. “I told you not to worry about it.”

“I know,” she said. “And you still shouldn’t feel guilty. No line jumping occurred. I stayed an hour late the past two nights to finish it.”

“Vern!” I yelled, my voice echoing up the stairwell. “That makes me feel just as guilty.”

“You’ll live,” she told me. “Want to know the results?”

“Let me guess: they didn’t match?”

“Ding, ding, ding!” she said. “We have a winner.”

I rolled my eyes and let myself back into the apartment, making a mental note to ask Josh how he’d pulled that off. “I’m sorry I put you through all this for nothing. I feel like a dick.”

Fred was waiting for me at Josh’s door, and I almost tripped over him on my way inside. “Jesus, Fred. Watch out.” I could hear Vern talking, but the phone was away from my ear while I juggled the bags and tried to keep my cat from sprinting past me to freedom. “One second, Vern.”

Finally, I got everything inside, and Fred corralled back where he belonged. I lifted the phone to my ear. “Sorry about that. What did you say?”

“I said I did some more digging.”

Something about her tone had me sinking onto the edge of Josh’s bed. It sounded like she was about to give me the kind of news you should hear sitting down. “Okay?”

“Like I told you the other day, you made me curious, so I decided to look past a simple match and see if I could find anything else.”

“And?”

“Uh, I don’t know a good way to tell you this,” she said.

I gripped the phone, starting to get worried. Was there something wrong with Josh’s blood? “Rip it off like a band-aid,” I told Vern.

She took a deep breath. “I checked the sequencing from the bloody rags against the open DNA database we use, and, well, the contributor shares 50% of their DNA with the Ken Doll Killer.”

I shook my head. “Wait. What are you saying right now?”

“That the man who bled on the rags is the son of a serial killer, Aly.”

The phone slipped from my fingers. I could hear Vern calling my name, but a low buzzing filled my ears that drowned her out. The edges of my vision went fuzzy, and my head spun. I was going to pass out. I’d never fainted in my life, but I knew all the symptoms, and after all the shocks I’d suffered today, this last one had clearly pushed me over the edge.

My nursing kicked in, and I laid back on the bed while the room blurred around me. The man who had stalked me, broken into my house, and killed someone was the son of a serial killer.

Oh my god, he filmed himself covered in blood. Did he want to be his dad or something?

Was he already?

I pushed upright. I had to get out of there. True crime wasn’t my thing, but I had a working understanding of personality disorders and knew some people with them were good at faking real emotion. Good enough that Bundy had worked alongside one of the best crime writers of our time, and she’d had no idea he was a monster. If Bundy could fool someone like her, what chance did I stand against someone like him?

For all I knew, this was nothing but a big game to Josh – I’d already learned firsthand how much he liked them – and this girlfriend/boyfriend/father-to-my-cat talk was just to butter me up and get me to trust him so I’d be all the more horrified when the real him came out to play.

My head swam as I tried to stand, sending me crashing back to the bed. Fred jumped beside me and made a chirruping noise like he was asking if I was okay.

“Aly!” someone yelled.

Right. Shit. I’d dropped my phone.

I scooped it up. “I’m here,” I told Vern. “Sorry. That just threw me.”

“Are you okay?” she asked. “Are you safe?”

I looked around, seeing the hooks in the bedframe with new eyes. Was I safe? Josh was still AWOL, so there was time to escape. I couldn’t go to my house because he’d already proven how easily he could break into it. Greg told me to stay away from the family, but right now, I couldn’t think of anywhere safer than inside the compound of a mobster. Nico probably had more weapons and security than even Josh could circumnavigate.

“Aly?” Vern said, sounding frantic.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m safe. I promise.” Or at least I would be soon. “Look, I gotta go. Thank you for telling me.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she said.

“I am. Can you please keep what you found to yourself?” My head was a mess, but one thing was clear: Vern spreading gossip that there was someone related to an infamous serial killer living in the city would send panic through the hospital and bring more attention to me than I needed right now.

“I can,” she said. “You can trust me with this because, technically, what I did counts as mishandling hospital assets, and I like my job too much to lose it.”

Thank fuck for that.

We said goodbye and hung up, and I stayed on the edge of the bed for a few minutes while I tried to get my heart rate under control. This was the dark past Josh didn’t want to tell me about, and now I understood why.

What had he said about the worst time to tell me being right after he killed someone?

I laughed, and it sounded slightly hysterical. Yeah, that timing would have been shitty, but hearing it from him then still would have been better than finding out like this.

Or maybe it was good that he wasn’t present to manipulate my response.

