Free Naked Risk (Shatterproof #3) by Jordan Burke Page B

upset with him for not coming to see me. But he had been right all along—something wasn’t right around my place. Plus, he didn’t exactly need me pressing him about not stopping in to see me.
    It didn’t matter, anyway. We were to gether again, alone, comfortable, safe.
    “I don’t know if I can go back there,” I said.
    “You don’t have to.”
    I sighed, shifting my body so I could get as close to him as possible. “I will at some point. All my stuff is there.”
    He kissed my forehead, the tip of my nose, and finally his soft lips pressed into mine before his head rested on the pillow again and he murmured, “It’s just stuff.”
    Watts drifted off to sleep while I stayed wide awake, thinking about everything that had happened. Watts was right. Everything that remained in my apartment was just stuff. I didn’t want any of my clothes. What else had been touched by the intruder? No amount of washing would scrub that thought from my mind.
    As for my books, that was a different story. There were some that I treasured. Some that I would truly miss. Watts could go get those.
    What the hell was I thinking? Abandon my apartment? I couldn’t do that. I had a lease, I was in good standing with the property management company, and I couldn’t tell them what had happened . They would ask me why I hadn’t called the police.
    I was feeling utterly violated, almost as if this person—whoever it was; I had no idea if I’d been right about the lawyer—had taken control of my life.
    And I felt as though the man had done something physically sexual to my body. That wasn’t literally true, but there was no doubting the intention of the intruder. I had every right to feel that way and I wasn’t going to beat myself up over it.
    I wasn’t going to give up control and lose all of my possessions. I could move, if I had to, even if it was just to a different unit in the same building. That was the most rational solution I could think of.
    After a little while, I felt my eyes getting heavy and droopy. Watching Watts sleep so deeply, and listening to his slow, even breathing lulled me to sleep as well.
     
    . . . . .
     
    I woke with a jolt, freeing myself from a nightmare—a close-up view of a hand reaching into my drawer and lifting my panties by one finger, turning them slowly as if inspecting every thread.
    I looked at the clock and saw that it was 8:45 p.m. It hadn’t felt like I’d been sleeping that long. Watts had separated from me at some point, and he was lying with his back to me. I felt a cold distance between us.
    My earlier feeling of being sexually violated by a stranger came flooding back. I couldn’t shake it. The dream had reinforced the feeling, and all I could think of was that this guy—possibly the lawyer, possibly not, didn’t matter—had managed to make me feel like I had been with another man, beyond my control and most definitely without my consent.
    I moved closer to Watts, pressing my body against his. He was in a deep sleep. I didn’t want to wake him, but I felt an incredible urge to have him wrap me up in his arms and take away that feeling the stranger had inflicted upon me.
    Only Watts could make it go away. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted him to make it go away now.
    He stirred and looked at me over his shoulder. “You okay?”
    “I’m fine.”
    “No, you’re not,” he said, rolling onto his back. “Talk to me.”
    I could have gushed it all out right then, telling him how the intrusion had made me feel. But he had to know that already.
    “I just want to look at you,” I said.
    Part of that was true. Watts had enriched my life a little more than six months ago and that was just with words on a screen. Since then, he had become the one thing that broadened my world, bringing new horizons to my existence, making me see some kind of hopeful future filled with love and comfort, even though he was the most dangerous person I’d ever met.
    Watts was the missing part