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LIA

“You don’t ever have to thank me for protecting you. After all, it is what I was put on this earth to do.”

His words ran through my mind over and over again.

It was something my stalker had said to me that night he came back after saving me from the man who had followed me to my apartment.

Why would Mael say the exact same thing my stalker had said to me?

Was it nothing more than a coincidence?

I didn’t believe in coincidences.

I closed my eyes.

Mael was my stalker.

I just knew it to be a fact.

But why?

He could have had me without the stalking—without scaring me half to death those first weeks when I thought someone was watching me.

And why did he have to come and introduce himself to me? Insert himself into my life and make me… make me fall in love with him.

Because that was what this was.

I had fallen in love with Mael… with my stalker.

I closed my eyes and looked around my apartment. The sun was just starting to set. It would be dark soon, then it would be midnight, and Mael would make his way over to me… as my stalker.

I closed my eyes, thinking.

What was I supposed to do?

Did I continue this game with him?

Because this had to be nothing more than a game for him. Why else would he do this to me?

Or did I walk away?

Would he even let me walk away?

I would have said that Mael would, but my stalker wouldn’t. Now that I knew they were the same person, who was the real Mael?

Was it the man who took me out on dates and wooed me, or the man who came into my apartment in the middle of the night, uninvited?

I took out my phone and pulled up Mael’s contact information. My hands shook as I typed out the message.

Me: Do you want to spend the night at my place tonight?

As soon as I hit send, my heart felt like it had dropped straight down to my stomach. I could see the three little dots forming as he texted back.

It probably wasn’t very long from the time I sent it, but for some reason, it felt like forever as I waited for him.

Mael : Sounds good. Can’t wait to see you tonight.

I turned off the screen and placed my phone back on the coffee table, looking around at the empty space, unease settling heavily in the pit of my stomach.

What was I supposed to do now?

* * *

I opened the door to see Mael standing there, looking as gorgeous as he always did.

The sight somehow broke my heart in two.

He smiled. I smiled back at him, trying to keep the hurt off my face, but Mael had always been so adept at reading me.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” he replied, his eyes roaming over my face and not missing much. He didn’t comment on that, however. Mael was a smart man. He wanted to see how this would play out. Did he know that I knew?

I moved to the side. “Come in.”

He walked into my apartment, looking around. I shut the door behind me and locked it, feeling like I might have made a mistake somehow. Mael was dangerous, but he wasn’t dangerous to me… right?

I didn’t know anymore.

I wouldn’t have thought of him as dangerous had I not been with him as my stalker.

I swallowed and pushed away from the door. “Do you want something to drink? I might have coffee or wine or water…”

I was rambling.

I was a rambling, nervous mess, and I was sure Mael could see right through me.

I was about to walk to my kitchen when he snaked his arms around my waist and pulled me in close to him.

I sucked in a sharp breath at the contact, feeling his hard body pressed against me. I closed my eyes, imagining my stalker in Mael’s place. It was almost comical that I had even doubted it in the first place.

They were the same. The only things different were their voices and their scent, which threw me off, but both of those things could have been changed, right?

He pressed in close to me, burying his face into my neck and breathing me in. I closed my eyes as my common sense and survival instincts fought with my desire and my stupid, hopeful naivety that I could be wrong.

“Relax,” he whispered against me.

I took in a deep breath and allowed myself this one moment to be in his arms.

I turned around and buried my face in his chest, feeling tears pricking my eyes.

I thought he could be different. I thought he could be my Prince Charming. I thought I could be different.

That I could be a normal girl, not weighed down by her brother’s death or loneliness, or be directionless, and he could just be… a normal man, not with the shitty childhood or the tendency to stalk women he became obsessed with.

I wrapped my arms tightly around him.

“Hey, what’s this?” he asked, pulling me back so he could look at my face.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just… tell me everything is going to be okay.”

“Everything is going to be okay,” he said with no hesitation.

I smiled at him, trying to memorize his face.

“Won’t you make love to me, Mael?”

I wanted him to make love to me, not as my stalker and not even as this person he pretended to be in front of me. I wanted him to make love to me as himself. To show me who the real Mael Beckett was.

He looked like he was debating whether or not he should address how weird I was acting. In the end, he nodded and scooped me up into his arms.

I wrapped myself around him, leaning down and taking his lips with mine, kissing him like I knew it was going to be the last kiss we ever shared, just as he walked us into my bedroom.

