In Her Shadow

Chapter 1

REN

“ F uck, yes!” The bitch I’m balls deep in screams as I fuck her against the wall. It’s bad enough that she’s making sure the whole club can hear her. It pisses me off even more when she turns her head to look at me over her shoulder.

“Don’t fuckin’ look at me.” I smother her face with my palm, forcing her cheek against the wall, so I can fuck her pussy without judgment.

I don’t want to see this girl's face any more than I want to listen to her pathetic noises. I don’t need a reminder that she isn’t the girl I want.

That these screams sound nothing like the ones I really want to hear, or that this brittle, fake hair isn’t soft between my fingers the way hers would be.

All the years I’ve spent restraining myself have developed my imagination, but even that doesn’t enable me to pretend that this little whore is anything close to being as perfect as Eloise Meadows.

“That’s so fucking good, keep going. I’m coming,” she calls out, no doubt in the same way she did for the guy who was in this room before me, and I shake my head and laugh at how pathetic she sounds as I pump her pussy harder.

Unlike most of the men who come here, I don’t enjoy my visits.

I detest every minute I spend here. But, I ain’t a fucking saint and every now and then the hunger inside me has to be fed.

There comes a point when fucked up fantasies and endless nights of pulling my dick through my fist fail to take the edge off.

Times when I can feel myself on the verge of losing control.

Losing control isn’t an option. Eloise has suffered so much in this wicked world already, and I’ve proven, more than once, that there's nothing I won’t do to protect her from it.

This is how I protect her from me….

“I said don’t fuckin’ look at me,” I growl into the whore’s ear when I notice her eye staring up at me from between my fingers.

I’m angry at her for not being who I want her to be.

I’m angry at myself for being helpless to fucking desire, but most of all I’m angry at the world, for all its cruelty and the monster it’s turned me into.

A monster ruined beyond repair, who’s bound to a beautiful, innocent creature by invisible chains and has no choice but to lurk in her shadow.

I scrunch the girl’s hair tighter in my fist, close my eyes, and think of my sweet, delicate girl.

Everything would be so different if this were her.

I’d want her eyes on me so I could watch how she took me.

I’d want to hear her cute little moans. I tell myself that she’d purr like a needy kitten.

But in reality, she’d probably whimper the way she does when she suffers one of her nightmares.

For years, I tried telling myself that what I feel for her is love, but it’s not, it can’t be.

Love isn’t supposed to hurt, and I’ve been in pain since the day I laid eyes on her.

There have been some dark times when I’ve thought about being the one who causes her pain.

When I wish that she could feel, just for a moment, the burden of what I feel.

I’ve tried to make those kinda thoughts go away, but they're rooted inside me just like my obsession with her. An obsession that over time has spread through my veins and seeped into my soul. There’s no cure for it, just torment and the promise of a lifetime spent suffering.

The louder this whore gets the deeper I have to delve into my mind.

I try to imagine the shower gel and moisturiser Eloise uses; they smell so much better than the stench of this cheap perfume.

I trick my brain into believing that when I finally shoot my load, it won’t be inside the rubber that's protecting me from a pussy that belongs to whoever can afford it. I’ll be fucking it deep into Eloise’s tight, unprotected pussy.

Filling it to the brim and ensuring that I gave her something that binds her to me …

For so long, just the idea of touching Eloise would be enough to get me off, but my obsession with her has escalated. I need so much more these days, and the thought of her carrying something of mine inside her never fails to have my balls ready to blow.

I grip the girl’s hair tighter with one hand and press her face harder into the wall with my other.

My thrusts get more aggressive when I have to pretend that I’m someone different, too.

The kinda guy Eloise would want in her life, not just watching it.

The kinda guy she’d want to be bred by, one who she’d stretch her thighs wide open for and beg to knock her up.

She’d welcome my need for control because the Eloise Meadows who lives inside my head is desperate to be owned.

My thoughts trigger my release, and my whole body stiffens. I crush my fingers tighter and hear a loud screech come from the girl, which I’m not sure stems from pain or pleasure.

For a few seconds, I feel free from her, but the rush never lasts for long; within seconds, the pain of being a stranger to her is back. I’m a monster again, this girl’s just another a whore, and Eloise is still un-fuckin’-touchable.

I quickly drop my hands, releasing the girl from my grip and pulling away. Then snapping the rubber from my cock, I dump it into the trash and rid my brain of everything that just happened.

“Why are you always so angry?” The girl turns to face me, pressing her shoulders back against the wall. The way she plays with her hair in an attempt to be cute only agitates me further.

I don’t answer her, I don’t even look at her. I just pull up my sweats and take the cash I owe her out of my wallet.

“The girls talk about you, you know. They kinda like you.” She smirks.

“You got a name we can call you?” She steps over to the dresser where I’ve laid out her money.

“You know, you always seem to finish faster with me than you do with the others, and it’s obvious you don’t like being here.

