"Understood."
I stomp up the stairs like a teenager, hating myself for the dramatics, hating him more.
At the top, I pause.
He hasn't moved. He's still standing in the living room entrance, blood drying at the corner of his mouth, watching me with those dark eyes that see too much.
You're mine. You were always mine.
I disappear into my room without another word.
The shower doesn't help.
I stand under water hot enough to redden my skin, trying to scrub the feeling away. The heat between my thighs. The memory of his smile. The sound my palm made against his face.
Feel better?
I turn the water hotter. It doesn't help and the steam just makes me more aware of my own skin. Every nerve ending is awake and demanding in a way I'd forgotten was possible.
Clean pajamas don't help. Neither does brushing my teeth until my gums ache. Lying in bed staring at the ceiling makes everything worse.
The guest room is at the end of the hall. I can hear him moving. Water running. A door closing. Normal sounds.
A stalker is sleeping in my house, twenty feet from my daughter, and I can't stop thinking about—
Stop it.
I punch my pillow into a different shape and close my eyes.
Behind my eyelids I see the blood on his mouth. His tongue. That smirk.
You're mine.
Heat pulses between my thighs and I press them together, trying to will it away. This is wrong. Wrong on every level. He watched me for seven years. Watched my daughter. Admitted to it without a shred of remorse. I hit him hard enough to draw blood.
And Cole liked it.
Memories overwhelm me. Hewas the one who hit, and I was always the one who flinched. But I hit Cole and he—
My hand slides down my stomach.
Don't.
But my fingers find the wetness anyway. Soaked. I'm soaked. I have been since the moment his tongue touched that blood.
Eight years. Eight years of nothing. My body a stranger, unresponsive, broken. Sensate focus exercises that made me cry from frustration, not pleasure. Romance novels that made other women squirm left me cold.
I stopped trying.
And now, lying in the dark with a stalker across the landing, my body has decided to wake the fuck up.
Stop. Pull your hand away. Roll over and force yourself to sleep.
I don't stop.
Eight years of nothing. My body a stranger, unresponsive, broken. And now, lying in the dark with a stalker down the hall, everything has decided to wake the fuck up.
Stop. Roll over. Force yourself to sleep.