Chapter 12: PROPOSAL TALK

Arianna

I’m still processing the news when I hear footsteps behind me. Too engrossed with the information I just got to know, I didn’t even notice someone creeping from behind.

“Ari, baby, I should have expected a surprise visit, but I didn’t know you were too curious about me.” his voice is soft but threatening at the same time.

His appearance startles me. I whirl around, heart hammering against my ribs, and scramble to stand, the mask falling from my numb fingers back onto the heavy oak desk. Escape. That’s all I could think of. But he’s impossibly fast, a predator closing in on its prey. He breaks the distance between us in two long strides, pushing me back against the desk with unexpected force. My back slams into the hard edge, a sharp pain shooting up my spine. He traps me there, hands splayed on either side of me on the polished surface, a cage of flesh and bone.

“Now, now. That’s not very nice,” he says with a low chuckle that rumbles in his chest, a sound that sends shivers down my spine, a mix of fear and something else, something I didn’t dare name.

“How did you know I was here?” I ask, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to sound strong. My heart beats fast, a frantic drum against my ribcage.

“I was in the middle of a… delicate situation… when I noticed your location moving towards my humble abode,” he explains, his voice laced with amusement. Delicate situation? What did that even mean? Was he talking about stalking me? Or something far more sinister? “And what a surprise it was. Did you find everything you were looking for, little spy?” He leans in closer, his head tilting, a predatory grin stretching across his lips.

I feel weak in the knees, a disconcerting mixture of terror and something akin to… excitement? This was insane. The man who wrote those dark, twisted fantasies that played in my mind, the author who understood the shadows within me better than I did myself… he was real. He was here. He was my stalker.

“You’re him,” I breathe out, the words barely a whisper. His smirk grows wider, a flash of teeth in the dimly lit office. “You wrote those books!” It was a statement, a question, a horrified, fascinated realization all rolled into one.

He hooks a finger between my hair, tugging gently on a strand, the motion sending a jolt of awareness through me. I see a glint in his golden-amber eyes, a spark of something dangerous and thrilling. “Are you glad?” he asks, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. “You’ve met your greatest inspiration, finally. How does it feel, Arianna?”

“I…” my throat constricts, words failing me. I swallow hard, trying to find my voice, trying to make sense of the chaos swirling inside me. “It feels… I don’t know. I mean… What is the meaning of this? How am I meant to react after everything you’ve done? How am I meant to feel after you stalked me all this time?” My questions tumbled out, a torrent of confusion and fear.

He shifts slightly, the hand on my hair tightening its hold, not painfully, but possessively. “I saw you in the bookstore two years ago. After I met with my publisher to finalize the details for ‘Crimson Thorns’,” He paused, his gaze fixed on mine, intense and unwavering. “It was the first time I saw you,” he starts telling me, his voice softening, almost becoming… intimate. “You were so beautiful that day, lost in the pages of my words, a small smile playing on your lips. It drew me in, Arianna. Like a moth to a flickering flame. You weren’t disgusted by the darkness I spun, you were… captivated. You even created art inspired by them, didn’t you? Dark, beautiful, and terrifyingly honest art. I knew then, in that moment, we were… destined for each other.”

Destined? This man was insane. Utterly, terrifyingly insane. “Why didn’t you just… talk to me? Why didn’t you stop stalking me from then on?!” I demanded, my voice rising with panic.

“Because I couldn’t help myself, Arianna,” he replies, his golden eyes piercing mine, burning with an unnerving intensity. “You became an obsession. A need. I had to know everything about you. Every little detail. Every secret is hidden beneath the surface. You became my muse. My dark muse.”

Muse. Obsession. Stalker. Author. All these words swirled together, creating a dizzying, terrifying cocktail. This guy was really crazy, so obsessed with me that it was unnerving. Was I his muse? Or was I just a plaything in his twisted game? I couldn’t even tell if I cared anymore. A strange numbness was creeping through me, a detachment from the sheer absurdity of the situation.

His hand doesn’t move from my hair, that possessive grip remaining firm. With his other hand, he reaches for the mask on the desk. Heart racing, breath catching in my throat, I watch him slip the cold, smooth ceramic over his face. The mask transforms him. The familiar features vanish, replaced by an emotionless, enigmatic facade. The sinister smile is creepy enough to send you running. Only half of his face and eyes are visible now, burning bright, intensified, somehow even more piercing.

“Do you like it?” his deep voice asks, slightly muffled by the mask, takes on a new resonance, deeper, more dangerous.

My chest tightens. Feeling my breath come out faster, shallower, I watch as he steps even closer, backing me further into the unyielding edge of the desk. The air crackles with tension, thick and suffocating.