I cringed. That thought didn’t seem fair. Now that the initial shock of hearing the news was wearing off, I was starting to question my knee-jerk reaction. No, I didn’t know Josh that well, but…it felt like I did. Not facts like what his favorite color was or who he’d taken to prom, but who he was as a person. He was funny, sweet, and more caring than anyone I’d ever dated, and it was hard to believe he was a good enough actor to fake all that.

I wasn’t a true crime writer, but now that I thought about it, I’d probably been around more dangerous people than that woman had. She only interacted with them through highly controlled interviews, whereas I met them in the wild daily. If anything, my instincts were likely sharper than hers because she had correctional officers nearby to save her if anything went wrong, and I only had myself.

My family knew about him. So did my next-door neighbors. And Tyler knew about me. That was a lot of people for the cops to talk to if I suddenly went missing. Wouldn’t someone planning to murder me do everything in their power to keep the witnesses to a minimum?

A knock sounded from the bedroom door.

“Aly?” Tyler called. “Coffee’s done.”

It hit me then. Tyler wasn’t just Josh’s roommate; he was his best friend. He’d once told me that he and Josh had been besties since they were kids. That meant he probably knew all about Josh’s dad.

I pushed up from the bed on shaky legs, my earlier reticence about interacting with my ex disappearing. If anyone could answer my questions and give me more insight into whether or not Josh was who I hoped he was, it was Tyler.

“Woah, are you okay?” he asked as I emerged from the bedroom.

“No. I just had a bit of a shock.”

“Here, sit down,” he said, pulling one of the barstools from beneath the kitchen island.

I slumped into it, watching him pour me coffee, wondering how to breach this topic. I couldn’t think of a casual way, so I decided to dive right in. “Do you know who Josh’s dad is?”

Tyler stiffened, his back to me. “Why do you ask?”

“Do you know or not?”

He jerked his head in an abrupt nod.

“Well, I just found out about him and have some questions.”

Tyler sent me a wary look over his shoulder. “I really don’t think I’m the one who should answer them. Josh would probably be better.”

I shook my head. “I want to hear it from you.”

He frowned and turned to face me. “Why?”

Fuck, how to explain this? “Because some of my questions are harsh, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“Yes, because Josh is so delicate,” he said, returning to the coffee.

I tamped down my rising annoyance. “It doesn’t matter if someone is delicate or not. You should care about their feelings either way.” Speaking of feelings, no wonder I’d never developed any for this guy. Without the lust for his body blinding me, he was more of a douche than I remembered.

He turned and set my coffee in front of me. “Whatever. Ask your questions.”

“He’s not like him, right?”

Tyler jerked like I’d slapped him. “Jesus, no. Why would you think that?”

I contemplated bringing up Josh’s social media account but thought better. Knowing Josh, not even Tyler knew about it. And I definitely couldn’t bring up Brad, but I needed clarity on something Josh said concerning his death.

“He made a comment about worrying he was fated to be a killer.”

Tyler’s expression darkened. “That fucking psychologist.”

“What?” I said, confused.

“After Josh’s dad got arrested, his mom took him to see this renowned psychologist to help heal Josh’s trauma,” Tyler said. “The doctor had just taken part in this study trying to prove that psychopathy was genetic. He was convinced he was right even though the data was slightly questionable. And there was Josh. A golden goose dropped right into his lap. Within a month, he had Josh and Maria convinced that Josh needed to be on antipsychotics for the rest of his life or he’d turn into his father.”

I leaned back in my seat, horrified. “What kind of doctor does that?”

Tyler shook his head. “He isn’t one anymore. Josh wasn’t the only kid he manipulated in an attempt to validate his study, and his victims ended up taking part in a civil suit against him. He lost his license to practice, but the damage was done. Josh only recently got off most of his meds, and if he’s still making comments like the one you mentioned, he must still be questioning that decision.”

“So, he never should have been on them?”

“No,” Tyler said. “He has some quirks, sure, but who doesn’t? The important thing is that he has none of the more troubling signs that would point to antisocial personality disorder.” He rested his elbows on the counter and met my eyes. “I knew his dad, and Josh is nothing like him. The fact that I’m still alive should be all the proof you need.” He grinned. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I can be a bit much sometimes.”

I took a sip of coffee. Yeah, I was starting to see that. “Why didn’t Josh tell me about all this sooner?”

Tyler pushed upright and snagged his mug from the counter. “Probably because he knew you’d try to bolt.”

“Hey,” I said. “Does it look like I’m bolting?”

He snorted. “From how pale you were when you came out here, I think it’s safe to say that you would have if I weren’t home to talk you down from the ledge.”

