OBSESSED

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BELLA WINTERS

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Copyright © 2019 by Bella Winters
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including
electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a piece of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons,
living or dead, is coincidental.
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Published: Bella Winters 2019
Bella@authorbellawinters.com

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 CONTENTS

Author’s Note
Blurb

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Excerpt
Author’s Note
Stay connected with Bella Winters
Also by Bella Winters

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 AUTHOR’S NOTE

Obsessed is a full-length standalone novel. At the end, I’ve included an

excerpt from my Amazon TOP 100 Firefighter Romance My Dad’s
Billionaire Enemy.

Obsessed concludes at around 95% on your device.

Happy Reading!

XO, Bella Winters

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 BLURB

My life is in danger, and my stepbrother is the only one who can save
me.

Okay, he used to be my stepbrother.

Our parents are no longer together.
But that doesn’t make my secret crush acceptable.
It’s still wrong to want him.
And it’s still wrong to carry his baby.
Damn, my mother is going to be furious.
But he’s the only one who can find my stalker.
Peter heads a police station.
He’s vowed to put the culprit behind bars.
I need his protection.
And more than anything, I need to be in his arms.
Even if I have to fight with all the odds against us.

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 CHAPTER ONE

Emily

I ’m having a bad day. And not one of those mildly bad days that I can
shrug off with an ice cream cone, either, but a really, really shitty day.
The kind that requires a long, scented bath and a nap. You know, things I
will never have time for.
I step out of the looming door of Turning East and wring water out of my
hair. Droplets splatter to the sidewalk. The other students bustling past me
are bone dry. It’s not fair. It seems I’m the only one who got caught in the
freak five-minute rainstorm. Even my best black flats are soaked through
and make squishing noises with every step I take.
I wouldn’t have been caught in the rain if I had been on time to class, but I
had to change my clothes at the last minute when I discovered that my
favorite blouse had a tear in the sleeve. Then I spilled coffee on myself and
needed to change again. And now, to make matters worse, I’ve missed the
deadline on my Advanced Anatomy lab report. I was so sure I had until
Tuesday! I was planning on writing it as soon as I got home tonight. Now I
don’t know what I’ll do. Mr. Hortenson is notorious for refusing late work,
and I literally cannot afford to fail his class.
The whole mess started when I lost my planner last week. I don’t normally
lose things, but when I looked in my bag to pull it out, the damn thing
wasn’t there. I’ve torn my apartment apart since then, but still nothing. I put
my entire life in that stupid planner.
I should’ve double-checked when I filled in the new one from memory, but
that’s me. An overconfident girl who misses deadlines because she’s a hot
mess.
I step off the sidewalk and into the green space beside it. The grass is still
damp, so there’s no one out picnicking right now, but usually dozens of
students would be sitting on the grass to eat their lunch in the company of
one of Boston’s better harbour views.
I lean back against a huge old birch tree and sigh.
This campus is beautiful. I’m embarrassed to admit it’s half the reason I
picked UMass when I was deciding on colleges four years ago. It looks the
way I’d always imagined a college should look. Staunch brick buildings,
tree lined pathways, smartly dressed students hurrying between their
classes. The sights and sounds of a bustling city, but secluded enough to
make you feel as though you’re in a whole other world.
Other colleges have students trundling to class in pajamas, but not here. It’s
a public school, but it’s competitive to get into. Only the top ten percent of
students make the cut.
The professors are all required to have industry experience in their fields
and multiple publications to their names. The classes are rigorous, and only
too happy to leave students behind to enhance their reputation as a tough
school.
The culture here is so thick with the desire to succeed that I can feel it in the
air.
The problem with everyone here being so put together is that I inevitably
feel like the biggest mess in contrast. It’s not like I’m a complete disaster. I
did get in, after all. And I’ve managed to stay on track with all my pre-med
classes, even if it has been a struggle at times.
Okay, it’s a struggle most of the time.
I swing my backpack off my shoulder and check to see if my papers are
ruined. The bright green vinyl fabric appears to have kept everything dry. I
breathe a sigh of relief.
“Emily!”
I look up at the sound of Heather’s voice, and give her a small wave as she
bounces over to me.
Heather is hands down the cheeriest person I’ve ever met. She’s always
smiling and wearing bright pastel colors. Today she’s wearing white slacks
with a bubblegum pink blouse. She also made the sensible choice to go into
business instead of medicine.
“Mr. Hortenson is the worst,” she says. “I just heard how he embarrassed
you in front of the entire class. I can’t believe a professor would do that.”
I really didn’t need to be reminded of Mr. Hortenson pointing me out as the
only one in the class who hadn’t completed my lab report. He kept
repeating over and over again that problems like this should not arise in a
four hundred level class. He seems to think that only freshmen can make
mistakes.
“I’ll be okay,” I say. “It’s only my ability to graduate on the line.”
Heather laughs like I’m making a joke, but I’m not. I’m worried. If I can’t
graduate in four years, then my scholarship will run out and I won’t be able
to graduate at all. That means no medical school. All my life plans will
collapse into chaos.
“Walk to Wheatley Hall together?” Heather asks.
“In a minute. I’ll catch up.”
I watch her walk away, then pull out my cell phone. What I’m about to do is
embarrassing, but it’s also my biggest comfort on days like this. I open the
longest chain of unanswered text messages in my messaging app. I don’t
mind that they’re unanswered. The number is probably dead anyway.
I’m having the worst day, I type. I feel like an idiot. I miss how you used to
tell me that I can conquer the world. Fuck, I just miss you.
I send the message and put my cell phone away. I haven’t seen Peter in ten
years. I know it’s ridiculous to miss someone this much after such a long
time, especially when I hadn’t known him for that long to begin with.
Ten years ago, Peter was my stepbrother and I loved him more than I had
ever loved anyone. I idolized him in a way that probably wasn’t totally
appropriate for a younger step-sibling. He was just so intense, so different
from any other boy I’d ever met. He knew exactly what he wanted in life
and went after it, full force.
When our parents got divorced, my mother and I moved to a new city and I
never saw Peter again. She wouldn’t allow me to keep in touch because she
wanted nothing to do with Peter’s father. I’ve always resented her for that.
Shouldn’t my feelings have been her priority?
I’ve only grown more bitter about it as I’ve gotten older and been able to
see more clearly how selfishly she acted.
And here I thought texting Peter was going to cheer me up. If he was here
right now, he’d tell me to put my chin up and keep on swinging for the
fences. I mean, I think he’d say that. Unless he’s become a totally different
person in the time since I’ve last seen him. I hate that I don’t know.
Sometimes I fantasize about driving back to Buffalo and looking for him,
but I don’t even know if he’d want to see me after all this time. Let’s be
honest, he’s probably long forgotten about me. I was just some stupid kid to
him.
I hurry off to catch up with Heather. A few more friends are walking with
her now. I recognize Tanya from Discrete Math and Mark from Organic
Chemistry.
Mark waves his arms around as he talks. “So, Trevor was always going on
and on about how much he liked Samantha, right? And she finally starts
dating him, only for him to dump her a week later.”
Tanya gasps. “No! What an asshole.”
I shake my head. Samantha is a total sweetheart, too. This is why I don’t
date. There’s no one worth relying on.
“Rumor has it he’s hooking up with a TA now,” Mark says.
“Ugh,” I say. “Creepy.”
“I bet he’s cheating on tests,” Tanya says.
“Tanya!” Heather says. “Don’t say stuff like that. It’s so mean. You’d feel
awful if you started a rumor.”
Tanya snorted. “I wouldn’t feel awful. Trevor is such a jerk.”
I check my watch. I still have fifteen minutes until my next class starts.
If I’d had more leeway scheduling classes, I never would have set myself
up for the long walk from University Hall to Wheatley. They’re clear across
campus from each other. The best way to make it on time is to take a
shortcut through the winding alleys on campus, and then cut across
Harborwalk. This last part can be quite a challenge on a bright, sunny day
when everyone is outside. Today, though, I’m thinking that won’t be a
problem, thanks to the downpour earlier.
The crowd falls away as we walk past a series of classes, the bookstore, the
dev center, until finally rushing out into the cool air. On days like this, I
hate this part of the commute. With the Harborwalk deserted, the trees take
on an eerie presence. It’s as if they’re hiding something, watching me.
I start talking to keep my mind off my nerves. “So, my mom called again
earlier today. She wants to know if I’ve failed any of my classes yet.”
Heather rolls her eyes. “Bitch.”
“Hey, she’s not so bad. Sometimes.” I do love my mom. I try to love my
mom. She just makes it a bit difficult when she gets in one of her moods.
I’m bad at standing up to her, I know that. If I’d been better at telling her
off, I would’ve found a way to keep in contact with Peter.
“Emily! I love you!”
I turn around at the sound of my name, but there’s no one behind us. Just an
empty stretch of grass peppered with ghostly trees.
A shiver runs through me. It has to be a friend playing a prank. Except…
wouldn’t a friend have laughed, or run over here to meet up with us? Maybe
I was just hearing things?
I grab Heather’s arm. “Did you hear someone shouting at me just now?”
Heather shrugs. “Sure. You have a boyfriend you’re hiding from us?”
“No.” I fight back panic. “There’s no one behind us.”
Mark looks over his shoulder and frowns.
“Emily has a secret lover-boy,” Tanya sing-songs.
“No, I don’t,” I say, my voice climbing up an octave. I grit my teeth. My
heart is pounding. “Did any of you see somebody?”
They look at me blankly, then shake their heads.
I wipe my sweaty palms against my slacks. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t
care. Just someone joking around. Maybe someone followed me from class
and thought it would be funny.
“Hey, Emily, are you okay?” Mark asks.
I take a deep breath, but it doesn’t calm me down.
“Why don’t we wait for you after class and walk you back to your car?”
Heather says. She smiles over at me. I really do have kind friends.
“I’m fine,” I say. “How pathetic am I, freaking out over a prank, right?”
“It was a mean joke,” Mark says.
I nod. A joke. It was just a joke. I’m overreacting.
So why can’t I shake this feeling of gathering dread in the pit of my
stomach?
My cell phone pings and I fish it out of my backpack and pull it out. We’re
almost to the sidewalk in front of Wheatley Hall now. Away from stupid,
dreadful deserted parks with ghost trees that I really shouldn’t get so jumpy
about.
I look at my cell phone and my heart plummets. I think you have the wrong
number, someone has texted me back.
Someone has Peter’s old phone number. The earth feels like it’s been
yanked out from under my feet. Stupid tears well up in my eyes. Stop it, I
tell myself. It’s not the end of the world. It’s just the end of my favorite
security blanket.
I shove the phone back in my backpack and swipe my knuckles across my
eyes. I won’t let myself be this pathetic over one miserable day.
By the time I see Wheatley Hall in front of me, I’ve almost managed to
recover. The memory of the stranger shouting at me plays back through my
head, and I look over my shoulder one more time, just to be sure.
A shadow moves between a set of trees. It could be someone running on the
path. It could be a trick of the light thrown out from the glare across the
cove right behind them. Whatever it may or may not be, it gives me the
creeps and I speedwalk into the building without looking back again.

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 CHAPTER TWO

Peter

I will not ask Roger if he’s checked the weapons report on the murder
case. I will not ask because I trust Roger. I will not ask because that
would be micromanaging and I hated being micromanaged when I was a
beat cop.
The problem is, I really, really want to ask.
I was good at my job back when I was working the beat, and I was even
better at my job when I made detective a few short years later. I was so
good at my job, in fact, that they transferred me to C-6 and promoted me to
Chief of Police. The youngest in decades, and the one they believed had it
in him to shape up a station with a dwindling record. I should be overjoyed.
My career is the stuff dreams are made of.
Instead, I’m sitting in my office banging my head on the desk as I sort
through yet another stack of paperwork, when what I really want to be
doing is the real work. Out on the streets.
I’m determined to be the best chief this district has ever seen, but this job
isn’t as straightforward as what I’m used to. I like having a case to solve.
When I have a case, all the steps I need to take feel so clear. But in this
office, nothing feels clear anymore.
It’s like the walls are closing me off from what’s really happening in the
world, and all I have are admin tasks. And sure, the numbers have been
steadily improving since I took over. At least I have that going for me. But
there’s hardly any thrill in statistics, now is there? It’s an empty
achievement for me.
My new assistant, Denise, walks in with more paperwork. I resist the urge
to glare. It isn’t her fault I’m required to sign an endless stream of papers.
“Cute family photo,” she says as she drops the papers on my desk. She’s
looking at the framed photo I have of my former family. “Aw, is that you?
You look so young! When was this taken?”
I sigh. “Ten years ago.” I know I shouldn’t have hung the photo. It only
raises questions that I’m not interested in answering, but sometimes when
I’m having a rough day at work, I like to look at it and remember a time
when things were better. And I’ve been having a lot of rough days lately.
My father isn’t a good man. I’ve known that ever since I was old enough to
comprehend the difference between right and wrong. So, no, he’s not the
best role model, but he’s made me the man I am today simply because I’ve
spent my life trying to be the exact opposite of him.
He was a deadbeat, so I’ve been hellbent on building my career.
He was a petty criminal, so I became a cop.
But the worst thing he ever did to me, the very worst, was giving me a
family only to smash it all to pieces.
He married Tara McAffe a handful of weeks after meeting her. He swore up
and down that they had the romance of the ages.
I loved having a step-mom, and better yet, a step-sister. While their
marriage lasted, Emily was everything to me. She was brilliant, and funny,
and I could tell her anything. I’d finally felt like I’d found a place in the
world to belong.
I don’t know when my father started cheating on Tara, but I do know it was
a year before she caught him. He swore up and down that it was only the
one time and he’d never do it again.
That was a lie.
Another year later, and she’d filed for divorce and thrown us out. I never
saw Emily again.
That moment was my final straw. I moved away from my dad and swore I’d
never talk to him again.
I have only spoken with him a few times over the years. Once, I needed to
ask him for medical records. And there was that one year he sent me a
birthday card. I still don’t know who gave him my address. It wasn’t me.
I always try to keep our conversations short. I’m not interested in making
up with him.
Still, I hang the picture. It reminds me of what being loved feels like, even
if it was only for a short time a decade ago, and the entire thing was built on
a foundation of lies. There were parts of it that weren’t. And those are the
parts I hold on to. Those are the parts that made it home.
Denise perches lightly on the edge of my desk.
Hell, she wants to stop and talk. I’m not a fan of talking. I like to stay
focused on what I’m doing. When my concentration is broken, I lose time
trying to get back in the zone. Not that I was doing much that required
focus before she came in.
“You doing anything tonight, Chief?” she asks. “Some of us are going to
grab drinks at Hosey’s. You should come.”
“I’m working late,” I say.
“Ugh, you always work late. You should think about taking a break every
once in a while, Boss. You know what happened to Jack when he never
stopped to play.”
“He got a promotion and bought a house is what happened.”
Denise rolls her eyes. “Sure, and who’s going to live in that big old house
with you? Gets awful lonely eating takeout every night and pulling doubles
on weekends.”
I do eat a lot of takeout. I can’t deny it. Denise has seen the containers in
my trash can. Maybe I should get reusable containers so I don’t leave any
evidence, but then I’d have to wash them. When would I ever find the time
for that?
“I’ll cry into my glowing reference letters,” I say.
“Suit yourself.” She leaves and the door falls shut behind her.
I’ll admit, she’s gotten to me a little bit. It would feel too awkward to go out
for drinks with my subordinates, though. I grab my cell phone and text
Derrick.
I’m off work in a couple hours. Do you want to hang out at the Robin?
Shoot a round of pool?
I’m sorry, who is this? Derrick texts me back. It looks like my friend Peter’s
number, but Peter would never leave work before midnight.
Haha, very funny. We on or not?
I go through some papers while I wait for him to reply. My phone dings.
Sure. Just checked my schedule and I’m free. Meet you later.

