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CONRAD

I have my sights trained on her as I watch from afar. My body is aching, straining to be close to her.

The glass of my sniper scope brings her beauty closer to me, blessing my retinas with every inch of her heavenly body as I obsess over her inches while she tries on her wedding dress, blissfully unaware of the fact that her every move is being surveilled.

I’ve cemented each delicious morsel of her body into my mind, from the hair she always tucks behind her ear, to the bountiful curve of her hips, to the dance of freckles across her chest which sit just above her pert cleavage.

Beauty can reach no higher heights than her.

Belle Hartley. Eighteen years old. My deadly addiction.

She’ll be the end of me, I know it. And I’m okay with it.

I have eyes on her all day from nine to five. That’s my job. Watching her off the clock is my one and only extracurricular activity.

Last night, she was hidden from my gaze while she spent time with her fiancé in the bedroom they will share after the wedding tomorrow. And I have never experienced such pain in my life.

Away from my eyes. Away from me …

Furious jealousy stabs my chest like a flaming spear thrust through my heart by an angry god. I grind my teeth and groan at the blistering sensation, clenching my left hand into a fist which I pound into my leg, invoking enough physical pain to temporarily distract me from the emotional torment I feel when I think about what could have occurred in that bedroom with him while I was not there to protect her.

Protecting Belle is my job.

My one and only concern.

And as an ex-Marine working private security, I should have my shit together. But when I took this job, I had no idea I’d be guarding a goddess. Normally I’m guarding a politician, a CEO’s family while he’s out of country, protecting a diplomat’s children. But this is different. This job was meant to be standard security for a high-profile wedding, Fitch Cooper of the wealthy Cooper dynasty, but when I set eyes on Belle, his bride-to-be, everything changed.

Observe and protect. Act when required. Never get emotionally attached to a subject.

That’s what I’m hired to do, and that’s what I’m great at.

Or I was…until now…

I’m supposed to be doing everything in my power to make sure Fitch and Belle’s wedding goes off without a hitch, yet all I want to do is tear her fiancé apart with my bare hands. When he looks at her like she’s already his possession, I can barely stop myself from grabbing my gun and ending him. It may sound like tough-guy talk, but I can back it up. I’ve killed when I was deployed overseas. I am a killer . And I wouldn’t think twice about killing again if it meant protecting my angel.

Zero emotional attachment. No commitments.

That’s what they teach you when you become a sniper.

And that came easily for me, especially after my ex cheated on me with my best friend the first week of my first deployment. I saw the deception in her e-mails to me, and when I confronted her, she admitted everything. She said she’d be gone when I got back, and she was. After that, I turned my back on females. On everyone. I became cold, a rock planet alone in the far-out blackness of space, orbiting no one. No connections. No emotions. Nothing.

Then Belle walked into my life and changed everything.

Now I’m like clay being reshaped by her delicate hands, twisting into something new.

My resolve is slipping. The iron will that made me one of the deadliest US snipers is cracking.

I’m no longer Belle’s security…I’m her stalker…

I watch her at work, never letting her out of my sight. And after, when I’m technically off the clock, I go to the home where she still lives with her parents and spy on her with my scope from across the street. I break in late at night and lie at the foot of her bed and listen to her breathing, basking in her scent that soothes me like a mother’s kiss.

Christ, I’m completely losing it.

Belle is engaged to the man who hired me. That should mean something. I should be professional. Do my job. Observe and protect. But I just can’t help myself when every fiber in my body is screaming out in desperation for this girl. It’s only been three weeks since I was hired, but it only took two days for me to become her stalker…

If I ever let myself slip, forget my duty, my job, I’ll lose complete control.

And that would destroy her.

Why? Because I’m broken. Scarred. Incapable of having a real relationship with a girl. And what does a busted-down jarhead like me have to offer Belle when she’s marrying one of the wealthiest men in the country? In the world?

I know I can’t give in. But that doesn’t matter as I watch her through my lens while she undresses, causing my cock to pulse with unbounded excitement. I watch as her future maid assists her with the back of the dress, then leaves the room to give her some privacy.

If only she knew…

With a sharp tug, I pop the buttons on my jeans, releasing my throbbing cock. I spit on my hand and grip my hard shaft, working it slowly as Belle carefully slides out of the white dress, which leaves her standing there in a crystal blue lace bra and matching panties. Even with my close-up spy angle, that tiny piece of fabric still conceals her virgin cunt from me.

How do I know she’s a virgin? Well, one of my little bugs told me that.

Two days into this job, I placed hidden microphones everywhere she spends time. Her house, her car, several rooms at the Cooper mansion. I listen in live when I can and scour the recordings when I get home, the sound of her voice getting me higher than any drug ever could.

One night, I heard her arguing with Fitch. He was trying to get into her pants, saying she owed it to him as he was her fiancé, but Belle told him that she wanted to wait until after the wedding. And boy did that make him mad.

What’s the difference? he asked her. We’re already fucking engaged! You’re already mine!

Hearing him say that instantly wiped the smile off my face. I wanted to grab my gun, drive straight to him, and blow his pompous head off.

No one owns Belle.

No one but me.

Beads of sweat fall from my forehead and onto my lap as I watch her, my eyes locked on to every mouth-watering curve, every tender place to put my hands.

My cock pulses, and I slam my thigh again to drive down my arousal, but it doesn’t work. I’m stiff as a board and about to go off any second. If I could only touch her…

She’s passed me many times in the halls, sat beside me while I drove her home. But I’ve yet to actually put a hand on her. I doubt I would be able to handle it. Even the feeling of her soft skin on my callused hands would be so delicious, so enticing, that I would probably just blow a load right there in my pants.

I’m grunting now, twisting my palm over my spit-covered hard-on as Belle walks to her dresser and opens the bottom drawer. She bends over, and I see the sweet junction between her thighs and the sculpted curves of her ass, as if she’s presenting her innocent mound to me like she knows I’m here. My jaw is clenched as I imagine sliding inside her tight channel, taking her roughly, letting out all my pent-up cravings on her.

Shit, I’m about to come–

And that’s when my phone rings.

“Damn it!”

I glance down and see the name: Fitch Cooper. Technically I’m off the clock, but he’s my client. I have to answer.

“Fitch,” I say, lifting my phone with my spit-covered hand. “W-what’s up?”

“Get over to the house,” he barks with that authoritative tone so many wealthy people have. “We have an issue.”

I swallow hard and do my best to force my cock back into my pants, blasted with guilt as reality hits me like a crashing garbage truck. I’m supposed to be a professional, not some sick son of a bitch stalking and jerking off over the girl he’s been hired to protect.

“What kind of issue?”

I open the glove box to stash my scope, and a cascade of photos waterfall out onto the floor. Pictures of Belle that I’ve taken over the last three weeks when she didn’t know I was there. In her bedroom, tanning at the mansion, and even one topless photo of her back when she was changing but was turned away from me the entire time. There’s a tiny hint of side-boob that still gets me hard as a rock. I can’t imagine what effect a full-frontal would have on me.

Fitch shouts angrily at someone before replying. “A bomb threat was called in for the wedding tomorrow!”

The edges of my mouth twist up on their own. Even with all my military training, I can’t stop the smile from taking over.

“Jesus, a bomb threat?” I ask, feigning ignorance.

“That’s right. Now get your ass over here and do your job!”

Fitch angrily hangs up, and I let out a single laugh as I put the car into gear and pull out into the street.