16. Lilith
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mr Stalker
Have you eaten?
I had not. But I wished I was eating something. Something hot. Something filthy. Something I could sink my teeth into.
“Goddamn it,” I muttered out loud, slamming my phone face down on the pillow.
If I kept this up, I was going to end up chewing on the damn bed sheets.
This was unhinged. Like, truly, beyond all rational thought.
I should not have been having these kinds of thoughts about a stalker—a man who had, by all accounts, lurked in the shadows, made my life significantly weirder, and somehow gotten into my head like some kind of obsessive earworm.
I cracked one eye open, begrudgingly picking the phone back up.
It was a normal text. A simple, harmless question.
He hadn’t done a damn thing to deserve these thoughts. All he’d wanted to do for the last week was buy my lunch and make sure I didn’t get mugged on the way home.
But me?
I was ovulating. Hard.
Like, cartoon wolf banging on the table, howling at the moon hard. My hormones had clearly gone feral, hijacking my brain like a pack of horny pirates. And instead of being a rational adult about it, I was over here mentally objectifying a man I didn’t even know.
I’d let him become something else in my head, a mystery I could unravel thread by thread, and now, I wasn’t thinking about his motives. I wasn’t wondering who he was or why he’d chosen me.
Now I was thinking about his hands. About how he moved. About what his voice might sound like in my ear.
And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Because the more I thought about it, the more those thoughts twisted and coiled, blurring the reality of what this was.
Would seeing him snap me out of it? Would putting a face to the fantasy bring me back to reality—remind me that this wasn’t normal? That I should be running fast and far in the opposite direction?
I groaned, tipping my head back against the pillow. This was so stupid. I needed to stop. To shove these thoughts into a box, tape it shut, and launch it right into the sun.
Except no…
No. Screw that.
If I saw him, it would break the illusion. I’d take one look, realise how ridiculous this whole thing was, and that would be it. Done. Over. I just had to know. Had to prove to myself that this was one hundred percent down to ovulation, and a temporary fixation. Just a stupid little game.
Putting a face to him would definitely kill these thoughts for good. Then we could go back to lunch, being walked home, and whatever the hell else was going on in this bizarre dynamic I’d somehow stumbled into.
Lilith
You know so much about me, and I don’t even know what you look like.
Mr Stalker
Does that bother you?
Yes, you idiot. It bothers me that you know what I look like when I laugh, when I’m pissed off, when I’m—hell, whatever other states you’ve seen me in—and I don’t even know what your damn mouth looks like.
Lilith
Yes.
Mr Stalker
You’ve survived this long without it.
Lilith
I just want to see you.
Mr Stalker
No. you think you want to see me. Big difference.
Lilith
Just show me your face. One time. One photo.
Mr Stalker
No.
Lilith
Why not?
Mr Stalker
Go to bed, Lilith.
Lilith
Coward.
The little dots appeared, then disappeared. Then appeared again. But no response came. I buried myself deeper into the pillows, phone clutched in my hands, pulse thrumming.
Fuck. He was so infuriating.
I clenched my jaw, glaring at the screen like I could will him into submission. Like sheer, stubborn determination would make him give me what I wanted.
What was so hard about it? Why was it such a huge secret? Who the hell was he?
And why wouldn’t these decrepit thoughts about him leave my damn mind?
A cold shower. That’s what I needed. One so cold it would shock my system back into reality, and maybe, if I stayed under long enough, I’d finally get a grasp on why the hell I was entertaining any of this in the first place.
Or maybe I just needed to fully commit and start researching convents.
I shoved off the bed.
No. Too extreme.
Coffee. Coffee was safer.
The kitchen was quiet, the air cool against my flushed skin. I moved on autopilot, grabbing a mug, flicking on the machine, going through the motions as I reevaluated my entire existence.
The scalding coffee did nothing to clear my head. I just kept looping back to tall, dark, and deliberately mysterious.
I was a grown woman, not some teenager with a forbidden crush.
Sighing, I stared into the depths of my cup, as if it might hold some answers. Or absolution. Or, at the very least, a little self-control.
It didn’t .
Right. Fine. Desperate times.
If I couldn’t get him out of my head. I’d force him out.
Maybe some time with the vibrator and the audio of some other person moaning would help. A palate cleanser, if you will.
I trudged back upstairs, already bracing myself for whatever fresh hell my subconscious had waiting for me.
