Page 8 of Destined By Dragonblood (Blood Born #2)

Ashley

F or over a week, every time I left my condo, I swore someone watched me. The feeling remained throughout the walk then subway ride into Manhattan. But no matter how often I scanned my surroundings or checked from my periphery, I never saw a hint of suspicious intent from anyone around me.

Considering the trauma I’d endured as a child, fear over having captured someone’s undivided attention should have kept me on edge each and every moment out among the masses of the city. Instead, I found myself intrigued, worriedly wishing for…more.

I stood beside my office window hoping for a hint of warmth to kindle between my thighs. Coolness remained in my blood as it always did once I entered Tolzman Industries.

Sighing, I pressed my forehead to the glass, watching tiny people far below hurrying to get home after a long day of work. Only a few minutes remained before I was off the clock and join the masses where my watcher’s eyes would send delicious shivers down my spine.

It had been years since I’d experienced arousal on its own and for good reason.

Was my body responding to mere fantasy because I’d been seeking healing for my distaste for physical touch? Or had the sexual nature within me finally begun to bloom how it ought to had I not been ruined as a teenager?

I’d made a wrong decision when physical desire had first roused in my body, and no amount of meetings with my sex therapist, Doctor Hasslet, had healed the resulted brokenness from messing with fire back then.

No attempts at self-pleasure had coaxed arousal to life let alone allowed me to climax.

No vibrator, dildo, or solo finger-fuckings encouraged wetness to dampen my thighs or send me tumbling headlong into relief I barely remembered enjoying prior to the assault.

But this sense of being stalked while outdoors stirred something up inside me that I couldn’t wait to share with my therapist next week.

While readying my things to head home a short time later, I shivered in anticipation of feeling my follower’s full focus, his desire for me.

That sense of power I’d experienced as a teenager upon drawing the attention of an older, well-respected man had returned but grew more potent with every passing day.

At first, tingles of awareness had raised the hairs on my arms and sent a pleasant shiver down my spine.

The second through fifth mornings I had left my condo for work, my nipples had grown tight, and warmth settled low in my belly.

The last two days, my body had become fully stimulated, the feeling intense and consuming. Slickness coated my panties, and my nipples tightened to aching buds from my stalker’s want that I swore I could taste on my tongue.

But once in the privacy of my home, fear of failure to get myself off kept me from reaching between my legs to seek out relief from the new stirrings inside. I’d been celibate for close to a dozen years, and I swore a lifetime of the same lay in my future unless some magical dick healed my trauma.

As if.

I enjoyed reading stories and watching movies that suggested happiness and healing could be found beneath or riding a man’s cock, but those escapes I allowed myself inside the pages of a book or on screen weren’t reality.

Healing wouldn’t come overnight, Doctor Hasslet had said when I’d first started meeting with him a few years ago, but he assured me it would eventually.

I needed to keep pushing myself and taking strides toward the future I desired, one that included a sensitive, patient man who had the ability to love me regardless of my brokenness.

In the meantime, Doctor Hasslet recommended meeting monthly with a Dominant to help me on my walk toward wholeness.

He had suggested his friend, Master Vanni. A hotter-than-hell Dominant with a sexy, short beard and unbearably beautiful green eyes, he owned the sex club I’d been gifted a membership to through my doctor. I’d learned in the hours I’d spent with Master Vanni that he was trustworthy and respectful.

Our first sit-down to go over the intake forms and my experience, of which I had none in the BDSM lifestyle, had been disagreeable to say the least. During the scene that followed, I’d been too self-conscious to let go and enjoy any aspect of the training for submission.

The second Friday night we’d met, I was comfortable enough to accept a bit of pain.

I’d also experienced hints of real arousal stir between my thighs over the crop he’d taken to my backside.

The third, fourth, and fifth scenes, Master Vanni and my growing trust in him had allowed me to find greater pleasure in the pain he gifted me.

The last time we had scened together, he’d brought me to climax with a flogger and given me joy I’d never hoped to experience.

Tears had coursed down my cheeks during aftercare, but he’d held me wrapped up in a blanket to keep our skin from touching, his deep, soothing voice like honey coating a sore throat.

