Chapter 4

As we walked into my house, a slight burst of embarrassment flushed over me. No one besides Stanley ever visited my house, and for a good reason, it was a disaster. I had all the woodwork from the entire downstairs pulled off the walls and strewn throughout the house. It was like an obstacle course to make it from one room to the next.

“I apologize for the mess; I’m restoring the house, and it’s quite the process.”

He just looked around and took in the old home. The house’s Victorian style was somewhat original in Missouri during the time period. I wanted to restore the home to its original splendor so it could be put on the historical society registrar.

The home had been built in 1910 by my grandparents and then passed down to my parents. It was a huge part of this town, and I didn’t want anyone coming in years from now and trying to tear it down. Plus, I didn’t have anything better to do with my time. There were only so many pictures a person could take before they needed to spend some time on a different hobby.

“Don’t apologize; this house is beautiful.”

Something about the way he said that caught me off guard. It seemed like the first truly sincere words I had heard from him. He was in awe of my old house and looking at every detail. It was the same fondness for the history that I had when I’d come into the home again after many years away.

“Thanks, are you an admirer of old homes?”

Then just as quickly as his genuine talk had appeared, his crude language reappeared.

“I’m an admirer of your ass,” he said as he walked past me, taking an especially long glance at my backside.

“Seriously?”

“Oh, I’m kidding. Yes, I like old houses. I love the idea of tearing apart an old building and putting it back to be even stronger than it originally was.”

I walked toward the stairs, and just as I took my second step up, he grabbed my arm and pulled me back toward him. He was right there, standing on the bottom step as I turned to face him. My body was still not at his height, but much closer than before. There was something in his eyes that I couldn’t have described, but I now know was pure lust.

He moved his lips swiftly to meet mine, and it was a good thing he let his hands hold onto my hips. I likely would have fallen over from the wobbly nature of my knees. I hadn’t expected a kiss. Yes, I had wanted one, but it was such odd timing that I wasn’t prepared.

My mouth opened to let him in. His tongue searched me for pleasure. The kiss was gentle at first, but the more I moved against him, the harder he pressed against me. He wasn’t about to give up on kissing me.

Finally, I gave in.

My arms moved up to his neck and grabbed around him. His body was that of a sexy god. Yes, a sex god. That was the best way I could describe him. There were chiseled muscles at every corner of his firm body. His tongue had skills that the rest of my body longed to enjoy. I could feel the rush of wetness as the physical reaction of kissing him shot throughout me.

“I had to kiss you. I’m sorry, but it had to be done,” Marcus said as he released me.

I stood there in a daze for a moment, pondered the kiss that had just knocked me out of the park. This man could kiss, that was for damn sure. I couldn’t help imagining what else he did well with that tongue of his.

“Yeah, should we get you some painter’s tape?” I said as the flush red of my face burned to cool down.

“Yes. Let’s do that. Is it upstairs?” he asked with a playful grin. “Maybe in the bedroom?” He started to take a few steps up the stairs before I grabbed him.

“Oh no, you don’t. You’re not going up to my bedroom.”

“Why not? You don’t trust me near your bed?”

His eyes burned into me, and I couldn’t help licking my lips. They wanted to feel his again, but I resisted. If there was any chance that I could maintain control over this situation, then I couldn’t give in.

“No. You stay here.”

I held my hand out to stop him from coming up the stairs while I went to find his tape. I had been painting in my bedroom last, so I quickly grabbed it. I did not want to risk having Marcus anywhere close to my bedroom until I wanted him there.

“Hey, did you know this chandelier is about to fall?” Marcus asked.

I looked at it as I walked down the stairs. It looked fine to me. Everything in the house was close to falling apart. It wouldn’t surprise me if the chandelier was close to falling, but I had not even considered that it would.

“It’s been there for almost one hundred years and sturdy as can be. I’m sure it’s fine.”

“I can fix it for you if you’d like. Maybe take it down so you can clean it before reattaching it?”

“Alright,” I said as I handed him the painter’s tape.

“How old is this house? 1900?”

“Close, 1910. It was built by my grandparents. One of the first houses in the city.”

“And you are restoring it? What else do you do with yourself, I mean with your time?” Marcus asked.

“Oh, nothing, I just stalk my neighbors and sand wood.”

I cringed at the words when they came out. Why did my mouth work so poorly? Certainly, that sounded really sexy. Yes, I’m your neighbor, and I’m going to stalk you now. Ugh! This was why I couldn’t keep any normal guys around and ended up with quirky guys who worshiped me and didn’t fit into the regular folds of society.

“You can play with my wood, no stalking necessary.” He winked.

Geeze what was it with this guy. He seriously could turn anything into sexual innuendo. I rolled my eyes and laughed at his joke. Especially since I’d been thinking the same sort of dirty thoughts.