The Robin is a bar on Third Street. It’s a dingy hole in the wall reserved for
those who walk the fringes of society, but I like it. The atmosphere is
nostalgic, with the dim lights hanging low, old country on the juke, and the
smell of cured cherrywood hits you square in the face the moment you walk
in.
A couple pool tables are lined up in the front, all of them with their felt
worn through and blotted with stains from spilled drinks and too much fun.
In the center is the bar with a booth circling it. I used to come here on
weekends to blow off steam before I decided that my time was better spent
at work.
Maybe I was wrong. As soon as I walk in, I realize how much I’ve missed
this place. It’s nice how sometimes in life, no matter how much time has
passed, some things just stay the same. Consistent, dependable. I like that.
Derrick is at the bar, flirting with the bartender. I don’t recognize her, which
means she’s the only new thing in here since I was last here.
“Peter!” Derrick waves me over, then grins at the bartender. “This is my
best friend. I see him once a year when he emerges from the hibernation of
his work. I think he needs a girlfriend.”
The bartender smiles at me. Her long brown hair is piled in a bun on top of
her head.
I need to set Derrick straight before he gets any ideas. “My work is
important. I don’t have time for a girlfriend.”
Derrick stabs me in the chest with a finger. “You need to make time for one,
my friend. No one could work the amount of hours you do and stay sane.”
“And since when are women the path to sanity? No offense,” I say to the
bartender, but she just laughs and wipes down the bartop in front of us.
“Anyway, my psych eval says I’m fine.”
Derrick shakes his head then looks back at the bartender. “He’ll have a gin
and tonic and a shot of fun, please.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll have a beer. I’m driving.” I sit down on the stool beside
Derrick.
“Did you come all the way out here just to sulk about how you’re not at
work?” Derrick asks.
“No. I really do want that game of pool. Been a while since I made you cry
like a girl.”
“Yeah, you wish.” Derrick gives me a shove that makes me rock on my
stool.
The light-hearted moment turns serious quickly, though. The bartender
brings me my beer and I study the label for a moment. “Do you really think
I work too much?”
Derrick snorts. “Workaholics would think you work too much. So what’s
going on? I’m guessing whipping my ass at a game of pool isn’t the reason
you dragged me here.”
“I don’t know. This job has been getting to me lately. I’m bored. I miss
being away from a desk.”
“That’s an easy one,” he says. “Take a vacation. Go ziplining.”
I laugh. “Sure. Ziplining.” He’s missed the point. It’s not just the excitement
I like. It’s helping people. It’s knowing that I’m needed. That there’s an
immediate effect from my actions.
Growing up, I knew I could never rely on my dad for anything. It made me
independent. It also sucked. Now there’s nothing I love more than being the
person someone can rely on. It feels good to give others something I never
had.
Derrick slaps my shoulder. “Seriously, man. Let me set you up. I’ve got
some friends who would be perfect for you.”
I make a face at him. He’s really not listening to me. Some best friend.
“Why, exactly, do you think a woman will solve my problems? Shouldn’t I
solve my problems first and then find a girlfriend?”
“It’s not about a woman solving your problems.” Derrick rolls his eyes as if
he’s just said the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s about making you
feel like you want to solve your problems.” Derrick takes a sip of his gin.
I stare at him. “When did you become a relationship expert?”
“Since forever. I’ve had six girlfriends in the last year and you’ve had
zero.”
“Derrick, six girlfriends in a year is not a good thing.” I’m definitely not an
expert, but I am aware that relationships are supposed to last longer than
two months. “I’m pretty sure that makes you terrible at relationships.”
“Still better than you.”
He may have a point there. I rake my mind trying to remember if I’ve met
any of those six girlfriends. I would absolutely still consider Derrick to be
my closest friend, and not being aware of the women he’s dating seems
strange.
“Weren’t things going well with Jessica?” I ask.
Derrick stares at me. “Jessica was five years ago. How do you even
remember her?”
Fuck. I do work too much.
We take our drinks and conversation and move over to the pool tables. I
really need to make more time for hanging out with my friends. It’s
suddenly occurred to me that I’ve been pretty bad at maintaining even the
most basic friendships. It’s a wonder Derrick agreed to this off the cuff
meetup. Hell, it’s a miracle he hasn’t blocked me yet.
Derrick isn’t a very good pool player, so I quickly take the lead.
“If you were open to dating,” Derrick says, leaning on his pool cue, “what
kind of things would you be looking for in a woman? Blonde, brunette?”
I sigh. He’s really not letting this go. Loving is the first word that comes to
mind, but I’m not about to say something that sappy to Derrick. He’ll never
let me live it down. “Smart,” I say instead. “Funny. A bit of a homebody.”
I sink another stripe and cue up for my next shot.
Derrick laughs. “And here I thought you were going to say adventurous.
What about all that ziplining you’re going to do?”
The ball hits the cushion and comes twirling all the way back to me.
“Adventure? Nah. I’d rather be home if I’m not at work.” It’s true. Home is
an empty apartment right now, so I don’t have much reason to be there. But
if I had somebody? Yeah, I’d be home.
There are only a few stripes left on the table and almost all of Derrick’s
solids. He frowns, lines up a shot, and hits the eight ball straight into the
pocket. He curses under his breath and I laugh.
“Bet money on the next game?” I ask.
“No way in hell.”
I’m resetting the table when my cell phone beeps. I check it. A new
message from work: a mugging was just reported.
I could let someone else handle it. I could leave it until morning.
But someone could need help, and that’s all the information I need to make
my choice. I grab my keys from my pocket. “Gotta go. Let’s meet up again
next week.”
Derrick shakes his head and discards his cue on the abandoned table. “Sure.
Whatever. See you next year.”
It hasn’t been a year since I’ve hung out with Derrick. I’m sure it hasn’t.
The trouble is, I can’t remember the last time I went out instead of working.
I’ll make time next week. Right now, someone might need me.
I get in my car and drive to the station. I try not to think about the stuff
Derrick was saying about me needing a woman in my life, or the empty
apartment waiting for me when I get home. I won’t make it there until past
midnight at this point, anyway. I’ll only have enough time to sleep. Until
then, there’s more than enough to keep me occupied.

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 CHAPTER THREE

Emily

S omeone is watching me. I try to shove the thought out of my mind, but
it’s stuck there like gum on the bottom of my shoe.
I’m being silly. I’m alone in my apartment and I’m letting my imagination
run away from me. All this is the leftover uneasiness from this morning.
And there was nothing. Nothing happened. I just have to shake it off and
move on.
I settle deeper in my couch with my bowl of popcorn next to me and flip
through Netflix with my remote, looking for something to watch. Definitely
not a horror movie. Not tonight. A romcom seems safe, but I’m not in the
mood to contemplate my epic failure of a love life. I pick a superhero movie
I’ve seen before and start on my popcorn.
Normally I wouldn’t take this much time away from studying, but I had
scheduled tonight to work on a lab report I will no longer be allowed to turn
in. Watching a movie feels better than brooding on my personal
shortcomings as a pre-med student.
A noise outside makes me look over at the window. It sounds like the
scuffling of feet. My stomach twists. I set down the bowl of popcorn and
edge carefully toward the window. I pinch back the curtain, taking care not
to announce my presence there, but all I see are the neatly-trimmed abelia
shrubs around my apartment and the parking lot. No people.
I pull back from the curtains and they close again. It’s deathly quiet, but my
hands are still shaking.
No one’s there. I’m being paranoid.
My phone rings and I jump. I nervously laugh at myself as my cheery wind
chime ringtone keeps playing. This is what giving in to flights of fancy gets
me. I check my caller ID. It’s just my mom.
I sit back down on the couch and answer the call.
“Emily?” Mom sounds angry, but she usually sounds angry so no shocker
there.
“Yeah, I’m here. What’s up?”
“I was just checking your grades on your portal and saw you missed an
assignment!”
Hell. I should never have given my mother the password to my grade portal.
I switch the phone to my other ear and lay back on my couch. “Don’t worry
about it, Mom. I’ll turn it in late.” I’m lying, but that’s easier than arguing
with my mother.
“I’ll check it again after your next class to make sure,” she says. “You know
I’m paying a fortune for you to go to that school.”
“Yeah, Mom, I know.” My scholarships cover most of the tuition, but there
are still book fees and living expenses. My mom paying for it saves me
from having to get a job on top of dealing with school work.
It’s not that I’m not grateful. I am. I know how lucky I am to have my mom
helping me out. I just wish she wouldn’t remind me of it every single time
we talk. I’ll pay her back someday, once I’m a doctor and making good
money. I don’t want to be a freeloader forever.
“You’d better know,” she says, that familiar warning tone in her voice. And
then it’s replaced by a much lighter one, like a switch has been flipped.
“Oh, I heard from my friend Kevin yesterday. Did you know his son is an
engineer?”
Brilliant. Straight into the match-making sales pitch. “I’ve never met your
friend Kevin.” I try not to sound bored.
“I’ll invite him to the Christmas party. You can wear your red dress.”
I rub a hand across my face. My mother is exhausting, and I’ve already had
the longest day ever, so I don’t feel very guilty when I rap on my coffee
table to imitate someone knocking on the door.
“Gotta go, Mom!”
“Emily, wait! Don’t answer your door at this hour!”
I hang up and toss my phone on the couch. Finally, it’s just me, my
popcorn, and my movie. I turn the movie on and try to calm down enough
to relax.
Something snaps outside. A twig, maybe. But it could be something else. It
doesn’t have to be a snapping twig signaling something sinister. And if it is
a twig, that doesn’t have to mean it’s something bad. Could be a stray cat.
I pause the movie. This is ridiculous. I’m going to put my shoes on, walk
outside, and make sure no one is there.
I shove my feet into my sneakers and grab my keys. I also grab the can of
pepper spray from my purse, just in case the cat happens to be an axe
murderer. Are axe murderers immune to pepper spray? I shake my head at
my own stupidity.
When I step outside my building, the night is quiet and dark and drenched
in the sweet smell of abelias in bloom. There’s nothing creepy about it aside
from the growing cramp of unease in the pit of my stomach.
I look around to see the lights on in the apartments on either side of mine.
Single-story, like the rest of the apartment complex. It’s nice that I never
have to worry about deafening hoof noises from above me keeping me up at
night, but right now I’m wishing I was on the second floor.
My place is cheap and close to campus, I remind myself. And in a safe
enough neighborhood, too, which is an unheard of trifecta in Boston. A
unicorn, that’s what my apartment is. I know people—my closest friends
included—who would do anything for this kind of deal. There’s never been
a break-in or any other kind of petty crime for that matter. All the more
reason for me to quit freaking out about nothing.
I walk down the sidewalk that leads from my door to the parking lot.
There’s nothing and no one. I turn back and scan the sparse trees and
bushes. Without so much as a breeze, the branches are still and peaceful.
Not even a rustle in the leaves.
So where’d the sound of a snapping twig come from?
I shiver and bite the inside of my lip. A squirrel, I tell myself. Or maybe an
opossum. I’ve seen the odd raccoon near the dumpster every now and then.
One of them could easily be the culprit. I should know better than to jump
to stupid conclusions that will only creep me out further, but I can’t help it.
I step closer to the bushes just outside my living room window to double-
check. Right then, something moves in the corner of my eye and I whip
around, my eyes frantically trying to land on something solid I can blame.
But nothing’s out here.
There’s the sound of feet on pavement from around the corner, then a car
starts up. Probably just a neighbor on a late-night store run. It’s unusual, but
not impossible. And far better than the alternative.
I rub my arms to try and get rid of the goosebumps that have shot up all
over. My nerves shattered, I walk back inside at a quick clip and slam the
lock up as soon as I’m in. I press my forehead against the cool door and
take a deep, steadying breath.
I’m fine. I’m imagining things. Nothing is going on. No killer cats and no
killer stalkers.
I consider calling Heather and asking her to come over, then reject the idea.
She’s probably out with her boyfriend, and I’d just be ruining her night over
my silly paranoia. What would I even tell her? I heard a sound and now I’m
scared, please hold me? I’d rather not.
I settle back on my couch determined to make it through the movie, and my
determination goes a long way because before long, the credits are rolling
and my hand hits the bottom of my popcorn bowl. I’m starting to feel better
as I clean up. I don’t know why I was so worried before.
Ready to call it a night, I pad sleepily down the hall to my bedroom and
freeze up the second I walk in. The exhaustion I felt a second ago is
replaced by something else as my muscles tense up. The window beside my
bed is covered in markings. It looks like it’s been done with the grease pen I
use to leave myself reminders on the bathroom mirror. With nothing but my
twenty watt bedside lamp illuminating the room, I can’t make out what they
say.
Taking a breath, I convince myself it’s okay to move, and slowly step closer
to the window until the writing becomes clear. Hearts have been drawn all
over the glass. My name is etched in one of them. Around the hearts are
hurried, scraggly messages. One says, Emily, I love you. Another, I know
we’ll be together someday. And a final one: I’ll make you mine, no matter
what it takes.
I cover my mouth with both hands as a gut-wrenching scream rips from my
throat and I stagger backward on legs of jelly. I can’t take my eyes off the
words, but they’re swimming in and out of focus now, and my knees hit the
floor.
The man from before. The one who shouted he loved me. The sense of not
being alone. The snap outside my window. The person who drove away!
I bury my hands in my hair, and twist them until it hurts. I was being
watched all along. He followed me to my apartment.
He knows where I live.
I stumble to my feet. I need to get out of here. There’s a rush of blood
pounding in my ears and I can’t breathe! Enough of my senses remain to
grab my cell phone and keys as I lunge through the door and out of my
apartment. My hands are shaking so badly it takes me several attempts to
lock up behind me. I bolt to my car and slam the lock down as soon as I’m
in.
My mind is reeling. What now? Where do I go? What do I do?
I pull my cell phone out of my pocket. Heather will know.
I rock back and forth in my seat as I wait for her to answer. She picks up on
the third ring.
“Em?” She sounds tired and confused.
“Heather.” I choke on her name, my voice wrought with tears.
“What’s wrong? What do you need me to do?”
I dry my eyes and bite back a smile. I can always count on Heather.
“Someone was here. They’ve been following me.” I knead my forehead.
“They know where I live, Heather. They wrote something on my window.”
“Oh God,” Heather says. “Where are you?”
“In my car.” I’m beginning to feel vulnerable just sitting here in the dark
parking lot. I should’ve stayed inside. But the thought of going back in
there makes my skin crawl.
“You need to go to the police,” Heather says. “File a report while there’s
still evidence so they can catch this creeper.”
She sounds so authoritative and in control that I immediately jump into
action. I put my keys in the ignition and the engine swings to life. A heavy
sigh of relief shudders through me. For a second there I honestly believed it
wouldn’t start.
“Okay, I’m going,” I say, as I pull out of the parking lot. “I’ve never even
been to a police station before.”
Heather laughs at this. “Neither have I. But time is always of the essence in
cop movies, right?”
“Sounds right to me. I’ll call you in a few, okay? Thanks, Heather.”
“Stay safe, Em.”
I hang up, and use my phone’s GPS to navigate to the police station. The
only time I’ve ever been downtown was when I had to set up the utilities for
my apartment.
The police station is a brick building with a large blue sign and several
streetlights glowing around it. I hope they’re still open. I’m not sure if
police stations close. It doesn’t seem like they should. Crime doesn’t sleep,
right?
I park my car, lock it, and head in.
The glass doors lead me into a vestibule with an intercom. I jam the button
and wait.
No one answers.
Just when I’m about to give up, I hear static over the speaker. “Hello?”
someone says.
I jam the button to reply. “Um, hi. I’m here to report a stalker at my
apartment.” My voice goes up way too high at the end, like I’m asking a
question, and now I feel stupid as well as terrified.
There’s a pause on the other end. Then, “Is the stalker at your apartment
right now, ma’am?”
“No. Well, I’m not sure. I think he left. I mean, I heard someone leave, I’m
just not certain it was him.”
“Then you should’ve called the non-emergency line.” I swear I can hear the
eye-roll in that statement.
My cheeks grow warm. I should’ve known this was the wrong way to go
about this. “I, uh, didn’t think of that. I thought you’d want to gather
evidence or whatever.”
“We do that once a case is opened. You’ll have to fill out a report and give a
statement. Hold on, I’ll let you in.”
A deafening buzz ricochets through my brain and off the walls around me
before the door beside the intercom automatically unlocks. I push it open
and step into the station.
It’s a large, spacious room with beige cinder block walls. Benches are lined
up along the walls and desks are scattered around the center. More glass
doors in the back appear to lead to an office.
The voice I’d been speaking to on the intercom turns out to be a human
woman, not a robot, who waves me over to her desk. I must’ve caught the
graveyard shift in full tilt, because it looks like there’s only one other
person in the station right now.
The woman hands me a form to fill out before I can even take my seat. I
don’t know what I expected. A hug? For the cavalry to jump into action and
get the bad guy? I guess respect for procedure is a good enough reaction
under the circumstances, and I fill out the first few boxes. My mind is
racing through the events that brought me here.
What if they don’t take me seriously?
I hear that ear-splitting buzz again and the echoing click of the door. I look
over my shoulder, nerves still on edge but happy to take a break from
procedure. Curious to see what fresh crime needs reporting.
The pen drops from my numb fingers.
Because it’s Peter. Peter is in the police station. My Peter. Standing right in
front of me.
The woman is saying something to me, but I can’t hear it. She’s nothing
more than background noise to me.
His eyes meet mine, and he freezes in place.
All this time I’ve been worried that he’s forgotten me, or that he won’t
recognize me now that I’m ten years older. All that doubt is swept aside by
the way he’s looking at me, like I’m a diamond necklace he misplaced and
finally found.
Relief, humor, and amazement are all mixed in his expression.
“Emily?” The sound of his voice takes me back ten years, to the purest
happiness I’ve ever known.
Peter is here. And for whatever reason, I’m filled with a certainty that
everything is going to be okay.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER FOUR

