Page 98 of Haunt the Mall
I smiled and nudged his side. “Wow. Four messages in a row. I’m sorry I missed them.”
He swiped through his phone. “I was about to camp out at your apartment.”
“I would’ve preferred it be you.” I shivered. The night would’ve been a lot more pleasant.
“I’m here now.” He rubbed my arm and hugged me close.
His cold fingertips anchored my racing thoughts. I wanted to come home to him every day—warmth seeping between our bones, our kisses summoning sparks. Would he ever let me into his mind, though?
He stroked my hair and compared our phones. “We should head inside. The number texting you matches Sam’s contact information.”
I groaned and glanced over my shoulder. “What are we supposed to do? T.P. his house? File for a restraining order?”
“Whatever you want. I can think of several punishments I’d love to enact on him,” he growled.
My mouth watered at the idea of Victor donning a leather trench coat and stalking through blue-lit alleyways for his target. Sam didn’t factor into my fantasy. In my mind, Victor would be focused on me. He’d run his fingers—or maybe a knife—up the backs of my knees. He could cut the clothes from my body. He would take me from behind, my tits and palms scratched on the exposed brick. He’d mist against my neck, his grip tight on my hips as he purred sweet nothings into my ear like, “You’re so tight, Miss Silver.”
In the fantasy, I’d clutch his hand. “Tell me what you are.”
He’d nip my neck, his voice a ragged gasp. “Yours.”
A pleasant tingle shot down my spine. I shivered and shook my head. Now was not the time to mentally fuck my Spider-Man, no matter how tempting it was to slip into another reality.
I raised my chin to meet his dark gaze. “What happened with the stalkers you dealt with before?”
Victor frowned, his thumb gentle against the crook of my neck. “They got dismissed from their programs and slapped with restraining orders. Not that it helped.”
I glanced at the mansion. “Did they ever show up at your house?”
“They sent stuff to our old place,” he said, his voice hollow.
Shit. I could only imagine horse’s heads hidden in bed sheets and creepy magazine-cutout style letters. “Were you able to intimidate them away or did ignoring them solve it?”
He shook his head. “It was difficult. Half the time, they were anonymous strangers on the internet.”
I grimaced. Poor Sterling fam. “What about the other half?”
“Assholes in tech.” He glared at the road and clenched his fist. “Apparently, the field is rife with sexual harassment. More than one man in the robotics program spammed my sister with dick pics, then threatened her when she denied their advances. Others tried to figure out her schedule to corner her after long labs. I would walk her to class as often as I could to deter them.”
“My sweet Spider-Man.” I squeezed his hand.
He ruffled his hair, and color crept up his neck. “You'd have done the same for Tori. I’d watch movies or hand my sister tools until we could leave. But her program said I was a liability. So, I stayed home, and she built a taser into our key rings.” He showed me a USB-looking thing amid his keys.
I touched the prongs hidden on one end of it. “Wow, that’s badass. Security is okay with this?”
“They don’t notice it. But her team did. Her higher-ups threatened to take her off projects because of the hostile work environment,” he said, clutching the keys until they splayed out between his fingers like knives.
I gaped at him. “They didn’t punish the guys at all?”
“Slaps on the wrist. They didn’t want to ruin morale with reassignments or firing people’s friends. So, they did an electronic sexual harassment seminar and asked my sister to deal with it.” He flexed his shoulders. “She got a restraining order on the worst offender, but not all of those degenerates were deterred. In fact, they doxed her.”
I gasped and clutched his arm. “They leaked her address?” They probably went to online forums and invited others to harass her.
He nodded and clenched his jaw as we headed into the house. “She left the program. Sued their asses. Afterward, we moved here, and she changed her name. We kept to ourselves. Built programs. Watched movies.”
I imagined the two of them locked in this fortress with only the flicker of projections and welding guns to light up their days. They were isolated but safe. The garage door groaned on its way down to seal us within.
Victor lowered his voice and glanced at the cameras as he unlocked the door. “I hired her to make The Widow animatronic in the hopes she’d find her love for robotics again.”