Yes, she could, but neither of us liked to think about how that relationship ended. My high school girlfriend had gone missing for five days the summer after graduation. I was arrested on day two and sat in a jail cell until she showed back up at her parents' house. She’d taken an impromptu road trip with her best friend and didn’t bother telling anyone.
The cops let me out with an apology, but Mom still wrote a furious op-ed in the paper afterward, packed us up, and moved us. Again.
Here was hoping my relationship with Aly ended on a nicer note. Or better yet, didn’t end at all.
I refocused my attention on my computer screen. Aly stood by the nurses' station, laughing with her co-workers. It was good to see that they could still laugh even under such duress. Hell, it was probably the coping mechanism they clung to the hardest.
I’d made the mistake of tapping into the ambulance bay cameras when they’d started wheeling victims in the other night, and it was the final nail in the coffin confirming that Dad and I were different in one critical way: real-life blood and death freaked me out. I’d taken one look at the most critically injured victim and started gagging. And what had Aly done? Climbed right on top of the gurney and replaced the exhausted EMT who’d been pumping their chest to keep their heart going.
She was a goddamn rockstar, and I hoped her patients told her that at least once an hour.
I blinked as I watched her wave goodbye to someone and turn to walk up the hall. The blink must have lasted a full minute because she was gone from the camera when I finally opened my eyes again. Fuck, I was tired. I meant to take a longer nap after she’d left the apartment earlier, but I’d woken up after a few short hours, the need to see her dragging me back to my computer desk.
I’d make another pot of coffee in a minute. That would keep me going. At least until Aly got off work. Then, the excitement and adrenaline would take over, and I’d be wide awake again.
I leaned back in my chair and let my mind wander to everything I had planned for Aly later. My eyes fluttered shut, the better to imagine her laid out beneath me, arms overhead, tits bouncing.
God, what a beautiful sight.
A blaring alarm snapped me out of it. Shit, was something happening at the hospital again?
I jerked forward in my seat, horrified that my room was several shades brighter than when I closed my eyes. Because the sun was rising.
I must have fallen asleep.
The alarm was coming from my phone. Aly’s front door camera was noting a lot of activity. I yanked my phone closer and saw her getting out of her car. In her driveway.
She was home already, and I wasn’t there waiting for her.
God-fucking-damn it!
I shoved away from my computer, grabbed my backpack full of supplies, snagged my car keys, and ran out the door.
Chapter 11Aly
Josh was the Faceless Man. I didn’t know how I knew it, but I did.
The second he opened his apartment door, that certainty hit me like a punch to the gut. He’d already been near the top of my suspect list – I’d met him, he was good with computers, and he had the right body type – but seeing him in the flesh confirmed it.
How he’d managed to keep a straight face while I squeezed the shit out of his hand was beyond me, but not a hint of pain showed in his expression. I felt terrible about it now. It must have hurt like a bastard. Hopefully, his stitches were fine. I’d texted him cleaning and bandaging instructions, so if it bled afterward, he should have been okay fixing it alone.
Aside from the suspicious-as-fuck gloves, something in his manner reminded me of the Faceless Man. He’d been so concerned and sincere when telling me that stalking was illegal. On the surface. But there had been a gleam in his eyes while he spoke that made me feel like he was secretly having the time of his life making me squirm with discomfort.
Other things pointed to his innocence that I chose to ignore. The fact that he smelled different. Instead of the clean scent of soap, his cologne was dark and heady: cedarwood paired with smoky magnolia. His movements were more relaxed, too. The Faceless Man stalked. Josh prowled. Most damning of all, when I texted my masked stalker, expecting Josh’s phone to light up on the coffee table, I’d gotten a response instead.
I’m a little worried about your plans for me, I’d said.
Short-term plans or long-term plans? Both should be cause for concern, in different ways.
I’d smiled and shaken my head. Short-term.
He’d texted back a GIF of a cartoon villain laughing maniacally while lightning flashed in the background, and I’d lifted my head just in time for Josh to hand me my coffee. Josh, who’d been in the kitchen sans phone, so he had to be innocent, right?
Wrong. I was falling for none of it. My lizard brain had watched the Faceless Man along with the more evolved part, and it saw Josh and knew, picking up on subtle tells I couldn’t put my finger on.
And if Josh was as intelligent as Tyler claimed, he could have anticipated me texting him and gotten one of his hacker buddies to answer for him or figured out how to auto-reply to me in a believable way.
I’d been half-tempted to take a sneaky picture of him to show Wendy, but I hesitated for two reasons. The first was the off chance that I was wrong. How would I explain showing her a picture of the person I thought was my “beau” only for her to look at me sideways and tell me it wasn’t the guy she’d met? The second was it felt too easy. Almost like cheating. My stupid pride was pushing me to figure this out on my own. I wanted to beat the Faceless Man at his own game, which was why I’d stopped at the gun store after leaving Josh’s place and picked up a tracking device. The next time I got the chance, I was slipping it into one of the Faceless Man’s pockets and seeing where it went.
I hoped it led back to Josh and Tyler’s apartment because I just plain wanted Josh to be the Faceless Man. It’d make me feel less guilty about how my body responded to him. He’d opened that door, and the second I caught sight of him, lust exploded through me. Because, holy shit, Josh was hot. Like, the kind of hot you didn’t see walking around in the wild with the rest of us plebeians. His face was more suited to a movie screen or magazine page.
And when he smiled and those dimples appeared? It triggered ovulation. You couldn’t convince me otherwise. Not after the way I stood there staring at him while my ovaries donned their warpaint and started metaphorically chucking eggs at the man.
I had no idea how I kept it together that whole visit when all I wanted to do was tackle him onto the couch and rip his shirt up to get a look at his tattoos. And then keep tearing clothes off until I had him laid out naked beneath me.
Fuck, I needed to get laid. It had been so long that my fingers and vibrator weren’t cutting it anymore. I’d gotten myself off in the shower after the Faceless Man left this morning, but it did almost nothing to take the edge off. I needed a dick inside me, needed another person’s hands on my body. I was touch-starved, skin hungry. It was what happened when people went too long without physical contact. Sure, I put my hands on others every day, but rarely did anyone touch me back, and certainly not in the way I’d been craving.
Was “craving” a strong enough word for what I felt at this point? It didn’t seem like it. “Need” was better, but still not quite there. What I wanted was closer to possession. I wanted someone to own me, body and soul. The Faceless Man had the potential. So did Josh. The way he’d leaned back against the kitchen counter and winked at me, dark eyes smoldering, spoke of a man who knew what he wanted, and what he wanted would get him excommunicated from most religions. There was something devious yet playful in his eyes, like he’d make your descent into hell the most fun you ever had.