Page 75 of Dark Billionaire Stalker
"You could have said no," I tell her.
"Could I?"
"Yes." The word surprises me even as I say it. "You could have. I wouldn't have forced you."
She studies my face, searching for something. Whatever she finds seems to satisfy her, because her shoulders relax slightly.
"I didn't want to say no," she admits. "That's the problem."
"Is it a problem?"
"Isn't it?" She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I should want to run from you. I should be calling the police, hiring a lawyer, doing everything I can to escape. Instead, I spent all afternoon looking at the clock, counting the hours until I could see you again. What does that make me?"
"Mine," I say simply. "It makes you mine."
I close the distance between us and kiss her.
She melts into me immediately, her arms wrapping around my neck, her body pressing against mine. The kiss is deep and hungry, full of all the hours I spent waiting for thismoment. I taste her desperation, her confusion, her desire—and underneath it all, the beginning of something that feels dangerously like surrender.
Not just physical surrender. Something deeper. Something more complete.
I pull back just enough to look at her face. Her eyes are dark, her lips swollen, her breathing ragged.
"Inside," I say. "Now."
We barely make it to the bedroom.
Later—much later—I lie in the darkness with her body curled against mine, listening to her breathe. She's asleep, or close to it, her face peaceful in a way I've never seen when she's awake.
I should sleep too. I should close my eyes and let unconsciousness take me, steal a few hours of rest before dawn brings new demands.
But I can't stop watching her.
She's beautiful like this. Soft and unguarded, the tension that usually tightens her features completely absent. Her lips are slightly parted. Her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. One hand rests on my chest, directly over my heart.
I cover her hand with mine, feeling the warmth of her skin, the delicate bones beneath.
This is new. This feeling—this possessiveness, this protectiveness, this overwhelming need to keep her close andmine. I've never felt it before. I didn't know I was capable of feeling it.
Whatever this is, it's more than obsession. More than the simple hunger of a predator for prey. It's something I don't havea name for, something that defies the categories I've always used to understand myself.
She's gotten inside me somehow, worked her way beneath my skin, wrapped herself around something vital. She's become necessary in a way I never intended and can't seem to undo.
I should be alarmed by this. I should be pulling back, reestablishing distance, protecting myself from the vulnerability she represents. Attachment is a weakness. Need is a liability. These are truths I've lived by for as long as I can remember.
But when I look at her sleeping face, when I feel her heartbeat against my palm, those truths feel like lies I told myself to survive a world that offered nothing worth keeping.
She's worth keeping.
The thought settles into my chest like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples through everything I thought I knew about myself. I'm not capable of this. I'm not built for this. I'm a predator, a monster, a man who takes what he wants and discards what he's taken.
But I don't want to discard her. I want to keep her. Possess her. Own her in every way a person can be owned.
Not just her body—I have that already. Something more. Something I can't quite articulate but feel with absolute certainty.
I want all of her. Every thought, every fear, every secret corner of her mind. I want to know her so completely that there's no part of her I haven't touched, haven't claimed, haven't made mine.
And I want her to want it too. Not because she has no choice, but because she chooses me. Chooses this. Chooses the monster over the light.