Peter

E mily is sitting in my station. Emily. She has a form in front of her that
she must have gotten from Clarice. My brain doesn’t know how to
process it.
The Emily I remember was a kid who used to follow me around, badgering
me with questions. This Emily is not a kid. Not at all.
Her hair looks soft and falls in loose waves around her shoulders. Her face
is the same, but different. There are smooth cheekbones where baby fat
used to be. Her breasts are…Hell, should I be looking at her breasts?
I snap my gaze back to her face.
“Peter,” she says. “Oh my God, Peter, I’ve missed you so much!”
I take a step forward, and then another. Before I’ve thought through what
I’m doing, I sweep her into my arms and hold her against me. Her hair
smells like lilacs. She feels like coming home.
It takes me a second, but I finally realize that she probably didn’t come here
for me. I let her go reluctantly and step back. “What are you doing here?”
From how close I am to her now, I can see that her eyes are puffy and her
nose is red. I swallow the uneasiness that rises up at the thought of her
crying.
“Filing a report,” she says. “A stalker showed up at my apartment.”
My heart drops. Of all the things I could’ve walked into tonight, this didn’t
figure into my wildest dreams.
“Come with me.” I lead her back to my office. Her small, slender hand is
trembling in mine.
I close the door behind us and motion for her to take a chair. Damnit, I
couldn’t have tidied up before I left? I push the piles of paperwork aside
and lean against the edge of my desk. “Tell me what happened.”
Emily sits down in the chair that’s been occupied by so many other people
who’ve come to see me. Her shoulders slump. “I don’t know who it is.
Someone called my name on campus today. Yelled that they loved me. I
thought it was a prank.”
My jaw tightens. It’s clear that time and distance haven’t affected how
protective I am of her. I can’t stand the thought of someone harassing her.
She must be terrified. Although all my instincts are telling me to comfort
her, I have to be professional.
“Is there anyone you suspect?”
Emily shakes her head. A stray strand of hair falls into her face. I fight the
urge to reach out and sweep it back for her. “No. The worst part is at my
apartment, he—I—” She takes a deep breath.
I pull up a chair beside her and squeeze her hand. “It’s okay. You’re safe
here.”
She nods. “At first I thought I was going crazy. I kept feeling like I was
being watched. Then I saw.” She closes her eyes. “He wrote on my
window.”
I grit my teeth. This bastard has her terrified. He better hope I’m not the one
who finds him first. “I’m going to take care of this,” I say. “I’ll handle it
myself. Don’t worry, Emily. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She gives me a wavering smile. “You have no idea how good that is to hear.
I was so worried that no one would listen to me. It all seems so stupid now.”
“It’s not stupid, it’s horrifying. He violated your sense of safety. He’s a
bastard, and I’m not going to let him get away with it.”
“Peter.” She reaches out and strokes my cheek. Electricity burns through me
at the feel of her. She snatches her hand back and jumps to her feet. “Is this
your office?”
“Uh, yes. Sorry about the mess.”
“You’re busy. I understand.” She spins around, taking it in. “Fancy. Why do
you get the big office instead of a desk out there?”
“Because I’m the Chief of Police.”
Her eyes widen. “Wow, Peter, that’s amazing. I always knew you were
incredible. I’m glad other people have realized it, too.”
God, she’s so…Emily. I want to wrap her in my arms again, but I hold
myself back. “So, how about you? What have you been up to?” I ask
instead. “Conquered the world yet?”
She blushes. It turns her cheeks a deep shade of pink. “Not quite. I’m in my
final year of pre-med at UMass, then on to medical school.”
“So, being a genius, putting other people to shame, the usual.”
She twirls a strand of hair between her fingers. “I don’t know, I don’t feel
like a genius. Honestly, I feel like an idiot half the time.”
“Emily, you’re brilliant. At least you were when I was around a decade ago,
and by the sound of things, you still are.”
Her eyes meet mine and I feel that fire that sprang to life at her touch
between us again. She hastily looks away and studies the walls. “Oh my
God, is that us?” She grabs the picture of our family off its hook.
“Yeah, I thought I’d decorate a bit. Make the place my own.” I try to keep
my voice light.
Emily is studying the picture intently. “I didn’t even know this picture
existed. Oh, I remember that blue shirt you used to wear. We look so young.
And our parents….” She lapses into silence.
“How’s your mom?” I ask. I worry I’ve asked the wrong question when she
frowns and hangs the picture back on the wall.
“She’s the same. Grouchy. Controlling. She’s paying my way through
school, so I guess I can’t complain. Hey, you know I wanted to contact you,
right? After you left? I really wanted to call, but Mom wouldn’t give me
your number. She wouldn’t even tell me where you’d gone.”
She blinks rapidly and I see a shimmering in her eyes. I really don’t want
her to cry again. And I definitely don’t want to be the reason for it.
“I know. You were still a kid. I wouldn’t blame you even if you hadn’t
wanted to talk to me. My dad was such an asshole.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not your dad, Peter. You were always wonderful to me.
And my mom.” She rubs the back of her neck and looks away.
She hasn’t known me for the past ten years. She can’t possibly judge
whether I’ve managed to succeed at being better than my dad or not. Hell,
she has no idea that just a couple hours ago I blew off spending time with
my best friend in order to work.
I’m glad I decided to come in, though, because I wouldn’t have seen her
otherwise.
“When will you swing by to check out the writing?” Emily asks. “I’m
worried that if it rains, all the evidence will be destroyed.”
“It’s not supposed to rain for a couple of days, but I’ll check it out first
thing in the morning. I’d do it tonight, but I’m worried I’d miss something
in the dark.”
She nods.
This is all we have. A professional relationship. She has no reason to want
to be my family, or even my friend. I’m a shit friend, anyway.
“I should head back,” she says.
I hold up a hand. “To your apartment?” I don’t say, the scene of the crime.
She blinks. “Where else would I go? It’s where I live.”
I shake my head. “It isn’t safe. Whoever this sicko is, he knows you live
there.” I could pay for her to stay in a hotel room or insist that she call a
friend, but the words that actually come out of my mouth are: “Why don’t
you crash at my place?”
Her mouth falls open, then she snaps it shut. “Your place?”
I shouldn’t have said it. It was a bad idea. “You don’t have to. We can—”
“No! I mean, yes. I want to stay at your place.” Her face turns scarlet.
“Great. Well. I just have to finish up a few things and then I can drive you
over.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She smiles at me and the entire room lights up.
Why did I invite her over? Am I out of my mind? Worse yet, I’m having
thoughts about Emily that I really shouldn’t be having. Thoughts about
what her breasts would feel like against me without any clothes….
But whatever my thoughts or feelings, I can’t let her go back to her
apartment. She’s Emily. I need her to be safe.
I rush through the rest of the work I needed to get done. I don’t want Emily
to have to sit and wait for too long. She spends her time alternating between
being on her phone and watching me work. At one point, she mentions
texting a friend to let them know she’s safe. I’m glad she has friends who
care about her like that.
For the first time in I can’t remember how long, I’m eager to get home.
Miracle of miracles, I even delegate a few tasks instead of obsessively
doing them myself.
With everything to the point that it’ll hold until morning, I pack up.
“What’s your place like?” Emily asks as we leave.
I shrug. “Bare. I spend most of my time at work.”
She gives me a worried frown. “You’re not overworking yourself, are you?
You were always so focused. Never knew when to let off the gas.”
“I’m okay,” I reply vaguely. I can’t dump all my troubles on her now, after
not seeing her for so long.
My apartment is only a short drive away. I specifically chose it so I’d have
as short a drive as possible. It’s especially great when I leave the station
way after midnight so I don’t have to go far before I can crash into my four
hours of sleep.
We roll into the parking lot of my apartment building together. It’s a high-
end building with a sleek modern design to it. I spend a fortune on rent, but
it’s worth it on the rare occasion I’m not working. It has a great gym right in
the building, and the bare brick walls in my apartment make my place look
stylishly minimalistic rather than hopelessly barren.
Emily’s eyebrows climb as she takes it in. “Wow. Being chief of police
must pay well.”
“It has its perks.” I grin at her and she smiles back. That smile socks me
right in the gut. She’s gorgeous. I lean closer to her as if she has her own
field of gravity drawing me in. I’m helpless against it.
Her hand curls around the door handle and I snap back to my senses. What
am I doing? This is Emily. I can’t be thinking about her like this. I definitely
can’t be thinking about wrapping that soft brown hair of hers around my
hands and pulling her closer to me.
Would she moan if I slid my tongue into her mouth?
Goddamnit, Peter, get a grip.
I yank open the car door and let the cold night air freeze some sensibility
into me.
“Emily,” I mutter under my breath to remind myself that she’s not someone
to be having sexy thoughts about. “She’s Emily.”
“You forgetting my name?” Emily is closer than I thought. Those big eyes
of hers look up at me and I let out a breath.
“Never. Let’s get inside.”
We walk to the door in companionable silence. I notice Emily scanning the
treeline, but she doesn’t say anything. I hold out my hand to her. She wraps
both her hands around mine and squeezes gently. “There’s a lock on the
door to the building and another one on my apartment,” I say, as if it’s an
idle observation.
Her cheeks flush. “I know I’m safe here. After what happened, I’m just…
nervous.”
“You had a shock. It’s normal.”
She nods. Her hair falls in front of her face and I can’t see her expression.
I use my key to unlock the door and let her in.
She lets out a whistle when she sees the spacious hallway with marble
floors. “I always knew you had high standards, but damn.” She admires the
molding along the ceiling and I have the bizarre thought that I wish she’d
look at me like that. Never before in my life have I wished to be
wainscotting.
I press the button for the elevator and the doors slide open silently. We walk
into the elevator and as soon as the doors shut silently behind us, I realize
I’ve made a mistake. We should have taken the stairs.
If we’d taken the stairs I wouldn’t have been in a small space with Emily
standing right beside me. The tension between us is practically crackling.
Her eyes meet mine, and there’s no denying it. I want to have sex with
Emily. And I’m pretty sure she wants it, too.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER FIVE

