Rules of Engagement

by Lily White

  For as much as I wanted to hate him for this, I couldn’t get past the way the thought of him tugged at my heart. I couldn’t let go of the feelings I’d carried for him - another habit, another way of life that had developed so easily in a little over twenty-one days.

  Frustrated by how easily love and hate blended together, I battled yet again to override common sense. A smart woman would have turned off her phone, spent her time watching television or reading a book, or gone to the local library to use their computers to apply for a new job. But as was typical of me when it came to Donovan, I wasn’t a smart woman; I was still a woman very much infatuated with a man whose touch radiated heat over a love starved body and whose complications and restrictions mirrored her own.

  Damn him and the horse he rode in on. My fingers flew over the screen of my phone while I made a decision that a game wasn’t played well unless there were two equal players.

  Did it make me equal now that I knew who I was playing against? I wasn’t sure, but I was determined to find out.

  Where have you been for the past few weeks? It can’t be very entertaining for the audience if you’ve given up already.

  I’m not sure what I expected. Okay, that’s not true, I fully expected the gorgeous bastard to message me back immediately with some snarky comment that was semi-threatening, but not enough to be a true threat. Instead, I got nothing. An empty screen, a series of messages that had died off with my one lonely message flashing up at me from my screen. I sat in wait while drinking my tea, and I hate to admit it, but the lack of response withered my shoulders.

  Had that been excitement I felt now that I had a good idea of who was stalking me? Excitement. For a man that was playing games. For a man that had walked away from me twice now after showing me that I affected him as much as he affected me.

  Something had to be wrong with me to want him despite what I now knew. But it was undeniable. The want. The longing. The thoughts that were constantly spinning inside my head, begging for an outlet.

  My tea cup ran dry as I waited, as dry as the excitement that had slowly leached out of me with every sip, as dry as the apprehension I felt for finally deciding to play this bullshit game.

  Sliding from my seat, I padded barefoot into the living room and flopped down on the couch. It was too early to go to bed, and I wasn’t hungry enough to run out and grab food. Setting the phone down on the table, I pondered whether I should tell Rachel what I’d discovered, but then decided against it because she would not only demand I return to her place to spend the night, but she would also demand I take the information to the police as well as quit my job.

  Wanting to understand more about the game and the man who was running it, I hurried to the kitchen and pulled the record from my purse. Carrying it back to the couch, I carefully unfolded it, smoothed out the wrinkles and studied the payments made to predators and prey. Not recognizing any of the names of the players, I looked over the types of games that had been played. None of them were dark room fantasies.

  Without more information it was impossible to understand what could be gleaned from this one piece of paper, but the frustration didn’t last long. After an hour of studying names, audience counts, game types and amounts paid, my phone beeped from the surface of the table, a message flashing up at me from a man I was desperate to figure out.

  You broke the rules, Mia. You’ve broken all of them. Regardless of my warnings.

  Rules Schmules…I wasn’t too concerned about the ridiculous limitations he was using to corner me. I’d make my own rules, and he could choose to play by them.

  You broke the rules, too, I answered, and I’m tired of rules, so I refuse to keep playing this game the way you want to play it. You want to scare me? Good luck. I’m not frightened of a man who’s too afraid to show his own face.

  Nodding my head once in emphasis of my taunt, I wished he could see the determination in my expression. But if this had to be played out over phone messages and behind closed doors, then I would figure out how to drag him from those shadows into the light. Maybe this was what he meant when he told me we couldn’t be together in a normal way. Maybe Donovan was more screwed up than a man who refused to speak. Maybe he was a man plagued by tragedy so thoroughly that he couldn’t bear to move on in a way that could be openly seen.

  I couldn’t reach him as a normal woman does a man, so I was willing to try another way, regardless of how abnormal it was.

  As I waited for his response, a thought occurred to me: I hadn’t been assigned to some random predator in this game. Donovan Stone had kept me for himself. And given the timing of when I’d signed up and when we’d first met, it was safe to assume that he’d wanted me since the interview in his office, since the day he’d sent me off and then dragged me back in with two emails that had arrived at the same time.

  I had to be stupid to have not noticed the coincidence, to have not questioned the timing of everything that had occurred.

  I wouldn’t be stupid any longer.

  You act like you know who I am. And yet, knowing that, and knowing what you’ve done to me, you act like you’re safe. I’m not done playing with you just yet, little girl. I haven’t even begun to show you what I’m capable of.

  Oh, I knew very well what Donovan was capable of. I’d felt it the night we danced. I’d understood it when he’d offered me revenge against Clayton on a silver platter. I fell victim to it when he settled me on the edge of his desk and showed me what his tongue and hands could make me feel. I’d become addicted when my body responded to his scent, his stare, his touch…to him.

  Little girl. Ha! I’d show him little girl. I hadn’t been little since the day I was forced to grow up by the cutting words and angry, bruising hands of my father. And now that I’d learned to step out of my shell and make my demands, I was dead set in my focus to pull Donovan from his.

  Then come and get me. I’m not scared. The question is: Are you?

