Stalking Stella (Wild at Heart #2)

PROLOGUE

THE CURATOR

‘Who are you?’ I ask, gasping like it will make him less dangerous.

‘Sal,’ he murmurs, watching me like something fragile; a porcelain doll he plans to break.

I swallow hard. His stare, his presence pressing in, suffocating me. ‘Are you here to hurt me…Sal?’

Something flinches in his eyes – something dark, something hungry. ‘Hurt you?’ He exhales slowly. ‘Darling, Marguerite, mon cheri, I want to tear you apart, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left untouched.’

I should step back. I don’t. I remain silent, and he continues, ‘I want to ruin you, slowly, completely. And you’ll love every second of it.’

‘How do you know my name?’ I whisper.

‘It’s my job to know things. I’ve been watching you,’ his voice drops, rich and poised with promise. ‘You collect things, little fragments of people, little…trophies.’

He shifts closer, his breath grazing my cheek like a whisper of something inevitable. ‘Well, darling,’ he murmurs with a voice like sin. ‘I don’t collect smiles. I collect fantasies.’

His fingers brush against my collarbone. It’s barely a touch. Barely there, but it’s enough to make my pulse falter - enough to make me forget how to breathe. He inhales deeply. ‘And you’re my favourite one yet.’

I know, in that moment, in the way he says it and the way he looks at me, that this man is already inside my bones. He’s made clear his obsession is raw, ugly, a sickness that’s twisting in his veins.

And I enjoy it.

God help me. I enjoy it.

I’ve been waiting, searching for something or someone to swallow me whole, to draw me in like hunger itself. To make me feel alive, even if it ruins me in the process. This man, he’s going to ruin me perfectly.

And I’ll thank him for it.