He carefully laid me down on my bed, as if I were the world’s priceless treasure and he was afraid to break me.

I left the light on. I didn’t want to be in the dark room with him. I wanted to see everything. I let out a long sigh as he began to rid me of my clothes. I raised my arms so he could pull my shirt off and shifted my hips up when he got to my leggings, pulling those down along with my panties.

He stood back and took in my body once he got me fully naked, his thumb going to his mouth.

“It never gets old,” he said.

“What doesn’t?”

“Looking at you like this. I can look at you like this forever. For a lifetime.”

I peered to my left. “That’s a long time.”

“And I fucking mean it,” he said, tugging on his shirt.

I let my eyes take in his naked torso, stopping on all the ink, wishing I could somehow take a photograph of all of them, just so I could keep it with me forever.

I loved his neck tattoo. It was so different from anything I’d ever seen. He was so different from anyone I had ever been with. My eyes strayed down to the smiling clown, somehow feeling like he was in on the joke I had no way of understanding, then stopping on the row of white roses. Now that I knew, I wondered if he had gotten that tattoo for me. It looked like it was newer than the rest, newer than the script of numbers on his rib.

I reached out my hand and traced along the first two numbers with my fingertips.

I felt him tense slightly over the move and knew the story behind this tattoo wasn’t a good one for him.

I didn’t ask, even if he had looked like he was preparing for it.

He grabbed my hand and brought it up to his lips, kissing the back of it softly.

I smiled at the move, pulling back as he started to take off the rest of his clothes until he was standing in front of me, completely naked. His huge, muscular arms were relaxed down by his sides as he let me take in my fill.

There was no shyness about him.

Then again, there never had been to begin with. And I didn’t blame him. He had nothing to be shy about.

I licked my lips, and he walked in closer to me, his hard cock bobbing up and down and drawing my attention.

“Spread your legs for me, sweetheart.”

I did as he asked, showing him my wet pussy.

“Touch yourself.”

I bit my lip, trying to push down my own shyness, and reached my hand down, cupping myself. I gasped as I touched the sensitive flesh, drenched with my need for him.

“Fuck, baby, do you have any idea how sexy you look like this?”

I shook my head, not really knowing how to answer him.

“No? I’ll tell you every day.”

I didn’t respond to that. I shot him another smile.

“Play with yourself for me. Show me what you like.”

At this point, I thought he might know what I liked better than I did. But I followed his instruction, moving my fingers over my clit and rubbing in a rough, circular motion, increasing the tempo with every second that passed, building up my orgasm. His eyes on me helped. I had never felt myself reaching so high so quickly.

My legs shifted from the sensation, and I let out a small groan when I realized I wouldn’t be able to finish myself off completely. Not without his help.

“Mael, please.”

“I got you,” he cooed, stepping in closer to me and pushing my hand away, replacing it with his own.

“Hell,” I let out when I felt him play with my clit.

He was much more skilled than I was, drawing out my pleasure easily, playing my body against me.

“That feels so good, Mael,” I said when his fingers moved down. He drove his middle finger inside me, fucking me quickly with it, harder, his palm slapping against me every time he pushed inside.

“Yeah?”

“Fucking hell!” I yelled when it became too much. I twisted around on the bed, but Mael positioned me back, holding one of my legs out so I couldn’t close them on him as he continued to fuck me like that.

Tears streamed down my face, and I closed my eyes, trying to catch my bearings.

It wasn’t possible.

I was just feeling too much.

Too much.

“Please, Mael.”

“Come for me, my beautiful girl.”

As if my body knew who was in charge, I came at his command, crying out his name in ecstasy.

His movements never stopped. He kept the pace, even when I didn’t think I could take it anymore. Even when I begged him to stop.

“Come again for me, baby.”

And just like that, I came for a second time.

Mael pulled out of me and climbed on the bed, then crawled in between my legs.

I looked up at him, my hand reaching down and grabbing his cock. He splayed his hands down on either side of my head, not saying anything as I stroked up and down his length, taking in the silky hot feel of his flesh before I directed it to my entrance.

We both gasped when he pushed all the way inside me, stopping when he hit the hilt and holding it there.

He cupped my cheek with one hand, and I burrowed inside, wanting to get closer.

“Okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “Make love to me.”

He pulled out of me slowly until just the tip remained before he pushed back inside.