“V…Vincent…” I manage to whisper, my voice hoarse, barely audible. It felt like a plea, a yielding, a surrender.

“I know, Arianna,” he smiles down at me, that knowing glint in his visible eyes sending a shiver of fear, yes, but also something else, something dangerously close to anticipation, down my spine. “I know your dirty little secrets. I see them in your art. You would love a masked man to do things to your body, wouldn’t you? Because you love the mystery behind the mask, the anonymity, the darkness. You are addicted to the images I put inside your head, the fantasies I weave.” His whisper is like a caress, hot and invasive.

My thighs press involuntarily against his, a shameful, undeniable reaction to his nearness, to his words.

He chuckles again, a low, guttural sound that vibrates through me, a dark tremor that resonates deep in my bones and stirs something primal awake within me. “We should put this to good use, don’t you think? I’m sure, deep down, a part of you has waited for me all this time. Waited for me to show you what it feels like to truly belong to someone. To belong to me.”

The words are laced with a dangerous promise, a seductive threat that curls around me like smoke, intoxicating and suffocating all at once. My breath hitches, caught somewhere between fear and something undeniably akin to anticipation. He’s so close, the heat radiating off his body almost scorching, and the air between us thickens, charged with unspoken desires and a volatile energy that hums against my skin.

He moves his hand away from my hair, where he had been tangling his fingers, playing with the strands as if they were silken threads he owned. Now, that hand, large and calloused, moves to grab my chin roughly, forcing my gaze upwards. My rebellious spirit flares, a knee-jerk reaction to being controlled, but even as protest rises in my throat, I find myself unable to truly resist. There’s a magnetic pull in his touch, a dark current that draws me in against my better judgment. It isn’t enough to make me look up fully, though; my chin tilts, but my eyes remain stubbornly fixed downwards, refusing to meet his.

He pushes my chin forward, with just enough force to be commanding without being painful, making me arch my neck back, an unnatural, vulnerable posture. I finally see him then, through my lashes, his masked lips just a few inches away from mine. The white ceramic plate obscures the lower half of his face, adding to the mystery, the danger, the raw, untamed allure that radiates from him. But his eyes are visible, burning into me, molten gold in the dim light of his study, and they hold a power that makes my defiance crumble.

“Look into my eyes, baby. Look at them and remember who you belong to.” His voice is a husky whisper now, intimate and possessive, the words a brand searing themselves onto my soul. It’s a command, not a request, and the way he says it, with such absolute certainty, sends a tremor of something… recognition?… through me.

I do it without hesitation this time. No more childish rebellion, no more futile attempts to look away. I meet his gaze, locking my eyes with his, even though my cheeks are burning bright red, the blush a flag of my unwilling surrender. It feels like stepping into a fire, a dangerous, intoxicating heat that threatens to consume me. His eyes are intense, searching, probing, as if he’s trying to read the secrets hidden deep within me, secrets I’m not even sure I understand myself.

Once he sees my eyes locked on him, Vincent smiles. It’s a slow, predatory curve of his lips, visible even behind the mask, a smile that promises both pleasure and pain, a smile that sends shivers down my spine and makes my pulse quicken in a way that is both terrifying and exhilarating.

“Good girl.” The praise shouldn’t make me feel hot. It’s condescending, possessive, the kind of thing you might say to a pet. But it does. My skin prickles, and a strange warmth spreads through my veins, a shameful, undeniable reaction to his dominance. It’s wrong, I know it’s wrong, but somewhere deep inside, a forbidden part of me thrills at the word, at the tone, at the raw, unchecked power that vibrates in his voice.

“You never asked me to be yours,” I manage to say, the words a weak, breathy protest. I need to keep my dignity in check, even now, in this dangerously intimate moment. I couldn’t just surrender to him that easily, not without at least a semblance of resistance. It’s a pathetic attempt to reclaim some control, to remind him that I’m not just some possession to be claimed.

Vincent keeps his eyes locked on mine, unwavering, intense, checking every detail on my face as if he’s committing every nuance, every flicker of emotion to memory. He starts stroking my cheekbone with his thumb, the pad of his thumb soft against my heated skin, a stark contrast to the rough grip he had on my chin moments before. The action made me even more nervous because he was not saying anything. The silence stretches, thick and heavy, laden with unspoken meaning, and the lack of response is almost more unnerving than his previous commands. My heart pounds against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat in the suffocating quiet.

“Vince?” His name escapes my lips, a hesitant whisper that breaks the tension, a plea for him to speak, to alleviate this agonizing silence.

