“Some call it desire,” I reply, sinking into the chair opposite him. “Others call it lust. What would you call it, Valerio?”
“I don’t have words for it.”
I’ve given him something he can’t name, can’t categorize, and can’t fucking control. I’ll make sure he never forgets who gave it to him.
I check the clock. Fifty minutes. Exactly.
“Time’s up,” I say, fixing my dress to cover myself.
“We’ll have to create a vocabulary just for you, starting next session. Same time?” I add, with a smile that’s all teeth.
Valerio blinks, the haze clearing from his eyes. The monster is back. For a second, I think he’s going to grab me to finish what I started. But he just reaches into his pocket, dropping something into my palm.
It’s a ring. A heavy gold band with a diamond that I recognize instantly.
“This is Sarah’s ring,” I gasp. “How? Where is she?”
“She won’t be coming back for her next session,” Valerio hisses. He’s cold again. The lust is gone, replaced by that usual void. “She had a lesson to learn about marking things that don’t belong to her.”
I stare at the ring. There’s a trace of something dark on the gold. Dried blood.He killed her for me.
“You’re insane,” I breathe.
He shakes his head, but tries to hide a small smile of amusement that I spot anyway.
“Don’t wear that next Tuesday,” he orders as he walks toward the door. “Not if you want any more answers from me. I find it… difficult to concentrate.”
I clutch the dead woman’s ring… not really wanting to admit that all I feel is relief that I won’t have to work with her anymore. And a strange fuzziness that Valerio took care of it for me. Am I shocked that he knew? Not in the slightest. We already established he’s stalking me.
I’ve crossed all the lines. There is no more doctor, no more patient. There is only the hunter—and the thing that wants to be caught
Chapter Eight
Valerio
The wet patch cools against my thigh.Me.Valerio fucking Morelli. Reduced tothis. A panting, leaking animal.
My front door clicks open. The scent of sterile wealth and bleach fills my lungs. I don’t make it to the bedroom; I stop dead in the center of the living room and shove my trousers down. The expensive wool pools around my leather shoes. With my teeth, I rip my gloves off, throwing them carelessly on the tiled floor.
My cock is still fucking hard. A furious-looking spear jutting from my body, bobbing up and down. It glistens, smeared with my own release. What the FUCK is this? This isn’t me. This thing—this demanding, aching hardness—it’s a parasite. I haven’t been this hard in years. And when it happened, it was a nuisance, a biological itch to be scratched quickly with a few tugs of my hand. Nothing more.
She’s fucking changing my brain chemistry. She’s making the psychopath lose whatever is left of his fucking mind. My little prey flaunted her cunt and that small, dark hole just behind itfor me. She dangled it in front of me like bait, and I… I came. Right there in her chair. Without even a flick of my wrist.
The killing urge is muted. For weeks, it hasn’t stirred. Not since I first walked into her office. The familiar darkness has been replaced.Replaced by her.Charlotte in my skull when I wake up. Charlotte when I look at the stock market tickers. Charlotte when I eat, sleep, and breathe.
I slap my cock. “Down,” I snarl.
It doesn’t work. It fucking likes it, twitching eagerly, another clear bead of fluid welling at the slit. I am twenty-nine, and I have never once buried myself in a woman’s heat. The desire was never there. Why bother with the mess of another person’s body when my own hand is so clean?
For the first time in my life, I want to claim that tight little pussy, to possess that small, forbidden asshole. She’s the only one in the world whose skin I don’t associate with disgust.
My hand shakes as I rip my phone from my pocket. I swipe past the notifications, finding the hidden folder labeled with a simple “Doc.”My prey.
I may have taken a couple of shots while I was stalking her… The first picture: her walking into her brownstone, a bag of groceries on her arm. Her hair is down, soft brown waves I want to wrap around my fist. My cock pulses against my palm. I jerk off, using my own spent as lube.
I swipe to the next one. Her on her balcony, coffee mug in hand, wearing a short silk robe. I’d been in the building opposite, the lens of my camera zoomed in, studying the curve of her throat, the hint of cleavage, her pale legs.
I swipe again. Her on the treadmill, ponytail bouncing with every step. I jack off faster. The images blur. Charlotte in her car. Charlotte at a café. Charlotte unlocking her front door. I fantasize that I’m with her on that balcony, ripping that robe to shreds. It’s me kicking in her front door, backing her against the wall, my cock finding that cunt she flaunted.
