Possessive Stalker (Stalking Her Curves #1)

Chapter 1

Vincent

I open the door. She’s standing there in a slip of a dress that clings to every curve of her body. Still so beautiful, even with her eye makeup smeared, a telltale sign that she’s been crying.

She reeks of alcohol.

“What the fuck?” I hiss.

“I knew it!” she laughs. “I knew you’d be here. God, you’re so predictable.”

“Get inside,” I say, glancing up the hall. “Before you’re seen.”

“Wouldn’t want that, would we?” she asks. “To be seen with me. You were always so careful about that when we were together.”

“Get inside,” I say, reaching for her. She darts back into the hall, away from my fingertips.

“No. I didn’t come here to sleep with you,” she says. “I just wanted to make sure.”

“Make sure of what?”

“That you’re still a miserable son of a bitch,” she says, standing tall. “And now that I’ve seen that you are, I’m leaving.”

“Like hell, you are,” I say.

I reach for her and this time she can’t dodge me fast enough. Grabbing her by the wrist, I drag her inside the room and slam the door behind us.

“Let me go,” she hisses, trying to pry my hand from her wrist.

I hold on tight, dragging her close to me. I nearly kiss her, just out of habit. But I stop myself just in time, instead glaring down at her face as I pin her to the door inside my hotel room. Her curves yield to me, soft body molding easily to mine, the same as it always did before.

“Why are you really here?” I ask.

“I already told you. To make sure you’re still miserable,” she says. “And clearly you are. That’s all I wanted to know.”

“I’m not miserable,” I reply. “And if I was, you wouldn’t know. We don’t speak anymore. That was your fucking choice.”

“Some choice,” she replies. “Be your secret lover, or be nothing at all. What kind of choice is that?”

“One you knew about fully when you entered our agreement,” I say through my teeth. “I was consistent and clear throughout. You, on the other hand…”

I don’t finish the sentence. Regret and guilt coil tightly in my gut. Old feelings that I thought I’d finally put behind me. Finally drank away the pain that Hazel left me with.

But it’s still there. Still gnawing at me from time to time. Back in full force tonight, with her unexpected appearance.

“On the other hand…what?” Hazel asks. “What did I do that was so wrong? Fell in love with you? Gave you everything I had?”

“I never asked you to give me everything,” I say. “You did that on your own.”

“You’re an asshole,” she says, shoving against me.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Hazel tries to wrestle away from me but I hold her in place. The front of me pressed to the front of her. I tell myself not to get hard, but my cock has other ideas.

Who gives a shit if she can feel my erection? Hazel already knows what she does to me. Knows that she’s always been my weakness, the only person in the world who could cause me to break my rules.

“You shouldn’t be drinking like this,” I say in a low voice. “You’re putting yourself in harm’s way. Losing control of yourself in an unfamiliar city.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“Bullshit. I could smell the vodka from six feet away,” I say.

“I’m sure you could,” she replies. “My creepy date basically doused me in it before I could get away from him.”

I loosen my grip on her, taking a step back.

The muscles in my jaw tighten as I process it all. Hazel on a date with another guy. Some shithead who spilled a drink all over her and whatever else he did to earn the title of ‘creep’.

Within an hour, I could have that man tracked down and killed.

Or worse.

Yes, there are worse things than being killed. Things I’m not above inflicting on a man from time to time, when the occasion calls for it.

Hazel must know what I’m thinking, because she shakes her head.

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No to whatever fucked up revenge you’re plotting in your head right now,” she says, adjusting the strap on her purse and reaching for the door. “He didn’t do it on purpose. He was just drunk and clumsy.”

“And creepy.”

She nods slowly.

“Run-of-the-mill creepy,” she says. “Not ‘kidnap you and lock you in my basement’ creepy. I’m fine. I don’t need your protection and I’m not your property.”

“Not anymore,” I reply before I can stop myself.

Her choice. Her decision to walk away, not mine.

“Not anymore?” she repeats with a small laugh. “See, that’s the problem. I thought you were my soulmate, and you thought I was your property. All I ever was to you was a convenient toy to warm your bed at night. Nothing else.”

“Don’t do that,” I growl.

“Don’t do what?”

“Cheapen what we had together,” I say. “Maybe I wasn’t able to give you everything you wanted. But what we had together was more than just fucking.”

Hazel’s eyes soften. She opens her mouth as though to say something, then closes it.

“What?” I ask.

“You have no idea how badly I wanted to hear those words from you last year,” she says. “I needed something, anything from you. A reason to stay and not leave. But tonight you’ve said the words I needed last year and I feel…”

I wait for her to finish the sentence, not sure why I’m hanging onto every fucking word she says. As though it matters. As though any of this shit matters anymore.

“You feel what?” I snap, relenting and giving in to my need to know how that sentence ends.

“Nothing,” she says sadly. “I feel nothing.”