His name on my lips, my voice softening, seems to have an immediate effect. He closes his eyes, just for a moment, a flicker of something vulnerable crossing his masked face. Then, he rests his forehead on mine, his breath warm against my skin, his proximity overwhelming my senses. “I can ask you to marry me, but I think that will make you run away from me for real.” His voice is a low rumble against my temple, laced with a surprising tenderness that clashes with the possessive dominance he had displayed just moments before.

Wait, what? My mind stutters to a halt, the world tilting on its axis. He’s actually serious? My stalker, the man who moves in shadows, who… who kills people – the thought flashes unbidden into my mind – this man wants to marry me? The absurdity, the sheer impossibility of it, should be laughable, but somehow, looking into his intense golden eyes, I know he is dead serious.

“Are you proposing to me?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper, tinged with disbelief and a strange, unsettling flutter of… excitement? No. It can’t be. But there it is, a tiny tendril of something that feels dangerously close to hope uncurling in the pit of my stomach. I’m in shock. Utter, complete shock.

His golden eyes peer down at me, searching, assessing, a hint of amusement flickering in their depths. “Not really, but if you want, I can do it right now, and I will drop to one knee for you.” He pauses, a wry smile playing on his lips, “But if I intend to propose, we will do it in the forest.”

Um, excuse me? “In the forest?” I’m hella confused. The forest? What does the forest have to do with anything? This conversation is taking a turn for the bizarre, even by Vincent’s standards.

Pulling his mask off, his fingers brushing my cheek in a fleeting caress as he removes the plate and drops it on the desk behind me. His face, finally fully revealed, is even more striking up close than I remember, the sharp angles, the strong jawline, the hint of cruelty in his sculpted lips. He smirks down at me, taking my jaw once more in his hand, this time gentler, almost reverent, pulling my lips an inch away from his.

“Yes. When I make you run so I can catch you, I will fuck you hard enough that you only remember my name on your lips. We can do any position you want. Taking you from behind against the tree, or I can pin you down in the dirty grass. Only then, when you’re exhausted from running and fucking, will I propose to you to marry me because, little rabbit, that’s our best fantasy coming to life. I know that you love that scene,” breathing the same oxygen, his words are like dark honey, thick and intoxicating. My eyes roll back involuntarily, visions of his dark fantasy flashing behind my eyelids – the raw, primal chase, the brutal, passionate claiming, the wild, untamed setting.

They were not rainbows and cupcakes like those from those soft romance novels. No, our cravings were much darker, more visceral, edged with a thrilling danger that made my blood sing. How can I resist if he keeps talking like that? Maybe I’m fucked up in the head like him. That’s the only explanation for this dizzying mix of fear and desire that he ignites within me.

“So you will propose to me in the dirt. That’s really romantic,” I managed to say, my voice laced with sarcasm, a shaky attempt to deflect the raw power of his words, the undeniable truth that resonated within me.

He laughs, a deep, throaty sound that vibrates through my body, a sound that is both terrifying and utterly, utterly seductive. Then he whispers, his breath warm on my lips, “Fuck, your sassy little mouth,” brushing his lips against mine, just a feather-light touch, a promise of more to come. He breathes in me, like he’s inhaling my very essence, “I will give you thousands of proposals, I don’t care. Whatever my girl wants, she will get.”

Ignoring the traitorous flutter of my heart, the way my body is melting into his, I try to regain some semblance of normalcy, some control over this spiraling situation. I change the subject, grasping for something mundane, something to ground me.

“Don’t you have work? You specifically came home because I broke in, and by the way, your back door was open. I don’t know what you were thinking. It’s not safe,” I scrunched my nose at that, feigning annoyance, trying to mask the tumultuous emotions raging within me.

He hugs me to his chest, his arms wrapping around me, holding me close, secure, possessive. “The door was left open for you in case you come. It automatically locks if there’s an intruder. The door recognizes heat signatures, fingerprints for authorized people.” His voice is calm, matter-of-fact, completely unfazed by my supposed security concerns.

I facepalmed myself then, internally and almost externally. I’m such a fool. I thought I had been clever, outsmarting him, sneaking into his house. But he was always ten steps ahead. I’m not playing a game with him; I am the game. But wait… a new, unsettling thought dawns on me, a cold prickle of unease.

“How do you have my fingerprints?” The question is out before I can stop it, laced with a hint of accusation, a dawning realization of just how deep his obsession runs.

He has the audacity to look sheepish. Sheepish! Vincent, the dangerous psycho stalker, looks sheepish. It’s almost comical if it wasn’t so utterly terrifying.