Vicious Obsession (Hellions of Hade Harbor #5)

Prologue

Selena

Beautiful outside. Ugly inside.

A building shouldn’t be so relatable.

So far, my favorite part of my new part-time gig was when I was sent up to the upper floors, where the original tile floor and lofty ceilings remained.

I popped my headphones in and wandered around, shelving books by great minds on topics I’d never know anything about, from environmental linguistics to the mathematics of time travel, and let the peace of the place sink into my bones.

Peace was hard to come by these days, and in a public place, near impossible.

Today, I hummed softly as I pushed the cart around, mentally thanking the random grad student who had checked out a massive amount of books on archaeology.

I rounded a corner, enjoying the way a beam of light fell through a panel of stained glass, coloring the black-and-white tile a vivid red shade, when I saw them.

I jerked back, the sudden, unwanted sight a shot of electricity to the brain. I hadn’t heard them, my music too loud in my ears, so the unexpected visual sent my blood rushing through me.

The girl kneeling back on a hundred-year-old desk, her shirt pushed down around her waist. For a second, I felt outrageously offended on behalf of the dignified piece of furniture that generations of students had sat and studied at, before my brain caught up with what I was seeing.

She was pinned to the table leg, her back bent unnaturally, and a guy stood over her. His profile was arresting.

He was big and broad, handsome in that way that you just knew he was aware of. No one could sport that wavy brown hair, steel-cut jaw, and drool-worthy face without being insufferable. It didn’t happen.

Slowly, his rough, dominant movements sank through my brain, and I struggled to process what I was seeing.

He thrust against her chest in long, languid movements, sinuous and purposeful.

A stark shot of fear grounded me to the spot.

Panic licked along my limbs. That’s what happened these days.

I froze. A deer in the headlights. I couldn’t seem to step away from a car coming straight on.

My therapist had called it a trauma response, but it just felt like a weakness.

I pulled a headphone from my ear, and the sound hit me. Wet slaps and her breathy moans.

Her hand crept down between her legs, and he tutted.

“I didn’t say you could touch yourself, did I, Linda?”

“It’s Lisa,” the girl murmured. “And why not? You’re making me so wet—”

“Not my fucking problem,” he ground out, his accent British, cocky and arrogant and full of entitlement.

“I didn’t ask to know anything about you,” he continued, sounding dangerously bored by the entire encounter. “So, either finish me off or get up and stop embarrassing yourself,” he drawled.

Lisa shuddered, nodding quickly, chastised, and then set to rubbing her breasts up and down the asshole’s dick with renewed energy.

Luckily, my anger at his offhand comments had unfrozen my limbs, and the panic ebbed away. This wasn’t an attack. It was just bad sex with a dickhead, something that happened all over campus every single day.

You’re safe. Everything is okay. You don’t need to run.

I took a deep breath, dragging it into my paralyzed lungs forcefully.

An electronic beep sounded, and to my disbelief, the asshole pulled his phone out of his back pocket and started to read the screen, all while poor Lisa bounced on her knees and did her best to get him off.

He typed out a reply, seemingly unaffected by the girl reverently rubbing her breasts up and down the length of his dick.

Thank God I couldn’t see it properly given her movements and various moving body parts.

I actually hadn’t seen a real, live naked male body in over a year.

Not online, not in real life… I was fourteen months phallus-free and proud.

“Fuck, yes,” he growled, his voice lower and rough.

An unwanted rush of goosebumps spread over my skin.

“You like that, baby?” Lisa purred, clearly encouraged.

“The market went up two fucking points,” he said instead.

This guy was getting off on his investments appreciating while there was a gorgeous girl massaging his dick with her breasts. I couldn’t help it, I laughed. It was just too ridiculous.

I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle the outburst. I might have gotten away with it if this asshole didn’t have the hearing of a dog, or something.

His head whipped to the side, and our eyes met.

Well, this was a little embarrassing, considering I was just standing there, at the edge of the stacks, watching, but there was nothing I could do about it now.

He’d seen me, and his gaze felt like it had pinned me to the wall.

It was commanding. Suffocating, somehow.

It was like his hands had reached up and grabbed me by the throat.

His hazel eyes met mine, just as his mouth dropped open and a guttural groan left him.

His eyebrows drew together, his jaw clenched, and he swore at the same time Lisa gasped.

He was coming.

Veins in his strong neck pulsed, his full, rude-as-hell mouth spitting out a string of cuss words. A flicker of heat twinged in my belly.

That feeling broke the spell his eyes had cast over me, and I stepped back, dragging the cart with me, and turned into the next stack over, ripping my attention from the carnal sight.

The shocking pang of heat when I’d watched him had broken that damn paralysis that seemed to descend over me more often than I could stand.

This guy wasn’t him. He was just a random fuckboy being an asshole in a library. The man from my nightmares was dead.

I calmly finished shelving the two remaining books on my cart, then headed for the elevator. I wondered what the aftermath of that kind of hookup would look like, considering how much of an ass the guy seemed to be.

I yanked my other headphone out of my ear so I could hear better. I’d never not be a gossip. It was in my blood. There was the girl’s soft voice, and nothing from him. Dickhead. Had he even helped clean up his mess? I reached the elevator and slapped at the call button a few times.

“Hold the lift,” a deep voice called behind me.

The elevator arrived, dragging the heavy cart along as I went. I could see him now, striding along the stacks toward me.

“I said hold the lift,” he called again when I made no move to press the hold button.

Instead, I rooted in my pocket and pulled out a pack of tissues.

“Clean up your mess first, Wall Street wannabe,” I said and threw the pack of tissues.

They sailed through the air and, with an aim I’d never even imagined I could have, hit him on the side of the head.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the accuracy and his expression as the doors started to close, too far away for him to reach.

Oops.