I already kind of hated myself for this. But it was fine, normal, functional. All healthy women did this. If I could get it out of my system, I could move on and get back to him being a plain, old, creepy stalker and not some sex demon that was inching himself into my brain.
No time for messing around. Just a quick, hard release, and I could call it a night.
A low, breathy moan filtered through my headphones, whispering filth straight into my ears, designed for one thing and one thing only.
I clicked the vibrator on to full power, the familiar hum sending a shiver up my spine as I shoved my underwear down, wasting no time pressing it straight to my clit.
My free hand gripped the sheets, twisting them so hard my knuckles ached, but I needed something to ground me, something to hold onto as my body unraveled beneath me.
I pressed the vibrator harder, sending sharp, electric pleasure ripping through me in waves.
The voice in my ear was low and filthy. Each moan burned through my veins, liquid heat pooling low, my body completely out of my control.
I was so close. So close it hurt.
My hips rolled into it, chasing the edge, my stomach tightening— right there, right there.
The sudden buzz against the mattress shattered it.
The pleasure was yanked from me so fast it left me gasping, blinking hard, still wound tight, still aching.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
My phone.
My fingers fumbled over the sheets, heart still pounding, pulse still throbbing in places it absolutely shouldn’t be.
Mr Stalker
One image attached.
I tapped the screen, and the image opened.
My eyes popped out of my head, my stomach dropped, I flatlined.
Every muscle was completely and utterly frozen .
The vibrator was still buzzing in my hand, forgotten, body locked tight on the edge, suspended between frustration and full-blown existential crisis.
I couldn’t breathe. This was it. This was how I died.
Fantasies? Confirmed.
Reality? Ripped away from me like a cruel cosmic joke.
Because right there, staring back at me, was him.
Not his face.
Oh, no.
Because apparently, showing me his actual identity was a step too far—but this? This was fine?!
Muscle. So much damn muscle.
And the tattoos?
Holy shit.
A massive, gothic-styled moth stretched from shoulder to shoulder, wings dark and intricate, fanned across his olive toned skin.
A dagger sliced down the centre of his sternum, flanked by delicate, inky feathers that curved over the sharp ridges of his ribs.
And lower— oh, fucking hell— thorned vines tangled across his abdomen, coiling down, leading…
No.
Was that a six-pack? An eight-pack?!
Holy mother of God.
I threw the vibrator down and paused the audio so I could take it all in properly.
I was spiralling. I’d officially lost my damn mind.
No face. No name. No hint of anything except sheer, devastating proof that this man was built to ruin lives.
I stared at the screen, pulse hammering so hard it reverberated through my ears.
Why? How?
How did a man who looked like that—who had that body—end up lurking in the dark, trailing behind me like some shadow I couldn’t shake? It didn’t make sense.
Guys like him weren’t… this . They weren’t ghosts.
They weren’t nightmares wrapped in muscle and ink.
No. They belonged in glossy magazines, sprawled out in sheets that probably smelled like expensive cologne and bad decisions.
They belonged in the lives of women who had their shit together.
Women with far more confidence and far less baggage.
Not… standing outside my work.
Not being cryptic.
Not stalking me.
This guy was the same man who bought my lunch and walked me home from a distance? Nope. I refused to believe that. There was only one explanation for this.
Lilith
You either stole that from some fitness influencer’s Instagram, or you’re an AI generated model.
Mr Stalker
Excuse me?
Lilith
Yeah. There’s no way that’s you. Try again.
Mr Stalker
You think I’d lie about something like my own body?
Lilith
I think you’re already sneaking around and hiding your face, so let’s just say your credibility isn’t exactly solid.
Mr Stalker
It’s me, Lilith.
Lilith
Right. And I’m the Queen of England.
Mr Stalker
You want proof?
My stomach tightened.
Lilith
Nice try. I’m not about to ask you for proof just so you can steal more photos.
My pulse thumped erratically as I watched the three little dots flicker on my screen. A beat passed. Then another attachment.
I was expecting… well, I didn’t know what I was expecting. Maybe a glimpse of his jaw, his cheekbone, something face-adjacent at the very least.
This was worse. It was still that same body, same tattoos, same borderline-offensive levels of muscle. But this time, his hand was in frame, holding that damn scarf .
It was a really good hand. Big. Veined. The kind of hand that looked like it had wrapped around throats before. His fingers were long and strong, coiled right around that fabric, like he could’ve just tightened his hold and—
I made a noise. A shameful noise.