I closed my eyes from the sensation, loving the way he filled me up so well, loving the way every time he moved was like an electric shock to the system—wholly addictive and something I didn’t think I would ever get enough of.

“Open your eyes,” he commanded, his voice rough with desire. “I want to see you when you come undone.”

His tone held a note of torment that got to me like nothing else.

My eyes fluttered open, and I took him in—the blue of his eyes that glowed brightly underneath the warm light of my bedroom lamp, the olive tone of his skin, and the way his muscles strained every time he pushed back inside me.

“Please, Mael.”

“I got you, baby,” he said, just knowing what I needed from him then.

His hips moved at an uneven tempo, short and fast and hard one moment, then long and brutal the next. It was perfect.

“That’s it,” he said. “Stay with me.”

And I got the feeling he was asking me to stay with him for more than just this moment.

I pulled him down and kissed him instead of answering, molding my lips to his before I opened my mouth and let him in.

My skin felt like it was on fire. I was doing nothing more than riding the tide of pleasure, letting it soak over me.

I wrapped my legs around his trim waist, pulling him in closer to me and urging him to fuck me just a little faster, a little harder, as I deepened the kiss.

Mael didn’t disappoint. His hips snapped forward, pounding against me. It seemed he always knew just what I needed. I pulled away from the kiss first, wanting to look at him yet not wanting to break contact with our lips.

I moved between kissing him and pulling back to look at him.

The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room, punctuated by our shared moans and harsh breathing. I could feel the tension building, a coiling heat that threatened to consume everything inside me and leave nothing behind, just as destructive and beautiful as fire was.

“God, you’re so fucking perfect for me, aren’t you?” Mael said through gritted teeth.

His words sent shivers down my spine, and I arched into him, desperate for more contact.

“That's it, baby,” he coaxed, his voice strained. “Let go for me.”

That command, combined with the relentless rhythm of his thrusts, pushed me closer and closer to the edge. I could feel myself teetering on the brink of the fall that would no doubt destroy me.

“Mael!”

I screamed his name as I came, clinging closer to him, afraid to let him go. Afraid this night might end, and I would have to say goodbye. Afraid I wouldn’t be able to get back to the old me afterward…

No, I wasn’t afraid.

I knew.

There was no going back from this.

I felt Mael tense above me, his muscles bunching up beneath my palm just before he came inside me, irrevocably changing me for good.

* * *

I lay in his arms for the rest of the night, my head facing the clock I had set on the nightstand. My heart skipped a beat as the time ticked over to midnight. Then ten minutes past midnight, then half an hour. Before I knew it, we reached one in the morning, and there was no sign of my stalker showing, just like how I knew it would be.

Mael wasn’t asleep, I knew that much.

His breathing was too controlled.

I didn’t sleep either.

I couldn’t.

And when three o'clock finally hit, I felt him shift beside me.

I didn’t know where he went off to so early in the morning, but he always left around this time without fail.

He got up from the bed and dressed quietly.

I knew he was aware that I was still awake.

Once he was dressed, he moved over to the edge of the bed, stood there, and looked at me for a beat.

“I have to go,” he said.

I nodded, reaching my hand up and begging for a kiss. He complied like I knew he would. I closed my eyes and took in his scent. He smelled like Mael, not like my stalker.

“You have to go,” I whispered against his lips. I reached up and kissed him once more, not wanting it to end but knowing it had to.

He pulled back from me at last, and I watched as he gathered up his stuff and moved toward my bedroom door.

He paused when he got to the threshold, staying there and watching me. I couldn’t see him clearly in the dark, but I could sense his confusion.

Then he nodded and walked out the door.

“Mael?”

He paused, then turned around and took me in. “Yeah, kitten?”

I smiled. “Nothing.”

He stood there for a beat before he turned again and walked away from me. Just before he disappeared from my sight, I whispered, “I love you.”

He stopped in his step.

My heart beat frantically in my chest, wondering if he heard me.

He didn’t turn around like I expected but continued walking out the door.

I waited about ten minutes before I threw the cover off my body and grabbed my phone. I had already packed a small bag, and it was stashed away in my closet. I pulled that bag out and pulled up Leo’s contact on my phone.

Despite the late hour, he picked up on the first ring. “Lia, sweetheart. Is everything okay?”

I took in a long, deep breath, trying to hold onto my composure. I didn’t want to lose it over the phone. “I need your help.”