  He didn’t respond. Not that I expected him to. I’d just smacked the ball directly into his court, and I was ready for whatever he wanted to do with it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Rule No. 6: Don’t seek information about my past. In time, all secrets eventually reveal themselves, but you won’t like what you discover about mine.

  HIM…

  Then come and get me. I’m not scared. The question is: Are you?

  A smile tilted my lips at the brazen response. Mia wasn’t the same woman she had been on the day I first met her. Back then, she’d been a tiny little thing, not just in size but spirit. The idea of a stalker had frightened her so much that she’d run to the police without a shred of evidence that the game was anything more than a prank.

  I wish I could have been at that meeting, wish I could have seen the expressions on all their faces. Mia’s friend, Rachel, her lips an angry line as she forced Mia to spill all the details to the authorities. Mia’s face as she had to admit she signed up to be purposely stalked. The technicians’ faces when they discovered that the emails, bank deposit and other information had mysteriously disappeared or been cleverly hidden. The police officer’s face when he began to question whether Mia was being dishonest, or whether she was certifiably insane.

  There was no trace. No trail. No evidence of Dark Realities or me, nothing they could use to come between us now that I had her in my sights.

  I wouldn’t have known she’d gone to the police if she hadn’t called in to work that morning, I wouldn’t have thought to check the recordings from her apartment. Sitting back listening to the conversation between Mia and Rachel, I knew that I needed to give Mia time to forget the fear she carried.

  If only she knew I’d already prepared her apartment in order to spy on her every move, if only she knew I’d destroyed her computer, that I’d hacked into her banking records to change the source of the deposit.

  And now she thinks she knows so much that she can play with me so openly?

  Little girls apparently never learn.
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br />   Setting my phone down, I leaned back in my chair and kicked my feet up to rest on the desk. Folding my arms behind my head, I closed my eyes and listened to the muted sounds of city traffic filtering in through the floor to ceiling windows. Today had been interesting, a wake up call that the small, scared woman I once knew had become much stronger. She always surprised me, but today was astonishing.

  In this office, she’d touched me in ways she’d most likely never touched another man. Not with her aversion to human contact, not when she could barely look a person in the eye, much less assert herself. But yet she’d initiated the contact, she’d welcomed that brief moment of fiery passion. I’d seen it in the heat blazing behind her eyes, in the slight tremble of her body, in the manner in which her gaze met mine so open and honest for once in her life.

  I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted another woman. And I was afraid of her just the same.

  Opening my eyes, I stared at the single photo hanging on the wall, my gaze fixed to another blonde that had driven me wild with desire. Like Mia, she had threatened everything I thought I knew about myself. She had revealed herself in ways that made me desire her and fear her all at the same time. She, in her intelligence, her beauty, and her wit, had done wonders on breaking down my world so that I had to continue fighting even now just to hold it all together. But she was gone, and Mia now stood in her place.

  I wanted to touch her again. To feel her tremble.

  Dropping my legs to the floor and pushing out of my seat, I walked to stand at the windows. Hands slipping in my pockets, I watched the city beneath me where it was bathed in the last rays of dying lights. Street lamps flickered on as the shadows crept out from the alleys, slowly sliding over the stragglers that were leaving their offices late. The buildings around me dimmed as the city grew quiet and people returned to their homes in the suburbs, but I knew that one light in one building would still be blazing, the soft glow from Mia’s bedroom window beckoning me closer with comforting arms.

  In another hour, I’d make the drive to where I knew I’d find her settling down for the night. I’d watch and I’d wait, salivating at the chance of touching her and taking her up on her offer.

  My thoughts drifted to her last message as I watched one portly man shuffle his way down the sidewalk with briefcase in hand.

  Then come and get me. I’m not scared. The question is: Are you?

  Soft laughter shook my shoulders. No, Mia. I’m not scared. I’ve loved a woman like you before.

  The question is: Are you strong enough to survive becoming my newest obsession?

  …

  The drive to Mia’s hadn’t taken long. Ten minutes at most, especially with the lack of cars clogging the roads. I preferred the night, lingered in it, happy and content to exist within shadow and the brisk, misty air that always seemed to swallow the city when the moon held reign in the sky.

  As I knew it would be, her bedroom window was lit by the soft glow of a bedside lamp. I closed my eyes and imagined the layout of the room. Her bed stole most of the space where it was placed in the center of the room. To the right was a dresser and mirror, to the left, a small table. The furniture had been cheap, probably bought in some clearance store, the rest of the apartment just as shabby as her bedroom. I would give her better when she agreed to be mine, when I finally revealed the plans I had for her once she stopped fighting the game.

  It took patience to wait for her to go to bed and fall asleep, but I didn’t want her to see my face just yet, didn’t want her to know for sure that it was me. Sure, she may know by now, she may have found something I misplaced, but even then, it was proof. I could still be a surprise at the end of the game after showing her that she could love a man like me.

  An hour after her bedroom went dark I was crossing the street and creeping up to the lobby doors of her building, laughing at the cheap locks the landlord had installed. Rachel must have given him quite the earful to get him to do this much. It was too bad that what he’d installed wasn’t secure enough to prevent being picked by even the shoddiest of tools. A poorly trained burglar could get past these without more than a credit card to slide along the side, and with the professional tools I carried, I was inside and climbing the stairs in no time.