Okay, that was fair. But still. “Look, I had good reason to worry. Your roommate broke into my house and planted a camera there. And also hacked into my work to watch me.”

Instead of being appropriately horrified, Tyler laughed. “Finally, someone to take some of the burden of his love off my shoulders.” He reached over and grabbed my wrist, looking grateful. “Bless you.”

I jerked out of his grip. “I’m serious, Tyler.”

“So am I,” he said. “Those are the quirks I was talking about. Josh spent his childhood trapped beneath the thumb of a serial killer. Once he and his mom got away, he spent every second of free time ensuring they never ended up back there. Even as an adult, he needs to know everything about the people he cares for, where they are, and who they’re with. One time, I forgot to tell him I was staying out for the night, and he showed up at my hookup’s house at three o’clock in the morning to lecture me about it.”

I grinned. That sounded like something Josh would do.

“You have no idea what kind of nightmare he escaped from,” Tyler said. “That he still lives. News agencies and media outlets are constantly trying to track him and Maria down for interviews. It’s made him a paranoid recluse, and it’s been even worse since that documentary came out this summer. He barely left the house before you two started seeing each other.”

“Why?” I asked, confused.

“You really don’t like true crime, do you?” Tyler said, fishing his phone from his pocket. “Josh looks exactly like his dad.”

He pulled something up on his phone and slid it across the island toward me. I picked it up and, holy shit. He was right. Their hair might have been different, and Josh’s skin was darker, but aside from that, the men were identical.

No, wait.

I leaned in, studying the serial killer’s eyes. Those were different, too. They were that weird dead/alive combo, like the other killer I’d met, like Brad’s, with none of the warmth and humor I regularly saw from Josh. I scrolled down from the photo and quickly scanned the attached article. Josh’s dad was right up there with Bundy and Dahmer when it came to the horror of their crimes, and I could only imagine what life must have been like with him as a parent.

I handed the phone back to Tyler.

He slid it into his pocket and studied me over the top of his mug. “Josh has to know things, Aly. Feeling safe is important to him, and keeping the people he cares about safe is even more so. If you’re going to be with him, you’ll have to accept that he doesn’t give a shit about normal boundaries. My car has a GPS tracker that he put there the day I drove it off the lot. I have location data turned on in my phone so he can constantly check up on my whereabouts. If you were a true crime fan, I never would have invited you back here because they’re not allowed in the apartment.”

“That…weirdly doesn’t bother me,” I admitted.

Tyler nodded. “Yeah, me neither. It’s nice having someone always looking out for you. Like your own personal guardian angel.”

“It sounds like you look out for him too, though,” I said. He frowned, and I motioned toward the apartment. “The not bringing people here who might recognize him thing, taking time to explain this to me, and being cool about us seeing each other.”

He huffed a laugh. “If I’d known you two were a possibility, I would have immediately ended things between us and shoved you at him. No offense.”

“None taken,” I said, waving him off.

He leaned back against the counter. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but Josh is the most trustworthy, loyal person I know. Does he have his quirks? Yes. Will you get annoyed at the way he turns everything into a joke? Sooner than you expect. But Josh is the kind of ride-or-die you could go to with a body, and he’d help you hide it.”

I choked on my coffee. If only Tyler knew how true that statement was.

He spun and grabbed me a wad of napkins.

“Thanks,” I managed in between bouts of hacking. “Swallowed it the wrong way.”

“No problem,” he said. “And look, if you don’t think you can deal with Josh’s baggage, you should back out now. He lets so few people in that if you drag it out, you’ll only hurt him more.”

I nodded. “I get that. I don’t let people in either.”

Tyler raised his brows and gave me A Look. “Yeah. I know.”

I cringed. “Sorry.”

He waved me off. “No hard feelings. We obviously wouldn’t have worked out had we tried for anything serious.”

I nodded. Yes, Tyler was a douche, but somehow, I was starting to think he was a likable one. As in, I could see myself becoming friends with him if Josh and I stayed together for a while.

“What else should I know?” I asked.

“He’s vegan,” Tyler said.

I frowned. “But he made me bacon and eggs the other day.”

And now I knew why they’d been terrible. Because Josh probably had no idea how to cook them properly.

Tyler whistled. “He must have it bad. I’ve never been allowed to cook meat in here.”

“Why not?”

“Uh, how do I put this lightly?” Tyler said, tapping his chin. “His dad stirred one of his victims into hamburger patties and fed her to our entire neighborhood at a block party.”

I gagged. “What?!.”

“Yeah. That kind of thing sticks with most six-year-olds.”

I held up a hand. “Yup, I get it. No more details, please. Wait.” I narrowed my gaze at him. “How can you still eat meat?”