Emily

T he elevator doors open and I gasp in oxygen. I feel like I haven’t taken
a breath since I got on. I keep my eyes on the floor as Peter leads me
to his apartment.
Because I’m at Peter’s apartment.
Because I’ve found Peter.
The giddiness in my chest threatens to overwhelm me. He’s everything I’ve
always believed a grown up Peter would be and more. Successful, driven,
smart.
And so handsome that I’m slowly losing my mind.
Oh, God. That elevator ride. He was standing so close to me I could smell
the minty scent of his shampoo. Heat was radiating off him in waves.
I’d wanted to reach out and touch him, well, everywhere.
I didn’t, though. And I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. My
nether regions are definitely convinced I should regret it.
Peter ushers me into his apartment and it’s just as impressive as the rest of
the building. It looks worthy of a magazine cover.
One wall of his living room is just a massive window overlooking the city. I
stare out in wonderment at the blanket of lights beneath us.
I turn around and take in the rest of the apartment. He doesn’t have any
decorations on the walls, but the walls themselves are decorative with their
exposed brick. The only furniture in his living room is an armchair and a
bookshelf stuffed full of books.
I stroll through the rest of the open-concept area looking for some place to
put my purse down, but don’t see a kitchen table. “Where do you eat?”
“Um, I don’t normally eat here.” He looks guilty, like he’s confessing a
state secret. “I eat all my meals at the office. When I do bring something
home, I just stand at the counter.”
“You don’t cook?” I open his kitchen cabinets and find them empty.
“No.” He shrugs. “No time.”
“I get that. My studies take up so much time, sometimes I wonder how I
manage to do anything else. I miss having the time to cook. I really love it.”
“Yeah, I remember. You used to make us those bagel pizzas.”
I laugh. “I was a kid! I swear I’ve moved onto more sophisticated dishes.”
He takes a step closer to me and his eyes spark. “I liked those pizzas.”
“Maybe if you get some supplies, I’ll make them for you.” I think I’m
flirting, but I’ve never flirted about badly cooked food before.
He takes another step closer to me and I run an appreciative look over the
way his shirt is hugging his ripped body. I want to know what he looks like
under that shirt.
I take a step toward him and skim my fingers over his arm. His eyes darken
with desire.
He wants me. I’m sure of it. Hell, I can see the bulge his hard cock is
making in his pants, and it’s quite a bulge.
“Peter.” I love saying his name. “Where’s your bedroom?”
The look he’s giving me is making my entire body sizzle.
“This isn’t a good idea,” he says.
“Oh, no. It’s a very, very bad idea.” I trace my finger up his shoulder.
Damn, he has broad shoulders. He could lift me over his head without
breaking a sweat.
I lick my bottom lip and lean against him. My nipples harden to peaks as I
feel how firm his chest is.
“Emily.” His voice sounds strangled. He threads his fingers through mine
and I’m not sure if he’s about to pull me closer or push me away. I hold my
breath as I wait to find out.
Right when I’m sure he’s going to reject me, he bends down and captures
my mouth with his. I sigh and melt into him. His lips are warm against
mine. I part my mouth for him and he slides his tongue in.
Fuck, he tastes like beer and cinnamon. I fist my hand in his shirt and kiss
him harder.
He presses closer to me and I pick my legs up and wrap them around his
waist. He moves his hands to my ass to hold me up. I admire the way his
muscles flex around me. He’s so strong that I feel impossibly precious as he
holds me.
“We should move this to the bedroom,” he says against my ear.
I gasp my agreement as I grind my body against him.
I kiss my way down his neck as he walks us through an open door and into
his bedroom. I can’t be bothered to look at the architecture. The only thing
that matters is the bed he pushes me down on. It’s soft. He probably has a
better mattress than mine.
He climbs on top of me and growls. I can feel the rumble of it all over my
body.
“I need you,” I say, because I’m not sure what else I can say right now.
He pulls off his shirt, and holy fuck, is he hot. His body puts six-pack abs to
shame.
I fumble at the buttons of his jeans. He chuckles as he helps me undo them
and push his jeans off.
Oh, God. I’ve never noticed a man’s thighs before, but now that I’ve seen
Peter’s muscled ones, I think I’ll stare and drool over them for the rest of
my life.
I want to feel his skin against mine. I grab the hem of my shirt and pull it up
over my head. Peter runs a finger against the edge of my bra. I squirm
beneath him, wanting more of his touch.
He leans down and catches the bottom of my bra in his teeth. His hands
reach behind me and he snaps off the clasp.
I gasp as I feel the brief press of his lips against my breasts. He drags
himself across me as he pulls my bra up. My breasts fall free, then he tears
the bra over my head and tosses it off.
Lust is coiled tightly in my core. I run my fingernails over his chest.
I lose my jeans, and then somehow we’re both naked and I’m not entirely
sure how it happened but I don’t care. His cock is pressing against my
thighs. I moan into his mouth.
“Emily.” He says my name like he’s worshipping me. His hands run over
my ribs and cup my breasts.
“Yes,” I gasp. “Yes.”
He catches my nipple between his teeth. When his tongue flicks against me,
my entire body shivers.
“Oh, God, Peter, don’t stop.”
His fingers tweak my other nipple as his tongue continues its torture on my
hard one. Before today, I had always assumed my nipples weren’t sensitive.
I’d tried playing with them myself while masturbating to no real effect.
Peter has me rethinking everything I thought I knew about my body.
He begins trailing kisses down my breasts, then across my stomach and
farther down still. When his tongue finds my clit, my body arches off the
bed. “I can’t, oh, Peter!”
He’s circling my clit slowly with his tongue and I’m so wet I can feel my
own wetness on my thighs.
“I need you inside me. Please, Peter, please!”
He looks up at me from between my thighs and grins. “Are you sure?”
I pick up a pillow and nearly throw it at him. “Yes, I’m sure!”
He grabs a condom and lube from his nightstand drawer. I spread my legs
eagerly as I watch him put the condom on. He pours some lube into his
hand and slowly coats his cock in it. Then he kneels between my legs. From
where I’m laying on my back, I have a fantastic view of his chest. My legs
wrap around him.
I’m panting with eagerness by the time he lines his cock up with my
entrance. I forgot to tell him I’m a virgin. Does that matter? I’m not
interested in pausing this to inform him.
I watch every muscle of his face twitch as he pushes into me. It’s like
nothing I’ve ever felt before. I can feel my body stretching to accommodate
him. Between my wetness and the lube, he slides right into me. His
expression is one of pure ecstasy.
I gasp and close my eyes as I focus on the sensation of Peter inside me. I
can feel every throb of his cock. It’s the most intimate thing I’ve ever
experienced. He feels…right. Like he’s supposed to be there.
He begins to thrust. The head of his cock rubs against a place inside of me
that makes my body cry out in pleasure.
His thrusts are slow and steady, and he rubs my clit with his fingers.
I moan with pleasure. My orgasm is building up with an intensifying heat.
The orgasms I’ve given myself were always quick and dirty. This orgasm
takes over my whole body and demands I surrender all control.
I give into it, a scream ripping its way past my lips as it hits. Electricity
shoots through me and my body quakes. Peter’s thrusts grow faster and less
even, then he’s moaning my name and I feel the throbbing of his cock as he
spends himself into the condom inside me.
He collapses on top of me, his body weight pressing me down. I run my
hands over his back and feel his sweat. His cock is still inside of me. I never
want him to leave.
“Peter.”
He smiles and kisses my cheek, then rolls off of me. I feel bereft from the
loss.
“Damn.” His breath is hot against my ear. “That’s the best sex I’ve ever
had.”
I flush. I don’t want to think about Peter having sex with anyone else. “It’s
the only sex I’ve ever had, so I’ll have to trust your judgement,” I joke.
He pushes himself up and stares at me. “What?”
I brush a sweaty strand of hair back from my face. “I trust you. I mean, that
felt like some pretty fantastic sex.”
He makes an impatient sound. “No, the other part.”
“Oh. The part where I’ve never had sex before?” I knew I should’ve
mentioned that earlier.
“What the fuck, Emily. You were a virgin and you didn’t tell me?”
“Would it have made a difference?”
His eyes go distant. “I don’t know, I could’ve…lit candles?”
I laugh so hard my sides ache and I roll away from him. He growls and
grabs my shoulders, pulling me back to him.
“I meant to mention it,” I say. “I got distracted.”
He runs a thumb across my lower lip. “Keep looking at me like that and I’ll
distract you again.”
“Already?” I say, startled. “Don’t men need some time to recover?”
His lips quirk up. “Are you calling my bluff?”
I slide my fingers into his hair. How does every part of him feel so good?
“I’m sure I’ll be in need of distraction in, say, a couple of hours?”
“One hour,” he says, sounding wounded.
“I might be the one who needs a couple of hours, you know.” I look around
to find my underwear.
Peter wraps me up in his strong arms and pulls me back against his chest.
“Stay.”
“Just for a minute. I need to clean up.”
He nuzzles his face against my hair. I can feel the rise and fall of his chest
as he breathes.
I feel so safe with him.
I want to stay for longer than the night. I want to know what it feels like to
walk into a room with Peter as my plus one. I want to plan my future
knowing that Peter will be in it. I envision what it would be like if I walked
down the stage at graduation and Peter was in the audience, cheering me on.
I want that. I want everything.
I roll away from him and stand up. I can’t ask him for everything. He’ll
think I’m a clingy crazy person. He only invited me over to help me hide
from my stalker.
A shiver runs through me, and it’s not a pleasurable one. My stalker is still
out there, waiting for me.
But he can’t have followed me here. He can’t know I’m at Peter’s. I have to
believe that. If I don’t, I’ll lose my mind.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER SIX

Peter

E mily is in my bed. I can’t wrap my head around it. She looks good
lying there with her hair all tangled, and now that I’ve cleaned up, all I
want to do is rejoin her.
“Are you going to sleep?” she asks drowsily.
“Yeah,” I say. “In a minute.”
I get my phone and set my alarm for my usual 4 a.m. wake up, then
reconsider and move it back to a couple of hours later. The station will
survive me coming in on time instead of early.
I get into bed next to Emily and inhale her scent. She smells like fresh
vanilla beans. I want to eat her up.
Fuck. I’ve just had sex with Emily.
The ping ponging in my brain is relentless as I vacillate between joy and
horror. She’s incredible. She used to be my step-sister. She’s everything I
could ever want in a woman. She’s so far off limits it’s not funny.
More than that, she’s scared and vulnerable. I should have told her no. Have
I taken advantage of her? It sure didn’t feel like taking advantage when she
was tearing my clothes off.
God, I want to fuck her again. I should never lay another finger on her for
both our goods.
I fall asleep, the turmoil still raging in my mind.

When I wake up, Emily is gone. Panic jolts through me until I hear the
shower going and the sound of Emily singing off-key.
I think about the shower hitting her naked body and want to fuck her again,
which is at odds with my plan not to touch her.
Wait, how did she get up earlier than me? I grab my phone and check the
time. It’s not even 6 a.m. yet. Emily is an early riser, just like me.
I pull on some sweatpants and head to the kitchen to start the coffee. My
coffee machine is the only appliance I have. Coffee is also one of the few
things I actually stock in my cupboards. I don’t want to waste time standing
in line at a coffee place before work; making it myself is much more
efficient.
Emily walks into the kitchen wearing nothing but a towel. She’s so hot I
could fry a pancake on her.
“Oohh, coffee.” She helps herself to one of my mugs.
I turn away from her to hide my erection. “There’s sugar in the jar beside
the machine.”
“I figured that, since it’s labeled ‘sugar.’ Didn’t take you for the type to play
weird pranks on hapless trespassers.”
I’m having trouble thinking with her standing there half naked. My blood is
rushing significantly south of my brain.
“I should…” I don’t know where I think I’m going. I’m abandoning my
coffee of all things.
“Wait.” She catches my arm. “About last night.”
I don’t want to talk about last night. I’m worried she’ll tell me that in the
light of day, she regrets it.
Her eyes drift over my body and settle on the erection still straining against
the front of my sweatpants. Her eyes glaze with lust.
Or maybe she doesn’t regret it at all.
I step in front of her, pinning her against the counter. My erection hits her
hip.
“Tell me you want a repeat,” I say. “Or tell me to fuck off and I’ll go.”
I hear her breathing turn ragged. “I want you.”
I grin. My cock doesn’t care that my brain is still screaming this is a bad
idea. I could still put last night down to exhaustion and an emotional
reunion, but having sex in the clear light of day can only be interpreted as a
purposeful act, entered into with my senses intact. Or as intact as they’ll
ever be around Emily.
I trail my lips over her neck, tasting her clean, slightly damp skin. She
smells like lemon soap. I know I’ll never be able to smell a lemon again
without thinking of Emily.
My mouth reaches her jawline. I trace her lips with my finger. I capture her
mouth with mine and the towel she’s wearing falls away with a single
movement of my hand.
Emily gasps as I grab her thighs and lift her onto the counter top in front of
me. The counter is too tall for fucking at this angle, but it’s the perfect
position for my fingers to slide deep into her wetness. Her body pulses
around me and she moans. It’s such a sweet sound that I immediately want
to hear it again.
I nudge her thighs open, then get my head between her legs and trail my
tongue over her clit. Emily fists her hands in my hair and bucks her hips
towards me.
I urge her on as her moans turn to whimpers. Finally, her entire body begins
to shake and she screams my name.
I grin as I pull my fingers out of her.
Emily catches her breath. “Well. That’s one way to begin a morning.”
“Better than coffee.” I kiss her mouth and move to the sink to clean up.
“Wait.” She sounds disconcerted. “What about you?”
“Trust me, Emily, I’m very happy.”
She blushes scarlet. “You don’t need me to…repay the favor?”
I kiss her cheek and pour myself a cup of coffee. “All I need you to do is
enjoy yourself.”
“Oh.” She hops off the counter and covers herself back up with the towel,
unfortunately. “You still drink it black?”
“Yup.” I lean against the doorframe as I sip my coffee and watch her get her
own cup ready.
I wish I had a table. What a weird thought. It would sure be nice to enjoy a
leisurely breakfast with Emily, though. We could cook waffles together,
make eyes at each other while we eat, return to the bedroom for Round
Three….
No. I don’t have time for any of that. I have no idea what’s happening to
me.
“I have classes today,” Emily says.
I frown. I don’t like the thought of her going on her own to campus, but
she’s a grown woman. I can’t stop her.
“I could see about getting you a police escort.”
She makes a face. “No, thanks. I don’t want to be the weird girl who
overreacted and ruined everyone’s day by having a cop follow her around.”
“At least make sure you’re not walking anywhere alone. I’ll feel a lot better
knowing you’re safe.”
She nods. “I can do that.”
I try to think of how to broach the subject of her staying over again tonight.
The problem is I don’t know anymore if I want her to stay because it’s a
reasonable safety measure, or because I selfishly want to keep her around.
Fuck, I’m in over my head.
“There should already be someone checking out your place now,” I say.
“They’ll be reporting in with me soon. Maybe they’ll find something to
help figure out who your stalker is. Do you have any ideas?”
Emily shakes her head. “Just the hope that it isn’t anyone I know. But they
must have met me somehow, right? It’s such a creepy thought. I might’ve
smiled and shaken his hand without any clue that he was capable of this.”
I cringe. “Try not to upset yourself over it until we know more. No point
worrying.” Except now I’m worrying. I hate the thought that this creep
knows Emily. Didn’t she say he shouted at her on campus yesterday? Fuck,
I won’t be able to focus all day thinking of her there, worrying she’s
vulnerable.
“Are you sure you need to go to class today?” I ask. “Maybe you could take
a sick day.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “That’s not how classes work. Jobs have
sick days. Pre-med classes just have falling behind and getting bad grades.
I’ve already missed one lab report, I can’t afford to miss anything else. Too
big a slip and I’ll be done for.”
I take my coffee cup to the sink and rinse it out. “And you call me intense.
You’re going to blow them away in med school.”
She looks pleased, then doubt clouds her expression. “I don’t know.
Sometimes I wonder how much I’m really capable of. I want it so bad, but
my mom thinks I should just give up and stop wasting her money.”
“Your mom is an idiot. You’re learning to save lives. That’s the least
wasteful use of money I’ve ever heard of.”
“Thanks.” She wraps an arm around me and rests her head against my
shoulder. “I really did miss you.”
I have no idea how to respond to that, so I take her coffee cup as soon as
she’s done and clean that, too.
With the kitchen cleaned up, the only thing left to do is dress and leave, but
I’m not ready to let go of Emily yet.
My cell phone rings. I curse at the interruption and let her go.
Emily winks at me then heads to the bedroom. “I’m going to get dressed.”
“Sure, I’ll just take this out here.” I step into the living room and click
answer.
“Hey, Peter. It’s Ross. We’re at the place you asked us to check out.”
That means Emily’s apartment. “What did you find?” I tense as I wait for
the news.
Ross pauses. “It’s, umm, a little worse than you thought.”
“What does worse mean?” I can barely restrain myself from snapping at
him.
“The writing on the window? The woman thought her stalker had written it
on the outside of her window, but she was wrong. It’s written on the inside.
He was in her apartment.”
My breath leaves in a hiss.
“Sounds like the janitor gave some guy a key,” Ross continues on. “The guy
said it was his apartment.”
“So we have a lead.”
“Eh. Sort of. We know our suspect is definitely a male. Beyond that, the
description the janitor gave was vague. He didn’t really pay attention. Just
thought it was a standard call. He barely remembers the guy.”
I close my eyes. “So this creep broke into her apartment, but we don’t know
who he is.”
“That about sums it up. I don’t know, Peter, I’m worried about this one.
Remember that woman back in March?”
Yes, I remembered the woman. Her stalker had tracked her for weeks,
learning her every move. Then he’d snatched her off the street in broad
daylight. We caught the guy, eventually, but the woman wasn’t alive
anymore by the time we got there.
I remind myself that Emily’s stalker isn’t that guy. We put that guy behind
bars. That doesn’t mean her stalker is any less dangerous, though.
“You think the stalker wants to kill her,” I say as calmly as I can.
“I don’t know,” Ross hedges. “I just have a bad feeling is all.”
Over the years I’ve worked with him, I’ve learned to trust Ross’ bad
feelings.
I don’t know what to tell Emily. Nothing, probably. I don’t want her to
panic, especially because we have no leads and no evidence that this guy is
really trying to hurt her yet.
I hang up the phone and turn around. Emily’s wide eyes meet mine.
Fuck.
“How long have you been standing there?” I ask. I rack my brain to
remember what I said.
“He broke into my apartment?” Her face is white as a sheet. “He—he wants
to kill me?”
“We don’t know that for sure yet,” I say in as soothing a tone as I can
manage. “I didn’t want to tell you.”
A muscle twitches in her cheek. “Oh. You didn’t want to tell me that my life
was in danger. How reasonable of you.” She turns on her heel and stomps
back into my bedroom.
“Emily.” I follow her.
She’s grabbing up her clothing from my floor and shoving it in her purse.
“I’m leaving,” she says.
“Wearing a towel?” I try to step in her path.
She glares at me. I’ve been a cop for almost ten years, but Emily’s glare is
the most intimidating thing I’ve seen so far. “Get the fuck out of my way,
Peter.”
I do.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER SEVEN