  Reaching her floor, I appreciated the lack of bright lighting, appreciated that the residents of this building tucked into bed early, keeping their doors tightly locked to keep out the vagrants and other vagabonds that lingered in the poorer areas of town. Mia living here alone had been a thorn in my side since getting to know her, but my cameras kept her in sight, letting me know that she was safe from everybody but me.

  Within reach of her thin door that was so old the stain had peeled away from the wood, I pulled my tools from my pocket and went to work breaking through her locks. After the fourth was unlocked, I twisted the handle and slowly opened the door waiting for the pull from the chain I knew she kept latched.

  It was interesting to find she hadn’t bothered with the chain tonight. Was she laying a trap for me, by chance? Did she believe she could overpower me?

  A smile stretched my lips as I reached up to pull the black ski mask into place. I had every intention to slip in and slip out just to make my presence known. It would be quick. Fast. So discreet that she wouldn’t know whether it was a dream or not. But I wouldn’t risk her catching sight of me, just in case my girl was staying up in wait.

  Her small apartment was dark and silent, not even a nightlight to illuminate my path. Stepping carefully down the hall, I peered around corners to make sure she was standing around wondering if I would show.

  I found her in her bed, tucked beneath her blankets. The blinds were wide open, the mirror uncovered, her fears finally wrestled away when she’d stopped allowing people to push her around.

  Chest moving with deep breath, her hair fanned across the pillowcase, the dark silk a cascade against the muted patterns in the cloth. I should have walked away then, left my note and subdued the desire inside me to touch her just once.

  How does one deny himself a moment of peace? How could I walk away without feeling her breath against my skin just once?

  There was no denying myself the heat of her skin against mine. And even though that contact would only be for a few minutes right now, it would eventually be forever.

  My Mia. My timid little girl who has learned to be brave.

  Skirting the corner of the bed, I sat on the edge, the mattress dipping beneath my weight, her body shifting over its surface. I stayed still, allowed her to fall deeper into sleep as I watched her face. Reaching out, I brushed my fingers over her parted lips, felt the beat of her warm breath against my skin. So sweet, my girl that would strike out when you least expected it.

  Come and get me, she’d said. Don’t worry, Mia. I will.

  Stirring again beneath my touch, her eyes fluttered open and closed. She was dreaming, stuck between the visions in her head and the reality that sat beside her. Leaning down, I brushed my lips against her ear, my breath sweeping down her neck as I reached out to drop my note onto the pillow beside her.

  Whispered words slipped from her lips, her consciousness coming closer to the surface. “Donovan?”

  It was my turn to still, my turn to wait this out while she slipped back into the ether of peaceful sleep. Once she was settled and breathing deeply again, I let myself out of her room smiling to know she would read my words in the morning. But before leaving her apartment, before locking her inside where she would stay safe and warm, I plucked the record from her coffee table I’d watched her read over earlier from the cameras.

  It pleased me to see she’d found it, but I couldn’t let her keep this last piece of evidence that Dark Realities existed.

  Not now. Not when the game was almost over, the finish line so tantalizingly close.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Rule No. 7: I’ll never make sense. Trying to understand me will be a waste of time. I’m broken and I don’t want to break you.

&nb
sp; Do you feel secure now? Do you see how accessible you are while teasing me to come get you? I could have had you, Mia, but I prefer you to know when you’ve been caught.

  Scanning my eyes over the handwritten words, over and over again, I had a mix of emotions battling inside me. Anger. Fear. Excitement. Need. Elation. It was a cyclone of confusion, a tidal wave of indecision, an elusive whispering suggestion that I had thoroughly lost my mind. I should have run this note to the police the second I opened it, but instead I sat on the side of my bed, silently wondering if this wasn’t the moment that Donovan had been leading me to all along.

  Dropping the note on the table, I showered while considering how I could finally prove Donovan was my stalker. No ideas had come to me while the heat of the water poured over my head. But while drying my hair, while getting dressed and carefully applying my makeup, the answer to the puzzle came to me so suddenly it was like a freight train slamming through my thoughts, knocking aside all the frustration I’d felt.

  I had a sample of his handwriting, all I needed was another sample that I watched him write so that I could bring it home and compare.

  Glancing one last time at the note where it sat open on my bedside table, I admired the masculine script, the perfect loops, the tight angles, the flourish that portrayed a practiced hand.

  I didn’t run to my car that morning, instead I walked, enjoying the streaming sunlight that broke through the ever-present clouds. I smiled at people who passed me. I held my chin up with pride.

  While driving to work, I didn’t worry that I would be fired. Jackson, I was sure, was hoping that Donovan would march me out the door immediately upon my arrival, but I was beginning to believe that doing so would destroy all Donovan’s carefully constructed plans. Perhaps, it was Donovan’s intent to fire me once the game was through, but I’d been smart over the last few weeks, putting away the extra salary he’d given me in my raise, saving instead of spending so that I would have a cushion should I lose my job.