Chapter 3 Excitement

It's been days since the incident.

I've scoured every news article on the internet trying to figure out if the police might look for me, but the only article I found was a small one about a drug addict being found murdered in a side street. It is speculated that it was drug-related. They didn't even mention the guy's name.

Am I a bad person for not feeling bad that he's dead?

What I do want to know is who the guy in black was.

I shouldn't be obsessing over him. He killed a man. Yet, he's all I can think about. He's consuming my mind when I should be scared that he just killed someone without a second thought.

What does that make of me? I have a boyfriend whom I've literally been dating for more than seven years. Everyone is expecting wedding bells soon, especially our family. But Ben isn't the one I think about when I close my eyes at night. Instead, I dream of a dark shadow and a big black gloved hand on my window.

I can't afford this distraction, especially since we're in the middle of a run and my ankle is killing me. I have to be discreet about it, too. I carry ice packs in my bag that nobody knows about. They can't find out either, or the company might cut me loose. I didn't work so hard for years only to get it cut short before I make it to thirty.

There are a bunch of wildflowers on my dressing room table when I arrive for warm-ups. I pluck the card from the beautiful arrangement. I knew who it was from before even reading it, and I can't help but smile.

"Please answer your calls. I love you and miss you, Ben."

I'm a fucking idiot. Why am I ignoring him? Only because he didn't come see my show when he's seen me dancing countless times before? He loves me, he's my future. He remembers that I love wildflowers because I made him stop by the side of the road once just so I could gaze at them.

"I love you, too." I text him immediately.

Ben has been so busy lately working in his family's law firm. He doesn't exactly have time to come see every damn show.

The day goes by in a blur of dancing makeup and hair. I have to pop a few pills to tolerate the insistent ache in my ankle. I know I'm going to need to do something about it and soon, before my whole career goes down the drain.

I'm utterly exhausted when the day is finally over.

I can feel something is different in the air when I park my car in the underground parking lot of my apartment building, and I hesitantly get out with my pepper spray in my hand.

I live in one of the most expensive areas in the city. Safety has always been my family's main concern, so I know I'm being absolutely stupid for thinking that anything could happen to me here. That asshole has made me jumpy, and I hate him for it. I've lived on my own for four years now, and I've never been scared.

That sense of awareness only intensifies when I'm standing in front of the elevator doors, but there's still nobody when I look around me.

"You're going crazy." I shake my head. "Certifiably mad."

I should lay off those pain meds.

I'm momentarily frozen in shock and fear when a hand clamps over my mouth, and a hard body presses me into him from behind.

I don't know what the hell is wrong with me, because I should be fighting, but when I look down at the hand covering my mouth, all I see is black leather.

My heart gallops in my chest, not out of fear, but an emotion I only feel when it feels like I'm flying on stage chasing an adrenaline high.

Excitement.

He came back for me.

Is he going to hurt me? Slit my throat like he did with that man who tried to hurt me? Is he coming to kill the eyewitness?

Something is definitely wrong with me then, because I don't scream when he takes his hand from my mouth and turns me around to face him.

How can someone so tall and muscled not make a sound? Even though I felt something was different in the air, I didn't hear him at all. And how did he get in here?

He pushes me up against the wall next to the elevator, his face once again masked by his helmet.

He smells like dark wood and amber, his scent intoxicating me.

"Who are you?" I whisper, my face burning. "I didn't go to the police, I swear I didn't tell anybody about what happened."

I don't know how my voice is sounding so steady in this moment when I'm feeling anything but.

He doesn't answer, not that I expected him to.

Instead, he gently takes my face into that damn gloved hand and lifts it up towards him. I wish I could see his eyes. What is his expression like when he looks at me? Does he think I'm beautiful?

My chest heaves up and down, and he steps even further into me, his hard body cocooning me against the wall. His body covers mine from head to toe, and chills run down my arms.

I'm wearing a summer dress, the night air is still humid, and it's eating up all the air in the underground garage.

That gloved hand slowly trails a path from my face down my throat, sliding to the middle of the sweetheart neckline of my dress. I gulp. I'm not wearing a bra, and my nipples harden as that single digit moves over to my right breast, pulling down the fabric and revealing the creamy expanse of my breast and enlarged nipple.

My knees nearly buckle when he slowly brushes that finger back and forth over my nipple, making it even harder.

I don't think I've ever been more aroused, slickness gathering in my panties.

"Are you..." My voice stutters. "Are you going to hurt me?"

Right then, the elevator doors open, and he pushes me inside.

My breast is still exposed when the doors closed, the black figure standing on the other side, unmoving.