Emily

W hen I slam the door behind me, I have two hopes: that Peter doesn’t
follow me, and that nobody else on the floor decides to step out of
their apartments to find me half naked. But it’s early, so I think I’m good on
that one at least. As for Peter, I’m not sure how to deal with him right now.
The damp towel I’m wearing whispers to the floor at my feet as I rip the
clothes from my bag and begin to dress. It’s like I’m piecing my dignity
back together with every item, hands shaking.
What was I thinking, coming here? Trusting him after I hadn’t seen him in
so long? I should’ve known better. And yet, a creeping feeling tugs at my
heart as I finally slip into my shoes. I did know better. Because I know
Peter. And he sure as hell didn’t feel like a stranger last night. In fact, the
connection we had was instant. I know he felt it, too. It was like coming
home.
I stand there a moment longer, listening for any signs that he’s coming after
me. Listening, and mostly hoping that the door will swing open and there
he’ll be, sorry for trying to lie to me, wanting to make it up to me, telling
me to come back inside and that everything will be okay.
How can one person hold so many conflicting emotions simultaneously and
not burst into flames on the spot? How can everything be so messed up and
so unspeakably amazing all at once? My mind reaches back to a few hours
ago, to Peter’s strong hands on my thighs, his face between my legs.
Just then the door does open, and I’m not ready. I feel like I’ve been caught
out and that Peter can see exactly where my thoughts have been. But if
that’s true, he doesn’t admit to it and simply says, “Here.” He doesn’t even
look surprised that I’m still standing there.
I edge closer to get a better look at the small note he’s handing me. A
number’s scrawled untidily across it. His number. I swallow hard, but make
no move to take it.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes clearly expressing the sincerity in his
voice. “I wanted to protect you, that’s all. I didn’t want you freaking out
over something that could be nothing.” He steps over the towel to meet me
out in the hall and tucks the piece of paper into my purse.
With him standing so close all of a sudden, things like rational thought are
becoming difficult. His sweet musk fills my head, making me slightly dizzy.
It doesn’t help that he’s not wearing a shirt.
“Thanks.” It comes out all strangled, so I clear my throat and try again.
“Thank you. And I’m sorry for storming out like that. I just—”
“Had good reason, because I was kinda being a dick and should’ve handled
it better.” A flicker of a smile breaks the stern look of concern he’s been
wearing this whole time, and I can’t help but do the same. I know my weak
attempt at a smile probably does little to hide the terror inside me. This new
information did more than shake me up a little. Some crazy person was
actually inside my apartment—might even be out to kill me!
I feel a gentle squeeze on my shoulder, as if Peter can sense my fear. “It’s
going to be okay,” he says.
They’re exactly the words I wanted to hear a moment ago, but for some
reason I don’t feel any better. “You don’t know that.” The slight tremble in
my voice gives me away, nice and clear.
“Yes, I do.” His hand floats up to brush my cheek, and I lean in to the
warmth of it. “I’ve got my best men on it, the kind of guys you want in your
corner on a case like this, trust me.”
And I do trust him. But I also know that’s not enough.
The harsh reality of my life breaks down whatever protective force field
he’s conjured up, and I slowly back away.
“Emily—”
“I have to get going,” I say, holding onto my purse a little too tightly, but
it’s the only security I have right now. “I have class, and then I have to
figure out where the hell I’m going to stay because I can’t exactly go back
home now, can I?” He starts to say something, but I’m on a roll. “Oh! And I
almost forgot—there’s lunch with my mother, too, which is a whole other
kind of hell for me to live through on top of everything else. I mean, God
forbi—”
“Stay with me,” he says, making sure to raise his voice above my hysterical
tirade.
The sound of his words make the ones tumbling out of my mouth instantly
stop. I blink stupidly up at him. “What?”
He runs a hand through his already tousled hair, suddenly sheepish for
whatever reason. It’s adorable. “I mean, it makes sense for you to stay here,
with me,” he says. “Just until this whole thing is over. I’m not on this guy’s
radar like your friends might be. And if he’s been watching you the way we
think he has, it rules out your mom, too.”
Move in with my mother? Oh, God. “Fine,” I say, pretty much immediately.
No more convincing needed here, thanks. And then, feeling like I’ve come
across a little too eager, I also add, “I’ll think about it and let you know.”
And I start off down the hall, out of Peter’s realm of protection and into a
world where someone wants to love me to death.
My first two classes of the day go by quickly, and surprisingly without any
problems. At first, I thought it would be a waste of time with the way I was
feeling, but I actually managed to focus in Biochem and Anatomy went
over pretty smoothly, despite Mr. Hortenson’s best efforts. That man, first
thing in the morning, should come with a warning, especially when taken
on an empty stomach.
My own stomach growls as if on cue, and I regret not grabbing the
opportunity to have breakfast with Peter. Even after what happened, the
idea of waking up with him, sitting down to eat with him, just the thought
of doing any old ordinary thing with Peter by my side sends a rush of
warmth through my chest. I was mad at him before, but that’s in the past
now. I truly believe that everything he’s done has been to protect me. What
I can’t decide is if he’s doing it out of duty as a cop, or is it something
more?
I hope it’s the latter.
“This is where I take my leave, young Padawan,” Mark says, as we come
up to Heather’s Business Ethics class. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, I think I’ll survive on my own for three minutes. And thanks again
for walking me, even though I took you way off course for your next class.”
“Forever at your service, my liege.” He makes a deep bow in the most
dramatic fashion before giving in to laughter.
“Oh, shut up, would you?” But he’s got me going, too.
Mark’s usually a goofball, but today it’s ramped up and I know it’s for my
benefit. So, there’s my silver lining in all this creepy stalker stuff—
discovering my friends are even more amazing than I thought. And I
already thought they were pretty cool to begin with.
“Keep it up and you’ll definitely be late.”
This gets him to quit and he starts backing away down the hall, picking up
his pace as he goes. “Tell your mom I said hi. Text me if you need
anything.” With that, he turns and is swallowed up by a herd of students
lazily milling off to their next class.
I laugh softly to myself. He’s never met my mother, but ever since seeing an
old Christmas photo of me and her in my planner last year, he’ll throw out
random jokes about being just the kind of guy she needs in her life. And
he’s right, too. Not about him, of course, but about my mom finding a good
man to share her life with. It’s sad how unlucky she’s been in love. I can’t
imagine the mom I would have now if things had gone better in that
department. Less bitter, more open, quicker to laugh, maybe. Kind of like
me when I’m with—
“Do I even want to know what that stupid grin is all about?”
I’m so lost in my head, I didn’t even hear the class let out or Heather come
up beside me. She’s staring, and I can’t help but fidget awkwardly under her
studying gaze.
I haven’t told her about Peter yet, of course. It just doesn’t feel like the right
time with everything else going on. I’m not so sure that I should even be
flirting with the idea of him right now either. Talk about bad timing.
Between school and my psycho stalker, I have no business getting involved
with him. And now he wants me to move in? How am I supposed to
concentrate on my studies now that I know what he looks like naked? What
he feels like inside me?
I feel a hot flush spread over my cheeks and realize I have to get out of my
head fast if I don’t want to give anything away.
“Earth to Emily,” Heather says, waving her hand in front of my face.
I slap it away and we begin our walk to the other side of campus. “Stop. It’s
nothing,” I say. “Just thinking about what a clown Mark can be sometimes.”
She gives me a suspicious sideways look, but thankfully doesn’t press the
issue. “Fine, have it your way,” she says, with an over-emphasized air of
disinterest. “Did your mom get back to you yet?”
“Yeah, she’s picking me up in the library parking lot.”
We step outside, and although there’s a fresh bite in the air, the sun’s bright
and glorious in the middle of a pale blue Boston sky. Heather and I amble
along Harborwalk, unhurried, immediately lost in the bustle of students
taking advantage of the weather.
“And she didn’t ask why you changed your mind about meeting her at the
cafe?”
I shake my head. “Nope. She did get into a long-winded story about how it
messes with her schedule, and don’t I know she also has things to do, and
time is precious to her, blah blah.”
Heather snorts. “Of course she did.”
“But no, it didn’t occur to ask about me. I suppose she’s saving that for
later. When she has me cornered, in person.”
“Ooph. Good luck with that. And you’re still not going to mention this
whole thing with the stalker?”
I take a breath. My gut is telling me it’s a bad idea to get Trish McAfee
involved in this thing. She’ll just find a way to make it about her, and I’m in
no mood to babysit her feelings.
“I’ll see how it goes today,” I say, taking that moment to scan my
surroundings.
It’s broad daylight, with several people around, and yet I’m still creeped out
by the thought of what happened. The freak could be here right now.
Watching.
Heather obviously picks up on the shift in my demeanor, because she says,
“Relax, Em. He wouldn’t dare to try anything here. Not with us.” She
waves a hand, motioning to all the students around us. “And not with me
here. I’m a black belt,” she says, with a mischievous chuckle.
“Since when? And in what exactly do you have this black belt?”
“High fashion and big drama,” she says, without missing a beat.
Both of us laugh. I love how she can do that, turn something horrible on its
head and make me feel better. I guess that’s her black belt achievement.
“What are you going to do? Write him an angry email?”
She flips her hair over her shoulder with a graceful air of superiority. “And
buy a new Gucci bag after I hit send.”
That does it, I’m done. I gasp for breath, holding my aching middle. I can’t
think of the last time I laughed this hard.
Just then I get shoulder-checked by Heather, who goes crashing into me like
a renegade bumper car. Her sling bag goes flying out in front of us.
“Hey, watch it, asshole!”
But the guy who rudely shoved her out of the way just keeps going,
weaving his way through the students.
“What a jerk,” I say, standing on my toes to see the guy’s head bobbing off
in the direction of the JFK Library parking lot. “Hey, Heather, isn’t that
Trevor?” I turn back to find her putting her bag back on, a tight scowl on
her face. “Are you okay? I’m sure that was Trevor just now.”
“Well, I guess Tanya was right—he is an asshole.” She straightens her shirt
and hooks her arm in with mine. “Come on,” she says, leading me toward
the parking lot. “We can’t let the muggles get us down. And I think that’s
your mom’s car over there.”
My mother picks an Irish pub of all things. Not that I have a problem with
the place. The Banshee is kind of an institution around here, with its cozy
setup and aroma of polished maple, grilled beef, and beer. It’s just not the
kind of place someone like my mom would usually frequent. It could be
that it’s close to campus and she knows I have a class in an hour, because
hell would freeze over before my mother became an instrument in my
academic demise.
“For Heaven’s sake, Emily.”
The waitress has just brought our orders. Caesar salad for Mom, and a
gigantic, mouthwatering Banshee burger for me. With a side of pub fries. I
can’t help it. My last meal was a bowl of popcorn and I’m starving.
“Your salad looks good,” I say, with a mouth full of red meat.
I take another bite. I’m sure I look like a hamster with fully loaded cheek
pouches as I start to chew my way through this dream of a meal, relishing
the sweet juice from the onions setting my tongue alight.
“Well, I suppose we’ll have to put a hold on that red dress for Christmas
dinner.”
I give an internal eye-roll at the mention of this. Here we go.
“You know, this wine is from New Zealand,” she says, lifting the glass of
white to her lips and taking the tiniest sip.
I’m confused. I was sure she was about to get into her matchmaking thing
again. I’m so relieved to have the topic become wine and New Zealand, I
feign avid interest and say, “Ah, really?” with impressed raised eyebrows
and the works.
“Hm-mm. It says so right here.” She points to the drinks menu. “Kevin was
there a couple of months ago.”
Ha. There it is. I was right. I shove a handful of fries into my mouth to hide
the inevitable groan building up inside me. She casually brings up her
friend Kevin so that she can casually mention his son, the engineer. I’ve
been to this show before.
“He travels a lot,” she goes on. “I’m sure he’s seen the whole world by
now.”
I seriously doubt that. The whole world is a lot of ground to cover.
“We’re actually planning a trip to Africa in a month.”
I speed-chew the last fries in my mouth and force them down. “We?”
My mother tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and nods. So, this is why
we’re here? This is about Kevin, not his engineer son or my grades. I’m
struck dumb. I can’t think of anything to say, and the fact that she’s clearly
waiting for a reaction makes it even harder to find words.
“That’s great, Mom,” I mumble. It’s the best I can do under the
circumstances.
“It is, isn’t it?” And her face lights up with this huge smile that sends me
back in my seat.
She’s always been beautiful, my mother. And it’s easy to forget that when
her features are constantly weighed down by failed relationships, stress at
work, or issues with me. Whoever this Kevin guy is, he’s making her happy.
That counts for something. It’s practically shining out of her skin. I
remember a time ten years ago when that happened. With Peter’s father.
Before everything fell apart.
“I just wish you could find someone, too, Emily. Nothing too serious until
after you graduate, of course, but still.”
It’s freaky how she would bring that up right at the second I think about
Peter. What if it’s a sign? I so badly want to tell her to stop worrying about
me. That I think I may have found just the someone I need. Maybe I should.
Maybe telling her the truth about me and Peter will finally put an end to her
silly blind dates and constant nagging.
So, I take the plunge. “Guess who I ran into yesterday?” She gives me a
questioning look. “Peter.” I take some more fries to sell the idea that this is
no big deal, but my hands have suddenly started shaking. Why am I so
nervous?
“Peter. Peter who?” Her face is totally blank.
“Uh…how many Peters have you shared your home with, Mom?”
She purses her lips tightly, that blank expression now replaced with
something closer to anger. And hurt.
I wish I’d never said anything.
“If he’s in Boston, it means that man is here, too.”
That man is how she’s been referring to her ex-husband since the split. I
don’t blame her. After what he did to her, he doesn’t deserve the courtesy.
“I wouldn’t know,” I say with a shrug. “He didn’t mention his dad.”
“You spoke to him? I really wish you hadn’t done that, Emily. There’s
really no need to drag that kind of garbage back into our lives.”
I clamp my jaw tightly shut and feel the tips of my ears growing warm, the
way they do when I get mad. It’s not fair for her to hate Peter because of
something his father did. Especially when he’s the total opposite of that
horrible man. If she would just give him a chance, I know my mom would
really like Peter.
“You know he’s nothing like his father,” I say, taking care not to come
across as too angry or defensive.
But my acting skills are clearly lacking, because she fixes me with a strange
look I can’t read. I take a sip of my water for no other reason than to have
something to hide behind.
“I never liked the way he was with you,” she says.
I nearly choke on a gulp of water and end up spluttering like a fool when I
say, “What do you mean? Peter was always great. To both of us.”
“Oh, please. He knew exactly what he was doing—stringing you along like
his own personal pet. You forget that he was a lot older than you—”
“Two years isn’t a lot older, Mom.”
“And a blind person could see it, the way you were always fawning over
him. Even now, you’re coming to his defense like it’s second nature.”
“Wh—? I never fawned. I don’t fawn.”
“I’m just saying, it was a good thing we cut them out of our lives. You were
too young to understand it, but they’re toxic, you hear me? The apple
doesn’t fall far from the tree, Emily.”
No, I refuse to listen to these things in relation to Peter.
“He was never like that,” I say. “There was no stringing along or—”
“It’s done.” Her voice rises above mine in that stern tone of authority she
gets when she means to win an argument. “Let this run-in be what it was
and leave it at that. The less we have of those hateful men in our lives, the
better.”
I give up. There’s so much hurt and hatred still left in her, even after all
these years. Perhaps she’ll get over it. Or she won’t and she’ll live out the
rest of her life hating them both, blaming them for what happened to our
family. And if that’s the case, where does that leave me? I can’t predict the
future, but for now I’m convinced that keeping quiet about Peter and me is
the safest option.