Maybe you could ask Jonny to make you one of my regulars.

” I wait for her to pick up the money before I snatch her under her jaw and force her to look at me.

The gasp she makes, followed by her playful little giggle, confirms that this girl likes to take it the only way I know how to give.

“Open your mouth,” I order, and when she does as I command, I take the pill that’s between my fingers and press it onto her tongue.

I never leave anything to chance in a place like this; I always bring my own rubbers and ensure the girl takes the Plan B when I’m done.

Since I’ve used this girl before, she doesn’t bother to ask me what it is; she just rolls her eyes before using the bottle of vodka from the side to wash it down.

“Happy?” She sticks out her tongue to show me that it’s gone, and I nod my gratitude before leaving her to get ready for the next sorry son-of-a-bitch who will use her as a distraction.

I arrive home an hour later. The abandoned building opposite Eloise’s apartment has proven to be the perfect spot to watch her from, so I’ve made it my permanent residence.

It sure ain’t no palace, but I make it work.

The place still has running water, and it’s stopped bothering me that it only comes out cold.

I’ve got a generator for when I need electricity, and a mattress to sleep on.

Not that I ever get much sleep. I spend most of the night, while she and the city are sleeping, watching her through her window.

Sketching her the way I perceive her, and etching out the life I’d like to give her.

The walls around me hold countless images of her face, because drawing her is the closest I’ll ever let myself get to touching her.

I’ve just finished taking a cold shower, and I’m rubbing my hair dry with a towel when I see a cab pull up outside her apartment building.

While I shrug into a clean t-shirt, I watch her climb out the back before she makes her way to the door.

Eloise works as a junior editor; her office building is only a few blocks from here, so she usually walks.

I guess tonight she wanted to be home early to get ready for the date she’s got planned.

I clench my back teeth when I think about her going out with that guy again.

There has to be something special about Lance Worthington.

I’ve never known her to make it past a third date with a guy, never mind a fifth.

Maybe it’s because he’s a cop. I guess his job makes women more inclined to trust him.

He’s also a Taurus, which I read in the magazine she works for, which makes him the most reliable of boyfriends.

He volunteers at a homeless shelter and is, of course, financially stable… I triple checked.

I may not be skilled at much, but I’m good when it comes to technology.

I make it my personal business to look into everyone who comes into her life.

Anything that's traceable about the guy I’ve found.

Turns out he’s squeaky clean. Exactly the kinda guy Eloise should be dating.

But knowing that doesn’t make watching her fall for him any fucking easier.

I get jealous of the barista guy who gets to hand Eloise her coffee in the morning.

I've thought more than once about breaking his fingers so he gets replaced, just because I don’t like the way he smiles at her.

Sitting back and watching Lance become part of her life is hard. I haven’t had to worry about Eloise dating anyone since the tragedy of her senior prom…it’s a night that didn’t end well for her or her date, and one that taught me a lot about myself.

Since then, Eloise’s trust issues have kept her guarded. I really want to know what it is about this guy that’s making her drop her defenses. I also wanna take a razor to his ball sack, but that's something I’m working on trying to control.

It can’t just be this guy's job that's making her trust him. I’ve seen the way she smiles when they’re together.

I’ve watched every fucking date he’s taken her on and, and each time, it burns.

It burns so fucking bad that I had to fuck all the frustration out of my body today, just so I could start thinking straight again.

I wanna choke the life out of the fucker who’s gonna take her away from me. But then, how can he take her when she’s never been mine?

When I see her step into her apartment, I reach over to turn up the volume on my laptop and watch her through the screen instead of the window.

The only space that I haven’t bugged in her apartment is her bathroom.

I figured I owed the girl some dignity… but I have eyes and ears everywhere else.

I’ve heard the private conversations she’s had with her best friend.

I know that she wants more from life and has been feeling the need to test herself lately.

Eloise wants to be like a regular girl her age.

She wants to date, to fall in love, become a wife, and a mother.

But does she really think Lance is good enough for that?

Scrubbing my hand over my face, I listen to the way her heels click across her wooden floor.

I smile at the tune she hums while she flicks through her wardrobe, even if she is picking out a dress for him.

I’ll bet she’s wondering what his favorite color is, and if he’d prefer her hair up or down, and it makes me grip the ledge of the window that I put my fist through last night when she was talking on the phone about him.

I had to endure listening to her tell her friend, Katelyn, that she’s ready to take the next step.

That tonight, she’s going to invite this guy up to her apartment.

Shards of broken glass cut into my palms, and I welcome the fucking pain.

I learned at a young age that pain on the outside hurts far less than it does on the inside.

I use it as a distraction from the reality that one day, Eloise is gonna find that man she’s looking for.

She’s kind and giving by nature, so when she does, I know she will give everything of herself to him.

Who am I to take her chance of happiness away from her? Who am I to ruin a life that she’s fought so hard to repair? I’m nobody to her, and she will never know that for so long she’s been the entire world for me.