Page 45 of Only for Him

PLEASE!

That gets an instant reply.

I like it when you beg, little viper.

My whole body goes tight. I want to call Teddy and tell him to leave the city. Change his name. Go into hiding before it’s too late.

Instead, I stand there as the chill descends deeper into my bones, rereading the messages until the words stop looking like words and become a threat I can taste in the back of my throat.

Not just a threat.

A promise.

He likes it when I beg,I think, even though I try to think of anything else. And that’s when another thought forms in my mind.

What else does my stalker like?

13

ROMAN

TWO DAYS LATER

Her building breathesthe way all old brick does: groaning pipes, distant sirens, a neighbor’s laugh rising through the vents.

None of it matters as I stand in her apartment.

Behind her closed bathroom door, the shower is running. I imagine the sight of my little viper underneath the needle-thin spray hammering the tile.

Is she running her hand through her dark hair in the water? Is she trying to strip off the day and whatever nerves I frayed the last time we crossed paths two days ago? When shedaredto sit down for drinks with that fed?

A rose rests in my right hand, its thorns filed just enough to draw a whisper of pain but not blood.

The memory of the pulse in her neck under my thumbs is still lucid and sharp.

By the end of tonight, I will have brought that heartbeat to its limit and back again, over and over until she’s addicted to the rush.

Assuming she isn’t already addicted.

My jaw reflexively clenches in anticipation.

I’ll taste her again soon enough.

In practiced silence, I slip down the hall and press my palm to the bathroom door. Heat radiates through the wood. My tongue darts out to wet my lips.

She likes her showers hot, but I’ll burn her even hotter.

I ease the knob, twist by twist, until the latch disengages.

Another inch, and I have a slit of sight: frosted glass, her silhouette blurred but unmistakable. Her shoulders tense, and hair is plastered down her spine, every clean line of her body plainly visible. The curve of her breast. The swell of her ass. The flatness of her stomach and a tuft of dark hair between her legs.

All of it is visible to me.

And only me.

She bends down, and I swear I can catch a glimpse of her pink slit in the steam.

Desire rises, fast as a match thrown onto gasoline.