That short meal with my mother managed to ruin the rest of my afternoon.
My last two classes go by in a blur, and her face when I mentioned Peter is
still all I can think about as I set off along University Drive in the direction
of the softball field. I always park over at Clark no matter where my classes
are on any given day. It’s the one parking lot where I’m guaranteed to find a
space.
I’m walking alone since Heather and the gang finished up earlier. They
wanted to wait, but my last class was scheduled to end a whole hour later
than theirs. And after being my personal escorts all day, I didn’t think it
would be fair to ask that of them. Besides, it isn’t that long of a walk
anyway, and I’m sticking to the road where there’s always a lot of traffic at
this time of day.
Also, Peter will be there.
It’s the main reason I didn’t want my friends with me. Peter had insisted on
leaving work early to follow me as I drive back to his place. Just to be sure
I’m not being followed by any creepers. There’s something about having
private protection from the chief of police.
I really wish my mother knew him the way I do. Or did back then, anyway.
Although, from what I’ve seen, he’s become even more of a sweet, caring
man. It honestly feels as if no time has passed and things between us are
just the same.
For the most part, anyway.
I have to admit it was kind of strange sending him that text when my class
ended. Even though I’ve been texting that old number off and on over the
years, this time I knew for sure he’d be on the other end. This time I wasn’t
texting him as a friend or step-sibling, but as a lover. The idea is so wild,
my brain still catches on the word. Lover.
How many nights did my teenage fantasies leave me breathless and aching
for him in my childhood bed? And later, years after he was out of my life,
how many times did my thoughts drift to him as I slid my hand between my
legs?
“Emily!”
Hearing my name so suddenly makes me jump, and I suppose being startled
triggers that familiar anxiety in me because my stomach twists into a
sickening knot. I’d been walking in such a daze I hadn’t noticed a car slow
to a virtual crawl on the road next to me. I don’t recognize the car, but the
driver must know me so I bend down to peer through the open window and
get a better look.
Just my luck. It’s Trevor.
“Hi!” He smiles and waves, a little too enthusiastically.
I err on the side of politeness and smile back. “Hello.” It’s fake and stiff, but
whatever, he nearly bulldozed my best friend earlier today.
“I don’t know if you remember me,” he says, raising his voice so it can
carry over the sound of the traffic around us. “I’m Trevor. I used to be in
Organic Chem with you until I changed majors.”
“Yeah, I remember. Good to see you.” I straighten up and continue walking.
I can see his car out of the corner of my eye. It’s still idling along beside
me.
“Want a lift to your car?” He shouts the question.
Ugh, this guy is relentless.
I shout back, “No thank you,” and send another fake smile his way. This
time I wave.
As in, goodbye, Trevor. Please leave me alone now.
“You sure? It’s a long walk.” Of course he doesn’t get the message. “I’m
heading over to Clark anyway.”
“Really, Trevor, it’s fine. Thanks, though.”
I pick up my pace to get some distance between us, and right before I break
into a competition-worthy power walk, he goes racing by at a speed that
leaves my hair windswept.
Watching him drive off, a feeling of unease settles over me out of the blue.
It makes the knot in my stomach burn. I rub my belly absently as I resume
my walk. My mind is racing, trying to remember something it’s forgotten,
and I have an idea that it’s connected to the strange way my body’s acting.
Or reacting.
My feet become concrete blocks that refuse to take another step. That’s it.
I’m reacting to something.
Want a lift to your car?
How did he know where I was parked? Or that I was on my way to Clark?
It feels like someone’s dropped a ton of bricks on my chest, and my
breathing becomes shallow and quick.
Emily! I love you!
I will my feet to move with everything I have in me, and break into a run. A
pained grunt escapes me as I push even harder. I’m practically sprinting, my
ragged breath burning my dry throat.
The floodlights from the softball field come into view and I know I’m close
to the parking lot. To Peter. I get a searing stitch in my side that feels like
I’m being stabbed with a flaming dagger, but I don’t care about that. And I
don’t care about the tears stinging my eyes either. Because I have to get to
Peter.
I have to tell him I know who my stalker is.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER EIGHT