“I ate a hot dog instead of a burger that day.”

“Yeah, but you still smelled her being cooked.” Was a sentence I never thought would come out of my mouth.

Tyler shrugged. “Fair. But smelling and tasting are two different things.”

“Ew. Enough,” I said. Even for me, this conversation was too much, especially after I’d made that offhand comment about burning Brad’s body parts. Poor Josh. He must have been retraumatized when I said it.

I felt like such an asshole for my momentary freakout after Vern’s call. Thank fuck I’d always been a logical person and was able to come to my senses, even after all the shit I’d been through over the past 24 hours. Imagine if I’d stormed out of there without giving Josh a chance and let a misunderstanding potentially ruin our relationship. Unforgivable.

Josh and I were alike in so many ways, and the more I learned about his past, the more I was beginning to see that. Things were clicking into place about why Josh was the way he was and why he’d started his social media account. I just hoped he would listen to what I had to say about all this when he finally got home. I hated the idea that he still questioned himself, and if there was anything I could do to set his mind at ease once and for all, I would do it.

As if I’d summoned him, the front door opened, and Josh walked in. He was beautiful, even pale and exhausted, and wearing a stranger’s clothes that were obviously too small for him. The stubble on his chin was growing out, lending him a rough edge that wasn’t there when he was freshly shaven. I liked it. A lot.

All my earlier worries disappeared at seeing him unharmed, and I threw myself off the barstool to go to him. He scooped me up in his big arms and lifted me right off my feet, hugging me close.

“You’re safe,” we said at the same time.

“Glad you’re back, man,” Tyler said. “Oh, and Aly knows about your dad.” Josh went stiff in my arms. “I’ll kindly see myself out and let you two deal with this alone.”

I pulled back enough to glare at Tyler as he strolled past us with a shit-eating grin. “Turn me toward him.”

“Why?” Josh asked.

“So I can kick him,” I said, lashing out and missing by more than two feet.

Tyler’s chuckle echoed through the exterior hall before he shut the door behind himself.

Josh set me back on my feet, his expression guarded as he stared down at me. “He told you?”

I shook my head. “The lab tech I gave your samples to did more digging than she should have, and DNA matched you to your dad.”

Josh swore. “I knew I should have broken in and stolen them.”

“Don’t worry, she promised to keep her mouth shut.”

“And you trust her to?” he asked.

“Yes. She’s my friend, and her job depends on it.”

The words did nothing to stem his open worry. “Are you…?” He ran a hand over his face. “Fuck, this isn’t how I wanted things to go.”

“It’s okay,” I said, gripping his biceps. “I’m not freaking out.”

He eyed me.

“Anymore,” I added. “Tyler cleared things up for me.”

“Then I should really be worried,” Josh said.

I shook my head. “He’s a good friend.”

He huffed out a breath. “I know. A douche, but a good friend.”

“I understand why you do it,” I said.

“Do what?”

“Wear a mask. Cover yourself in fake blood.”

His brows rose. “Really? Because I’d love an explanation.”

I took one of his hands and led him toward the kitchen. He looked just as tired as I was, and I thought he could use a cup of coffee, so I had him sit on my vacated barstool as I poured him one.

“You’re doing the same thing I am,” I said. “Trying to rewrite history.”

“How so?”

“I try to save every patient as if it might somehow make up for not saving my mom.” I turned and handed him his coffee. “And you dress up like a scary serial killer but do the opposite of what your dad did.”

He blinked.

“Think about it,” I said, scooping my mug from the island. “You broke into my house and stalked me, just like your father did his victims, but you never meant to hurt me, only bring me pleasure. You do the same thing for millions of people on the internet three times a week. You distract them from this shitshow of a world and make them feel good instead of bad.”

He leaned back, looking contemplative. “I never thought of it that way.”

“You’re the opposite of him, Josh,” I said.

He shook his head, eyes sad as they met mine. “I like fear like he did.”

My heart stuttered for a second. “My reaction to Brad breaking in turned you on?” Oh, god. I didn’t know how I would handle that if it were true.

“Christ, no,” he said. “Not that kind of fear.”

“What, specifically then?” I asked.

He broke our gaze, staring past me as if searching for the right words. “It’s hard to explain, but those moments when I catch you off guard and watch your eyes flash wide with fear before bleeding into desire is what turns me on.”

I grinned. “Play back what you just said because it sounds to me like you don’t like fear so much as you like it when I stop being afraid and start being horny.”

His eyes returned to mine, and I could see the wheels turning in his head. “I don’t care about other people besides those in my inner circle.”