He’d also given me his private number and ordered me to reach out if I ever needed him.

Although we had learned ways of shutting off my mind in order to climax, I had yet to allow skin-on-skin contact, nor was I ready for penetration of any sort.

Regardless of my forward progress, I feared such intimacy would send me spiraling back to that weekend I’d been tied up and used to fulfill a sick man’s fantasies.

Master Vanni and I were scheduled to meet tomorrow at his club, and the combined thoughts of my stalker and the expectation Master would set me free in just over twenty-four hours caused my core to throb.

I entered and stood impatiently in the elevator, waiting to arrive at the ground floor, my heart palpitating. Never had I looked forward to a Friday more.

People took too long exiting the elevator, and I grumbled my impatience in my mind while buttoning my coat closed against the impending winter evening awaiting me outside.

My stomach tightened as I stepped into the cold air, my gaze darting up and down the street. Barely able to breathe, I sought out the sense of being watched, waiting for pleasure to wash over me, turning my core to lava and easing the tension in my entire body.

Frigid shards of awareness lanced at me instead, freezing me in my tracks. Alarm skittered along my spine, threatening to loosen my bladder.

This feeling was distinctively opposite from what I’d become familiar with.

My instincts screamed at me to flee the stare that had turned chilling, but what if he was a chaser? What if he had a predator kink and saw me as his prey?

A shudder rippled through my body, leaving my core dry as a desert. Alarming red flags raised and snapped inside my mind, causing me to shrink into myself in desperation to hide.

My throat tightened as I pretended to fix my coat’s collar while discretely glancing around.

People brushed past me where I stood in the middle of the sidewalk, the right side of my face burning like ice pellets slashed at my cheeks.

Stomach tight, I swallowed hard and fully turned my focus northward, needing to face my stalker rather than run.

A dark shadow a block away drew my attention like a beacon but slipped into the alleyway.

Immediately, the sixth sense of uncomfortable awareness dissolved, allowing me to draw breath.

My lingering discomfort insisted I move.

Turning in the opposite direction, I hurried for the subway entrance, chin tucked to my chest, ready to escape the bustling crowd of people and hide away in my condo.

What happened since that morning when I’d sadly entered work and left my sweet stalker’s stare behind? Had his seemingly harmless thoughts toward me turned violent? Were intentions developing in his mind that went beyond attraction and longing from afar?

Warmth caressed my face, and a recognizable shiver of awareness slid over my skin. My skin pebbled as heat kindled between my thighs. My lungs opened fully, allowing oxygen to flow freely.

There he was.

The familiar sense I’d been looking forward to, the same one that had accompanied me to and from work for a week.

Were two men watching me?

I lifted my focus directly ahead from where I could sense the good eyes, but no one seemed to pay me any mind. No orbs stared at me from the backs of heads. No person craned their neck to meet my gaze while making their way deeper into the bowels of the city.

I considered the idea of a second man’s gaze pinned on me while slipping beneath Manhattan’s streets for the subway.

Whoever had been waiting outside my work was definitely not the man who made me feel protected and instilled a craving for physical fulfillment rather than release brought on by pain.

Rather than making me feel like a bug beneath a telescope, my stalker’s study caused arousal to dampen my panties, and I bit the inside of my lip to keep from moaning in my desire for his touch.

My insides purred as I waited for my train and continued my search for what felt like warm sunshine on my face.

No one within sight seemed to give two shits about the petite woman hunkered in her coat along with the others anxious to leave the workday behind, but I swore someone did.

Somewhere.

I couldn’t wait to meet with Doctor Hasslet to share with him what I’d been experiencing. Perhaps he would think the broken parts of my mind caused my body to respond to an imaginary presence, but until that time, I would gladly partake in what could very well be fantasy.

Telling myself I had imagined the bad set of eyes, I focused on the daydream of the good eyes drinking in the vision of me. He appreciated my lack of makeup, something I’d given up in the after . The less I did to draw attention to myself, the safer I felt.

Rumbling grew, the clack of metal wheels on tracks announcing my ride drew close.