Peter

E mily is a mess when she gets into my car. She seemed fine when she
texted me earlier, so I know something must have happened between
then and now to have her in such a state.
“Hey, Emily, what’s going on? What happened?” I feel like a helpless loser.
All I can do is watch her hyperventilate in my passenger seat, tears
streaming down her face.
I put my arm around her and grab ahold of the trembling hands in her lap.
Using my thumb, I begin to stroke gentle, soothing circles on her skin. It
always feels good to touch her, but seeing her like this is unbearable.
“Please, Emily, talk to me.” I give her hands another squeeze. That’s my
way of telling her she’s safe. I’m here now.
It seems to help, and she takes deep, slow breaths to get her panicked
breathing under control.
“There, it’s okay. Breathe.” My hand on her shoulder finds its way up to her
head, and I move the hair that’s fallen across her face neatly behind her ear.
I let my fingers linger there a while, stroking the curve of her neck. Even in
this state, there’s no denying how beautiful she is. It’s almost painful to look
at her.
Finally, once she’s calmed down enough to speak, Emily turns to me. Her
eyes are shot with red, but she’s not crying anymore.
“Oh, Peter,” she says, her lip trembling with the threat of more tears. They
don’t come.
Once again, I’m left in awe of her strength and character. It was one of the
things that drew me to her in the first place as a young woman ten years
ago.
“Tell me,” I say.
Although there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to hear it. Because I know
what she’s about to say. I can wish that she’ll go into a tirade about a bad
class, or a friend who upset her over something, but Emily’s not the type to
get this worked up about any of those things.
I had a bad feeling about her returning to school right from the start. The
risk was just too big with that crazed psychopath still out there. I know
that’s the reason. I know he must have done something to her. Oh, God, if
he put a finger on her—
“I think I know who it is, Peter.” She swallows hard and her breath catches
in her throat.
“What?” Dumbfounded, I can’t think of anything else to say. How could
she know? Did he approach her? And if he did, what did he do to her?
My blood is on fire under my skin and I can feel it thudding in my ears. I
swear to God, they will have to hold me back once I find this guy.
“At least I—I think I do,” she stammers, shaking her head vigorously. It’s
like she’s trying to get her brain to make sense of something and thinks that
giving it a good shake will help things along.
“What do you mean, Emily? Did something happen?”
She wipes the remaining wetness from her face with the back of her hand
and takes another shaky breath.
“I don’t know.” She looks out the window, anxiously scanning the parking
lot. “He has to be watching me. How else did he know? This guy, Trevor
—”
“Trevor?” I immediately feel bad for interrupting. But Trevor? That’s
probably the least crazy stalker name I’ve ever heard.
“He goes here,” she says. “And I guess we were in Organic Chemistry
together, or that’s what he says at least. I don’t really remember.”
“Are you sure?”
She fixes her gaze on me again and I see something dark shift behind her
eyes. “I was on my way over here just now, when he pulled up in his car
and—” Her eyes fill up again, and I know I have to do something.
“I’m going to get you out of here.”
Letting go of her feels so wrong, but I have to do it. For now. The engine
swings to life and I pull out of the lot. He could still be hanging around
here. Watching. But he’s got another thing coming if he thinks he’ll get a
tail on me. It feels a little like I’m back working the beat. I check my
rearview mirror every few seconds for any suspicious activity.
“Did he hurt you?” It pains me to think about it, let alone ask the question,
but I need to know.
“No. He didn’t get out of the car.”
“Did you get a look at it? Make and model?” That helplessness from before
is gone now. This is my playing field, good old cop work. It’s where I
function best.
“I don’t know,” she says again.
“Come on, Emily. Think.” I don’t mean to pressure her, but these details are
necessary. They could even be a matter of life and death. “What color was
it? Did it have any markings or—?”
“Can you please stop badgering me!” She grabs her head, digging her
fingers into her hair.
Shit. Now I feel terrible.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “It’s just really important that you remember what you
saw.”
“You think I don’t know that?” She rounds on me, her expression much the
same as the one from this morning right before she stormed out of my
apartment. “Do you honestly think that I’m just sitting here, deliberately
saying I don’t know and I can’t remember for the hell of it? Newsflash,
Peter, the one person who wants this sicko put away more than you is me.
It’s my life in danger here. I’m the one who could end up getting hurt. I
don’t enjoy looking over my shoulder all day, or feeling scared all the time,
or being gawked at on the street by creepers in blue Mazdas!”
I glance over to her and her eyes are big and round, her mouth open in
shock. She’s just as surprised as I am that the description of the car came
out of her mouth like that.
My attention goes back to the road and I smile to myself. “Now that I know
getting on your nerves is an efficient way of getting answers, I’m going to
be doing it more often. Just a heads up.”
She slaps my arm playfully, and when I look at her, she’s smiling, too.
“The left taillight is out, too.”
“Okay, now you’re just showing off.”
And even though it’s the worst of circumstances, we both start laughing.
Because what else is there?
I love how things are so easy between us. That they can go from zero to one
hundred in the blink of an eye, and back again just as fast. Being with
Emily is like being with an old friend. A best friend.
A friend who gets me going with the most innocent of looks.
No, Peter. I focus hard on the road in front of me. Now is definitely not the
time to be thinking about sex. No matter how much I want to revisit the
taste of her, the way it feels to have her legs wrapped around me. And now
that she’ll be staying with me, I don’t know how I’m going to keep my
hands to myself. We both have so much going on with school, work, and
stalkers that getting distracted is probably the worst possible idea.
And yet.
“I don’t want to go to your place,” she says.
I’ve just taken the corner a block away from my street.
“Emily, we’ve been over this. You can’t go home. Especially not now.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.” She slips her hand over mine on the gear
shift.
I have to bite down on the inside of my lip to ignore the sudden twitch in
my crotch area. Her touch summons my body to life, whether I choose it or
not.
“I don’t think I could stand being cooped up inside right now,” she says.
“So…do you want to grab a bite? We could stop over at—”
“No, please, no food. I had a huge lunch.”
I can’t tell whether the grimace on her face is in relation to the food she ate,
or the person she had lunch with.
“I forgot, how did it go?”
“I told her about you.”
“What?” My head snaps around, and for a full three seconds, I forget that I
have to be watching the road. “You told her? What did she say? Why would
you do that? Was she upset?”
Emily laughs. I love the sound of that laugh. “I didn’t tell her about, you
know.” She gets all coy, and it’s the look of hunger in her eyes that forces
me to keep my attention on driving.
“So, if not that, then what?”
“I mentioned that I ran into you. And no, she wasn’t all too happy about it.”
I don’t say anything. It was kind of what I expected. I can’t say I blame
Trish, really. But damn, it does sting just a little.
“Anyway,” Emily continues. Her voice has an air of nonchalance to it, like
she doesn’t care about her mother’s approval at all. “My old woman has a
boyfriend now. Kevin. She wants to set me up with his son.” She lets out an
amused giggle. “Can you imagine?”
No. I don’t want to imagine. It may be funny to her, but I can’t bear the
thought of Emily being with someone else. My knuckles turn white on the
steering wheel, but that’s as far as I allow my jealousy to go. I’m not going
to be that guy. After all, we’re not dating. Emily is free to see whoever she
wants.
Something the size of a boulder sinks in my stomach.
We drive around without direction for a couple of hours, talking about
everything and nothing. Emily tells me about how amazing her friends have
been and I tell her about Denise, who’s determined to get me to hang out
with my division. I’m sure I sense a twinge of jealousy, but I don’t remark
on it. It serves her right after that whole Kevin thing.
The sun is hanging low in the sky when I pull up to the empty parking lot at
Castle Island. We have a breathtaking view of Pleasure Bay from here. The
deep golden red of the setting sun makes the quiet waters burst into flame.
And now that I’m not driving, I can really appreciate the woman next to
me.
I turn sideways in my seat so that I can face her. She’s utterly captivated by
the scene unfolding in front of us. I, on the other hand, am more interested
in the one right beside me. Seeing the sunset reflected on her face, the
absolute wonder in her wide eyes, it’s all I can do not to lean in and kiss the
hell out of her.
“Peter, look,” she says, obviously aware that I’m missing one of nature’s
greatest show-offs. “It’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful.” The words fall out of my mouth before I realize I’m
thinking them.
She looks at me then, her face an open show of emotion so pure it takes my
breath away. And when she leans over to kiss me, the touch of her lips is
sweet and soft. A total contrast to the burning desire raging inside of me.
I can’t believe how lucky I am. Not just for finding Emily after all these
years, but that she’s just as happy to have found me, too.
I let her set the pace, only because I don’t trust myself to hold back. She
parts her lips and our tongues meet, each slowly taking the other. I can’t
think of a time in my life when a kiss made me feel so much, all at once.
After a moment, I pull away and take a much needed breath. “It’ll be dark
soon. We should go home.” My voice is so low and thick; it instantly
betrays my intentions. But I don’t care. I want her to know.
A deep flush brightens her smooth cheeks as she dips her head, a soft smile
teasing at those luscious lips. It only makes me want her more. The pulsing
in my cock grows urgent, straining for some release.
“No,” she whispers, and leans closer to me. “I don’t want to go home.”
The sweet lilac scent in her hair drives me wild, and when I feel pressure on
my crotch, my hips rise up to meet it all on their own. I place my hand over
hers, guiding her steady touch as she rubs me up through my jeans.
A strangled moan wrenches out from deep inside my throat. The harsh
fabric is too much of a prison. I need to feel her touch.
I move to undo my buttons, but before I can do anything else, her slender
fingers slip beneath the waist of my boxers. I let out a shaky breath of relief
mixed with pleasure as she liberates my cock. Her soft, cool skin feels so
good against the maddening heat trapped down there.
Burying my fingers in the hair on the back of her head, I pull her in for
another kiss.
This time there’s nothing gentle about the way our mouths meet. It’s
unbridled hunger that drives us. More than a decade of pent-up lust is
finally set free in a dance of innermost desires we once thought were
forbidden.
I can feel her want for me is just as strong. The way she arches toward me,
her breasts beckoning for my touch.
Her motions are steady, but I can tell she doesn’t have much experience in
this department. My heart wants to explode when I think about how openly
she offered up her innocence to me last night. And yet, for all that
innocence, she has no problem brazenly expressing her needs.
It’s so fucking hot.
What’s even hotter is her need for me. A primal yearning that I reciprocate,
from the blood burning in my veins to the pounding heart in my chest.
I want her.
Once again, I lower my hand to hers and this time I squeeze down over her
grip. She takes the subtle instructions well and tightens her hold on my
throbbing cock. With every stroke, her touch unravels me a little more.
Oh, God, it’s getting harder and harder to hold back.
Breathless, we break apart, but neither of us are ready for any kind of
distance. I hold onto her to make her stay, her forehead pressed against
mine, panting breath hot and sensuous on my mouth.
“Emily.” The feel of her name on my lips in this moment is like its own
kind of ecstasy. “I need you.”
I lunge for her mouth, but she pulls away and pushes me back into my seat.
For a moment, my heart drops at the possibility that she’s calling an end to
our tryst, but then she bends down over me.
Emily’s mouth is deliciously warm and wet as she takes me in, pushing me
further down into sweet oblivion. As the last of the sun disappears behind
the edge of the world, she is taking me closer and closer to the edge of
mine.
I glide my hand under her shirt, ghosting it up along her delicate middle
until I find her breast. Her nipple is sensuously taut beneath the flimsy
fabric of her lace bra. I take it between my fingers and squeeze. Her entire
body tenses up under my touch, telling me she’s enjoying this as much as I
am.
She comes up for air and teases my tip, circling it with her tongue before
plunging back down again. This time I can’t hold back the moan that’s been
caged up inside me. Emily echoes it back to me with my cock deep in her
throat. The sensation reverberates through the length of my shaft and into
my balls. Millions of blinding white lights burst behind my eyelids.
Emily lifts her head and takes my mouth with hers. She’s utterly insatiable.
“Come with me,” she says, her voice like dripping honey.
She moves so nimbly between the two front seats that by the time I catch up
to what’s happening, she’s already in the back. Her fingers work with
urgency as she unbuttons her jeans.
My tongue comes out to wet my lips as I watch them peel back to reveal her
bare legs.
“God, you’re gorgeous.”
Her legs go on for mile after flawless mile, from the cute dimple beside
each ankle to the sensual, freckled flesh of her thighs. I wait for Emily to
get to her shirt next and watch in heated anticipation for the decadent
mounds I know are hiding there.
But she doesn’t touch her shirt.
Instead, Emily shifts slowly back until she’s leaning against the door. Then
she drops her one leg and pulls the other up so that she’s spread open.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” she says.
My breathing grows ragged at the sight of her like that.
Her eyes lock with mine, and even in the dusky darkness I can tell her
pupils are completely blown out. Wide with arousal.
My cock twitches again, swollen with impatient longing for that special
place at the apex of her succulent thighs.
“You said you needed me,” she says, leadingly.
I swallow hard and nod my head. There isn’t a word in my brain for me to
find.
“What do you need, Peter?”
Her hand moves between her legs, and she starts to fondle herself on top of
her panties. All the while her lustful gaze stays fixed on me. A long, drawn-
out moan flutters out of her slightly parted lips and she arches her back. The
shirt she’s wearing pulls tightly over her chest, accentuating her breasts
even more.
“It’s you. I need you.” My confession makes a smug smile tease at the
corners of her mouth.
I can’t take my eyes off her. My own hand moves down, and I begin
stroking my rock-hard cock. It takes some concentration, but I match the
painfully slow motion she’s working over her clit.
I feel like we’re one overwhelming desire split between two bodies,
working together to find release.
It’s when she pauses her movements to pull her panties aside that I lose the
last of my control. She spreads her legs wider, showing herself fully to me.
And with the moon shining high through the back window, her center is a
slick, glistening promise of my release.
I scramble through to the back. Emily sits up on her knees and wraps her
arms around me. Her kiss is like a raging fire with only one goal—to
devour me.
Taking hold of her hips, I guide her over until she’s straddling me. A thin
gasp comes out of her at the feel of my tip brushing her swollen clit through
her panties. I pull them aside, just like she did minutes ago, and begin to rub
myself against her, the length of my shaft slipping between her soaking wet
folds with ease.
A delicious moan hums somewhere in her depths.
It’s torture to stop, but I have to get to my wallet in the back pocket of my
jeans.
“Peter—” Emily isn’t happy about the break in activity either.
“Just a sec.”
After some more fumbling, I finally find what I’ve been looking for and rip
the condom open with my teeth. Just as I’m about to put it on, Emily’s hand
covers mine. I look up at her, and her eyes are practically black.
“Let me,” she says, taking the condom from my fingers.
I let my head drop back and close my eyes, relishing the feel of her hands
on my cock once again. She slides the condom on, finishing with a light
snap, and positions herself on top of me.
“Look at me, Peter.”
I obey her command without hesitation, fighting the urge to buck my hips
and plunge right into her. I know that’s what she’s waiting for. I know that’s
what she wants.
“You do it,” I say, not taking my eyes off hers. “Slowly.”
There’s a fleeting moment of hesitation, but then she does it. Using one
hand to spread her lips, she takes the other and guides my cock to her
entrance.
She lowers herself onto me. Less than an inch. And then stops.
A loud groan escapes me, and I dig my fingers into the soft flesh of her
hips. It takes everything I have to hold back. But I love it. I know what
we’re building up to.
Emily moves again, and now my whole tip is inside her. This time I bite
down hard on my lips. God, she feels so tight I could die. I want to go
deeper. I have to feel all of her right now or I’ll explode.
In one motion, I push her down as I thrust deeply into her. A cry of pleasure
erupts out of us both and fills the empty silence around us.
Emily. Sweet, sweet Emily. Her impassioned moaning increases as she
begins to ride me. Slowly at first, but speeding up. Like all of her self-
control is gone, and she’s being driven by a far more powerful force.
I wrap my arms around her, resting my head against her chest. I’m not sure
whose heart is pounding harder, hers or mine. I feel her fingers snake into
my hair as her whole body starts trembling.
“Oh, God, Peter.” It’s a strangled whisper in my ear that sends the most
incredible shivers through me. “I’m so close.”
“I know.” I lay a trail of hungry, wet kisses along her neck. And then,
cupping her face in both my hands, I make her look at me. “I know,” I say
again, and kiss her hard.
That slow build up, touching and playing, it put us both on the edge. I’m
not surprised that it doesn’t take long before we’re ready to tip over. I feel
her tense muscles around my cock start to quiver as she whimpers softly in
my mouth.
It’s a sound I would be happy to hear every day for the rest of my life.
Emily’s spasms get more intense, her motion on top of me more urgent,
rocking the whole car as she painfully teases me to follow along.
My buttocks lift off the seat as I thrust into her then. So hard, so deep, she
has to cling to me to keep from hitting the roof. And like that, our bodies
locked in a desperate hold, her hips rocking against me in the most
maddening way, we finally come together in a shuddering mess of helpless
moans and tired kisses.
We sink back into the seat, limp and spent. Emily is a useless, satisfied heap
on top of me as we both work to catch our breath.
“Okay,” she mutters softly into the curve of my neck. And I’m sure I can
feel the ghost of her smile against my skin as she says, “Now you can take
me home.”