I shrugged. “So? Most of them are garbage anyway.”

“I have no regrets about stalking you.”

“Me neither. You might have noticed that I never asked you to stop. No safe words, remember?”

He nodded, eyeing me. “I remember, baby.”

I shivered. Why did that pet name turn me on so much? Or was it more about the ownership he sunk into the word every time he used it?

“Now,” I said. “If you’re done trying to scare me off, I’d like to know why you stopped texting me two hours ago.”

The heat cleared from his eyes. “We didn’t get into Brad’s house. The cops were already there when we arrived.”

I swore and nearly dropped my coffee. “What? How?”

“It wasn’t anything you and I did,” he said. “They were there to serve an arrest warrant related to Macy’s assault.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “That’s some godawful timing.”

“I know,” he said. “Your cousin held me at gunpoint until we figured it out.”

I dropped my hand and stared at him, lips curling in a snarl. “Which one?”

Josh leaned away from me, circling a finger between us. “You got a real creepy vibe going on right now, and I don’t know if I should be worried or turned on.” He glanced at his lap, hidden by the island overhang. “Never mind. My body figured it out.”

“This isn’t the time for joking,” I told him. “This is the time to start planning our second murder.”

“I thought you said it was involuntary manslaughter.”

“Quit stalling and give me a name.”

“Nope,” he said. “Not until Scary Aly gives me my girlfriend back. Plus, it was all a misunderstanding. He apologized afterward and invited me to his weekly poker game. I think we’re friends now.”

“No making friends with my mobster cousins,” I said. “Nothing good can come of that. Wait. Did they drop you off here? Do they know where you live now?”

He nodded, and I had to set my coffee on the counter to keep from crushing it in my grip. So much for trying to keep him safe from them. I guess it was a losing battle anyway. I was sure either Greg or Lucius made note of Josh’s license plate, and it was only a matter of time until they used it to find him.

“What happened after you left Nico’s?” Josh asked.

We spent the next ten minutes filling each other in on everything we’d missed after being separated. From the sound of it, my uncle had everything well in hand, and I could only imagine the favor I would owe him when all was said and done. I was especially worried about what he’d ask Josh to do, and I planned to be there when it happened so I could negotiate the terms down and threaten Nico with never seeing me again, his last remaining extended family, if he pushed for too much.

“Come here,” Josh said when we finished talking.

I rounded the island, and he turned in his stool and pulled me between his legs, wrapping his arms around my waist.

“Thank you for being so understanding about everything with my dad,” he said.

I shook my head. “Don’t thank me. I went into a blind panic right after finding out.”

He tipped my chin up and stroked his thumb over my lower lip, his gaze fixated on the motion. “I don’t blame you for that. The fact that you were able to work through it is what matters.”

“It wasn’t hard when I stopped to think for a second,” I said, snaking my arms around his neck. “I’ve met my fair share of bad people, Josh, and I can safely say you’re nothing like them.”

“No?” he said, still staring at my lips.

“No. And if I have to tie you up and edge you until you agree with me, I’ll do it. I’ve been studying up.”

He grinned, his dark eyes finally rising to mine. “Oh, I know you have. I’ve been watching.”

We smiled at each other for a moment, and I wanted to lean in and kiss him so bad it hurt.

“How are you?” I asked. “Really?”

He shifted forward and rested his forehead against mine, his eyes bottomless pools of black as his pupils edged out the brown of his irises. “Exhausted. You?”

“Same.”

“Wanna go shower together and then sleep for another twelve or thirteen hours?”

“I do,” I said, tightening my arms around his neck.

“God, I love hearing you say that,” he rumbled, and then I was airborne as he scooped me up and strode toward his room.

It was as he was opening the door that I remembered the tripping hazard waiting on the other side of it.

“Be careful!” I got out just as the door swung open, and Fred scream-ran between Josh’s legs, making him stumble.

Thank God for Josh’s athletic ability because he managed to take a few staggered steps forward, and we fell onto the bed instead of the concrete floor. Unfortunately, Josh was a big sonofabitch, and even though he threw a hand out to brace himself at the last minute, most of his weight landed on top of me, knocking the air from my lungs.

“Ow, fuck, my knee,” he said, rolling off me.

“My ribsss,” I wheezed.

He turned his head, a grin lifting his full lips as our gazes caught. “Now I see why people say having kids puts a cramp on your sex life.”

“Is that what just happened? Or did Fred just wingman us? I mean, we are on a bed.”

“He’s such a good boy,” Josh said, rolling back my way. “Extra treats for him tonight.”

And then he was on me, big body rising over mine, my very own unmasked fantasy come to life.