“You’re clever with your words. What do you do for a living?” I asked in an effort to get to know a little more about Marcus.

At this question, he instantly clammed up. The sparkle of desire in his eyes disappeared, and he turned cold. Nothing about him seemed to desire me anymore, and he certainly didn’t want to talk about his life or what he did for work.

“I’m going to get back to my painting. Have a good night,” he said and then swiftly left my house. He didn’t even try to pretend to answer my question. Marcus very clearly was not interested in sharing that part of his life with me.

I watched through the window as he made it back inside his home, and I wondered what it was that I had said. I just asked what he did for a living. How was that so bad?

He was so hot and cold. It was hard for me to figure him out. One minute, he was seductively kissing me, and the next moment, he turned cold as ice and walked out of my house. I had never met anyone that could change their personality so quickly.

I kept my eye out for Marcus each day as I did yard work or left the house for errands, but I never saw him coming or going for several days. Again, it was like he had disappeared. How was it even possible that he could so easily just vanish like that? I never saw a car outside, but he certainly could have been parking it in his garage or maybe he didn’t own a car? I was almost positive he wasn’t home at all but found myself second guessing and wondering if he was just hiding out inside.

The old houses in Bain all had detached garages that sat behind our homes, which made it very difficult to see exactly what was going on and nearly impossible to see if someone was home. Unless the person living there was coming in and out the front of their home, you’d have to go behind the house to see if there was a car at all.

Day after day passed, and again, I didn’t see Marcus. It was baffling to me. What on earth could he do for a living that he could be in Bain anyways? Most of the people who lived in this small town were retired, worked for the local school or were independent like myself. We were over an hour from St. Louis, and there were plenty of nicer small towns within a closer distance.

I had to stop letting Marcus fill my mind. My photography exhibit was getting close, and I still needed to go through my pictures and choose the final set of photos. I knew there was one last photo I wanted to get out in the woods, but I had to wait for the moon to be at just the right location.

I made my way to my garage and my darkroom for developing my pictures. I glanced over at Marcus’s house to see if it looked like he was home. No car outside the garage, and no lights on in the house. He certainly did not appear to be home.

Developing my pictures was one of my favorite parts of photography. There was just something wonderful about doing the developing yourself. Setting the paper into the chemicals. Moving the photo paper from one tub of fluid to the next, I loved it. I ached to get my hands dirty and develop some of the prints for my upcoming show.

Of course, it was faster and even cheaper, to pay someone else to develop my prints. But it was art to me; even the process of developing had become part of my art. Overexposing and underexposing my photos until they reached the exact look that I wanted.

I darkened the room in my garage and started in on the long night of developing. My darkroom wasn’t the best, so I was relegated to developing my pictures at night to ensure the least amount of exposure possible.

Slowly and methodically, I worked through my photos. Soon it was after four o’clock in the morning, and I hadn’t even realized where all the time had gone. That was how passionate I was about my work and my photography.

Suddenly there was a bright light from Marcus’s house. I quickly blocked the leak of light with a black towel and hoped my pictures would be alright. I closed the black curtain and snuck out the door to my garage quietly.

I stood quietly next to my garage and tried not to make any noise. It was Marcus. He had pulled up in front of his garage in a black Jeep. He was unloading some very large duffel bags. Each of them looked to be very heavy, and he set them down gently, one at a time.

My mind raced with thoughts of what could be in those bags. Each of them looked to be about four feet long and was loosely filled with some obscurely shaped objects. The odd shapes poked and pressed the fabric of the duffle bags in weird places.

I pushed my body back as close to the building as I could. The last thing I wanted was Marcus to see me really stalking him. He left the bags on the ground as he pulled his Jeep into the garage. He quickly came around and grabbed two of the six bags and carried them inside his house. I fought the urge to run over and look inside one of the bags. It was just too risky, so I waited.

It took him about a minute to bring the first two bags into his house. So when he grabbed the second two bags, I made my way quickly over to the last two and unzipped one. It was dark, and I couldn’t see a thing inside the bag, so I pressed my hand into it. The cold metal of what I thought to be a gun greeted my hand. I quickly pulled away and ran back to the cover of my garage.

Oh no, I forgot to zip the bag back up! It was too late now; there was no way I could make it back over to the bag and get it zipped up before he was there to grab them. I watched in anticipation for him to return.

Luckily, the dark of night camouflaged my mistake. He grabbed the bags with ease and headed back into his house.

Guns! Why was he hauling bags full of guns into his house? Maybe I had not felt right, maybe they weren’t really guns? I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but my stomach was in knots.

This gorgeous guy comes to my small town and starts making out with me, and sure enough, he turns out to be some sort of gun dealer or something. He didn’t seem like the type of guy who would be part of such an illegal line of work. Granted, I didn’t really know what type of guy he was, but he seemed more honest than a gun dealer would be.