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER NINE

Emily

M y eyes flutter open lazily, and I can just make out the thin slits of
light seeping through the blinds in Peter’s bedroom. I stretch out my
legs, and they hit the cool sheets on the other side of the bed.
I’m alone.
The sound of a spoon clattering against a cup comes floating in from the
kitchen, carried by the sweet aroma of freshly-brewed coffee. With a
blissful yawn, I roll onto my back so that I’m taking up the whole bed.
There are aches in parts of my body that I didn’t know could ache.
I smile softly. Peter has taught me quite a lot about my body over the past
couple of days. Certainly more than any anatomy class could. A low
chuckle bubbles out of me and I bury my face in his pillow to drown out the
sound. I’m so giddy, it’s embarrassing.
When I come back up for air, Peter’s heady musk is in my nostrils. I sniff
his pillow again and breathe in deep until it fills me.
“What are you doing?”
I startle at the sound of Peter’s voice and quickly jump back to the other
side of the bed. Talk about embarrassing.
He’s carrying two cups of coffee and wearing his boxers with a faded
Boston PD t-shirt. The sharp lines of his biceps are all kinds of delicious.
“Nothing, I was—I was just—” My stammering falters hopelessly. The
stupid grin on his face isn’t helping either.
Peter hands me one of the steaming cups and sits down on the edge of the
bed beside me.
“Slept okay?” he asks, and takes a sip of his coffee. I’m almost sure he’s
only doing it to try and hide that cheeky smile of his. Because he knows full
well there was very little sleep happening in this room last night. I’m so
grateful I don’t have to sit through any classes today. I don’t think I
would’ve survived it on what little sleep I managed to get.
“I slept fine,” I say. “Could use a few more hours, though.”
“It’s already after nine,” he says with an incredulous laugh. “The day’s
practically over.”
“Nine?” I fix him with a puzzled look. He shouldn’t be here this late. “Are
you working a late shift today?”
Peter shakes his head and leans over my outstretched legs, propping himself
up with his hand. “I took the day off.”
I can’t hide my shock. “You what? I didn’t think you knew what that was.”
“Yeah, well, you may be right. A little.” He smiles at me again. “I just never
had a good enough reason, I guess.”
And now I’m smiling, too. Because I’ve never been anyone’s reason before.
I drop my gaze to the piping hot cup of coffee in my hands, hoping I’ve
moved fast enough and Peter didn’t see the flush rising in my cheeks.
I’m done for, I know it. This isn’t just a casual hook-up with a long-ago
object of affection, or some insignificant fulfillment of a young girl’s
fantasy. I am officially in very deep trouble.
“Besides,” Peter says, as he pushes up from the bed, “we have a lot to do
today.”
“We do?” And when I look up, he’s already on his way out of the bedroom.
“Uh…Peter? What do you mean we have a lot to do?” I call after him.
A moment later he’s back, and he’s replaced his coffee with a laptop. Now
I’m really confused. He flops onto the bed with it, pushing his pillows up
for a makeshift backrest before sitting upright with the computer on his lap.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Well,” he says, starting up the laptop, “after what happened yesterday,
there’s no way you’re going back to school until we get this guy.” He looks
at me, his eyes showing that same concern that comforted me so much after
I fell into his car in a panic. They also tell me that this isn’t open for
negotiation.
But I try anyway.
“Not an option,” I say. “No school means no graduation, and definitely no
second chances.”
“Emily—”
“I’m already this close to losing my scholarships, Peter. You don’t
understand.”
“And you don’t understand.” He raises his voice at me. Not a lot, but just
enough to let me know how serious he is. “We don’t know what this guy is
capable of. What his plans are. It’s too dangerous.”
“But—”
“If anything happens to you, there won’t be a graduation either. So it’s not
worth the risk, is it?”
I have nothing to say. There’s no valid argument I can think of because
Peter has a point. So, instead, I nod my silent agreement.
Boy, did this wonderful morning take a different turn. It went from pure
bliss to kissing my best, and possibly only, chance at a medical career
goodbye. I do understand where Peter’s coming from, but it certainly
doesn’t make it any easier.
“Good. So that’s the first thing,” he says.
“The first? How many things are there?” He’s very likely sent my life onto
a whole other course, and now he says there’s more?
“Well, we have to go by your place to pick up your things. It’s probably
best to do that first. Get it out of the way.”
I take a breath. So many changes, all so suddenly. It’s hard to wrap my head
around it. I’ve barely made peace with being awake.
“Then the car,” he says, bringing up his search screen on the laptop.
His brows are furrowed in concentration, and looking at him like this, so
determined to help me and keep me safe, my heart absolutely swells in my
chest. And with him so close beside me, my mind drifts to what happened
after waking up with him yesterday. I can’t ignore the familiar heat rising
up between my legs.
“Hatch or sedan?”
“Hmm?” I blink a few times fast, caught with my mind on a whole different
track.
“Come on, Emily, this is serious.” There’s a slight hint of impatience in his
voice. “The Mazda you saw yesterday, was it a hatch or sedan?”
“Hatch,” I reply almost instantly, feeling a little like a rookie at bootcamp
wanting to impress her commanding officer.
“Okay,” he says, typing away furiously.
In a second, the screen fills up with various images of cars. I lean over to
have a closer look.
“These are the most popular models on the market right now,” he says. “See
anything familiar?”
I bite down on my bottom lip as several images scroll by. There’s no
denying the pressure I’m suddenly feeling. I wasn’t really paying attention
yesterday. I mean, it was Trevor. All I was thinking about was making a
quick getaway. And by the time I realized anything was up, he was gone.
Also, I’ve never been great with car stuff in general. I know how to start
one, drive it, and park it.
“Anything?” Peter says, nudging me out of my head again.
“Um, it could be, uh, this one,” I say, pointing to one of the pictures.
But I can’t be sure if the car is ringing a bell with me because it’s blue, the
color of Trevor’s car, or if it’s the same model.
I don’t mention this to Peter. Something tells me that now isn’t a good time
to go down that road with him.
He clicks on the image to enlarge it. “The Mazda 2. That’s good.”
“It is?” I try not to sound too surprised.
“Yes. It’s fairly new. The first ones came out just a few years ago. Which
means my guys won’t have to go through decades of sales records.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
He closes the laptop and turns his full attention to me. “Well, I got a call
this morning saying they got a match for a Trevor Reed registered at
UMass.”
“Are they going to pick him up?” My excitement is evident, but only for a
second, because Peter shakes his head.
“We don’t have enough evidence yet. But,” he brings his hand up to stroke
my cheek, “we do have a home address. That’s something.”
“Okay.” I place a soft kiss to his palm before taking his hand in mine.
It feels so normal to be sitting in bed with him like this, talking and
touching. But I know that’s only half true. Because the topic of our
conversation is the most abnormal thing. The circumstances that brought
Peter and I together again after all these years are definitely not normal. It
weighs over us like this heavy, black cloud, and now more than ever do I
just want it to be over so that I can experience what being normal with Peter
feels like. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’ll be beautiful.
“So, Ross will head up surveillance starting today,” Peter says, “and I’ll call
this description through in a minute.”
“They’re going to just watch him?” The idea that Trevor is still out there,
going about his creeper ways freaks me out.
“It’s our best option right now. According to the evidence, this guy hasn’t
done anything wrong.”
“Yet.”
“I know how you feel, but who knows? We could get lucky running his
plates. If there are any misdemeanors against his name, it’ll give us an
excuse to bring him in.”
“That’s it?” My heart sinks. It doesn’t sound like much of a plan. “What if
you find nothing? What if he hurts someone else during all this waiting?”
Peter leans forward to place the laptop at the foot end of the bed, then takes
me in his arms. I pull up my knees and snuggle into his chest. Hearing his
steady heartbeat right there calms me down instantly.
“I know this might seem like a lot to ask, mostly because you have no
reason to do it, but I need you to trust me, Emily.”
I look up at him then, because I need him to see how much I mean it when I
say, “I trust you, Peter. I always have.”
He lowers his head to mine, and I instinctively close my eyes in sweet
anticipation of what I know is coming. He’s so close I can feel his lips
gently grazing mine, which immediately sets them on fire. I part my lips for
him.
“You need a shower.”
My eyes fly open, and I can’t believe it, but I’m seeing that signature Peter
grin again.
“And some toothpaste, too,” he says, his shoulders shaking with the way
he’s laughing.
“Ugh, you’re the worst.” I begin pelting him with every available pillow on
the bed.
Peter raises his hands to shield my unforgiving blows while he edges off the
bed to safety. But if he thinks moving out of reach is going to save him, he
clearly doesn’t know me very well. I jump up, grabbing a pillow in each
hand, and set off after him. Peter just about makes it to the door before I’m
close enough to lay into him. But my revenge is horrible, because I can
hardly breathe I’m laughing so much.
“Aaah, okay, okay, uncle. Uncle!”
I try to get in one more shot, but Peter’s reflexes are too sharp. He moves
quick as a flash, getting a solid grip on both my wrists. Bringing them down
to my sides, he steps into me. He presses up so close I can feel him getting
hard through the light cotton of his boxers.
The pillows drop to the floor, forgotten weapons of feathered destruction,
and I go up to meet his lips with mine. I haven’t kissed very many people in
my life, but I’m prepared to take a stand right this minute and declare that
Peter is by far the best.
He frees my wrists and snakes his arms around me, pulling me closer as I
wrap mine around his neck.
“Seriously, though,” he says, breaking from my mouth to pepper soft kisses
along my jaw, “I meant what I said about the shower,” and into my neck,
“we have plans.”
My head rolls back, indulging in the amazing feel of him. “Hmm, what
could be more urgent than us getting back into bed?”
Peter straightens to look at me, his hand coming up to fix my hair behind
my ear. I lean into his touch, so soft for someone who exudes so much
strength at any given time.
“I can think of a few things,” he says, “but I’ll start with breakfast.”
My stomach grumbles as if on cue.
Freshly showered and dressed, we pull into the parking at Dunkin’ a cool
fifteen minutes after the impromptu pillow fight. Peter had mentioned
something about showing me his favorite breakfast place in Boston, but I
suggested we leave that for another time.
I’m not even sorry that he has to learn about my chronic beef with hunger at
this point in our relationship. In fact, I’d rather he understood the delicacy
of the situation early on, and so prevent any catastrophic meltdowns in the
future.
When we get inside, I’m immediately punched in the face by mouth-
watering aromas of baked goods and fresh coffee.
“The blueberry muffins look really good,” Peter says. “I think I’ll go with
one of those.”
He orders a coffee with the muffin, and then motions with his head for me
to place my order.
“I’ll have the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, please. Also the hash
browns. And that blueberry muffin does look good, you’re right,” I mutter
to Peter, whose eyes are large as he watches me order. “Yes, I’ll take one of
those, too.”
He’s shaking his head and chuckling to himself as he goes to hand the
cashier his card.
“Oh, and a vanilla chai, please.”
Peter pauses and looks at me. “Where are you planning on putting it all?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
He smiles and gives the cashier a nod to go ahead and ring up the order.
Despite the shaky start to my morning, the rest of the day with Peter turned
out to be just what I needed. After the perfect breakfast, we put off going to
my apartment till last. Instead, we drive to the Public Garden, where we
walk and talk for hours. I introduce Peter to one of my favorite games:
watching people from afar and filling in funny dialogue they might be
having. I laughed so hard at some of his scenarios, my overfull stomach
began to ache.
Then we stopped for soft pretzels and Peter led me to a spot under a
weeping willow where we could savor them, and each other, hidden from
the rest of the world. Even while it was happening, I knew that I was in the
middle of a memory I would end up cherishing forever.
Finally, there was no more putting it off and we had to go back to my
apartment before dark. The drive there was uncharacteristically quiet. Peter
tried to break the tension, but I was just too anxious about going back there.
I was grateful when he stopped trying and gave me the space I needed.
I thought it would be the hardest thing ever, going back and getting my
stuff. But as soon as I walked in, the apartment felt like a stranger’s home.
It didn’t feel at all like I had lived there for years. It just wasn’t my space
anymore. Not after being violated by that creep.
The couch where I used to love spending my free time watching Netflix,
my bed where so many late-night assignments were finished—they were all
just cold, empty pieces of furniture in a cold, empty apartment.
By the time Peter had stowed the last of my books and bags in the trunk, I
had officially made peace with saying goodbye to that part of my life. I had
no interest in ever getting it back.
“You okay?” he asked, as we pulled out of the parking lot and headed
home.
I watched my apartment building shrink in the side-view mirror, and
nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
When I reached out for him, his hand grasped mine, giving it a good
squeeze. The simplest of gestures, and yet it made such a huge difference.
In that moment, I was endlessly grateful that Peter was with me. And for the
first time in days, I felt truly safe.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TEN

Peter

I hear the shower door close and the tell-tale burst of water. Once I’m
certain Emily won’t be walking into the kitchen again, I pick up my
phone and reopen the email. Ross sent it through last night and although
this is the fourth time I’m reading it, the feeling of dread that steals up my
spine isn’t any lesser.
Hey, Chief,
Quick update:
Forensics on McAfee’s apartment came back. No matches in database.
(That was a long shot anyway.)
No sign of the Reed kid at given address or at the school. Checked with
admin—he’s missed all his classes this week.
We got a few hits on the BOLO issued for the Mazda. All have both tail
lights intact, none registered to Reed.
This kid is laying low, Chief. He likely knows we’re onto him.
You know what that means….
I kill my mailing app and toss my phone onto the kitchen counter. The knot
in the pit of my stomach gives an angry churn, and the taste of bile rises
into my mouth. As far as dead-ends go, this update from Ross is a shining
example of the worst kind.
And I can’t have Emily find out about it. I promised I would keep her safe,
that I’d get this guy. If she had any idea how badly the investigation was
going—
“Penny for your thoughts.” Emily appears at my side out of thin air and
wraps her arms around me.
She’s wearing a towel and nothing else, her wet hair seeping into my
uniform shirt where she’s resting her head on my shoulder.
“Just a penny?” I turn to face her and plant a kiss on her damp forehead. “I
tell you what, if you sweeten the deal, I might be in the mood to share.”
“Oh, yeah?” Her eyes light up with that playful glint I’ve come to know so
well. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
She’s so adorable when she gets all flirty like this. It kills me to have to turn
her down.
“It doesn’t matter what I have in mind,” I say with a sigh, and pull out of
her arms. “I have a day from hell, and if I don’t get started now, it’ll never
end.”
Emily pouts. “Are you sure that’s what you want?” She takes my hand and
guides it under the flap of her towel.
The skin underneath it is unbearably soft and warm.
“Oh, that’s not fair.” I dig my fingers into the sumptuous flesh on her hip
and pull her toward me. “You’re not playing fair at all.” I kiss her then,
savoring the minty fresh taste of her.
I must be losing my mind. Because there’s no place I’d rather be than here
with her, and yet I break the kiss. She gives a disappointed groan, but I
quickly busy myself getting my stuff together so that I don’t have to deal
with it.
“What’s a few minutes?” she says, following me as I grab my phone and go
through to the living room for my wallet and keys.
“Emily, you know I would if I could. But—” I take a breath, and that’s all
the time I need to make the decision to lie to her “—there’s a lead I have to
follow up.”
Her face changes to one of open surprise. I feel like complete dog shit.
“What lead? Peter, why didn’t you just tell me? What did they find? Is he
—”
“I only just heard,” I say, falling into another lie. “Ross didn’t give me
much detail, but I’m going to meet up with him now and we’ll take it from
there.” And another.
A look of sheer relief washes over her, and she beams at me. “I have to
admit I feel a lot better hearing that. It’s been days and nothing. I was
beginning to think I was doomed to live my life on the run.”
“Yeah, well, that’s how these things go,” I say with a shrug and go to leave.
“Oh, and please remember—”
“Keep the door locked, stay inside, don’t go close to the windows,” she
whines in a tired, sing-song voice. “Yeah, I got it, Chief. I’ll behave.”
“You better,” I say, and close the door behind me.
I don’t move until I hear her turn the key from the inside. And even after the
sound of her bare feet padding across the floor fades away, I stay rooted to
the spot. Because I’m not looking forward to what I have to do next.
I take a few deep breaths, clenching and unclenching my fists. Like a
fighter getting ready for a championship bout. “You got this, Peter,” I
mumble to myself.
I don’t care what I must look like, doing this in the middle of the hall; it’s
helping. It calms me down and clears my head. That’s why I always psych
myself up like this when I’m about to see my dad.
The car dealership is having a busy morning and I have to park quite a
distance from the doors. As I make my way to the entrance, I’m assaulted
by colorful balloons, loud music, and appetizing smells wafting out of the
taco truck set up in the parking lot. It’s like a party out here, with sales guys
all over, charming the customers with impressive specs and low, low prices.
And to think, this was almost my legacy. To say that my dad was mad at me
when I cut ties with him is an understatement. For years, the rift between us
has weighed me down, but now I have a little perspective. If I didn’t walk
away from him back then and make a career for myself as a cop, I wouldn’t
have walked into the station that night and I wouldn’t have reconnected
with Emily.
A caustic laugh bubbles inside of me. Can it be? My dad played a role in
Emily and me being together? It’s insane. Almost as insane as I am for
coming back here to ask for his help. I hate that I have to do it. I hate that
there are times when I still need him. But if it works out, then I won’t have
been lying to Emily before when I told her I had a lead.
“Was that a pig that just went flying past?”
I’m caught off guard by my dad standing at the open trunk of a Lincoln
SUV. I wasn’t expecting to run into him out here. I thought I’d have the
time it took to get inside, ask for his office, and knock on his door to get my
wits about me.
“I think you’re right,” I say, and offer him my hand.
Treating him with any kind of civility grates my last nerve, but I know I
have to play nice if I plan to get any information out of him. A part of me
silently hopes that he’s learned how to do the same over the years.
He looks at my outstretched hand, but doesn’t take it. Instead, he turns to
the customer he was dealing with and says, “If you’d excuse me for a
moment.”
My dad motions with his head for me to follow him and goes off in the
direction of the building.
“If you’re here for a kidney, you’re on your own,” my dad says as we walk
into his office.
I’m surprised by how tidy it is. There’s a family picture hanging on the
wall. There’s no one in it that I know, aside from my dad. Something
squeezes in my chest, but I brush it aside. The neatness of his desk puts
mine to shame. It’s all very out of character for the man who I remember as
being fine with leaving his worn underwear in the middle of the bathroom
floor.
I want to tell him that I wouldn’t come to him for a kidney if he was my last
hope, but instead I just say, “It’s about a case I’m working on.”
He nods and sits down behind his desk. I take the seat opposite him, even
though he didn’t offer it to me. “Well? What do you need?”
That’s it. No pleasantries. No, How have you been, Peter? I haven’t seen
you in years. How is life treating you?
I’d be lying if I said I’d expected anything different. Right now I’m just
relieved he hasn’t sent me on my way.
“We’re trying to trace a potentially dangerous man,” I say. I can’t give him
too many details, but I know I have to make him understand how important
this is. “He drives a Mazda 2, and our records show that only a few have
been sold in the Boston area over the past four years. This dealership is the
only one in our trace radius, so it’s more than likely he got it here.”
“Makes sense. Now, if you don’t mind cutting to the chase, Petey, as you
saw outside I’m kinda busy.”
I clench my jaw so tightly, a spark of pain shoots down my neck. I’ve
always hated it when he called me that.
“I’m working a lead and need you to give me your sales records for the—”
“Do you have a warrant?”
My mind flashes red. I can’t believe this man. The anger and irritation
building up inside me are becoming more and more difficult to keep at bay.
It was hard enough coming over here in the first place, and now he has to be
an asshole on top of it.
“We’re working on it,” I say, keeping an even tone. “I just thought in the
meantime, if you could—”
“Petey, Petey, Petey,” he says, shaking his head in mock disappointment as
he leans back in his chair and sets his feet on his desk. “And here I thought
you were this upstanding, law-abiding citizen. You know you have no right
to my data without a court order.”
“This is urgent. The warrant is coming, I’ll send it right over when it does.
But it doesn’t make sense to waste time waiting around for it when you can
just give me the records now.”
If he knew about Emily, that her life was in danger, it may soften him up.
As horrible as he was during our time as a family, he had a soft spot for her.
But I don’t know how to bring her into the conversation without telling him
the truth about us. A truth that I’m certain he won’t be happy about after
what Emily told me about her mom.
“You’re something else, you know that?” My dad pushes up from his chair,
and ambles around the desk to pace the length of the floor behind me. “You
have the balls to come waltzing in here like nothing happened, like you
didn’t toss me away like a used napkin, and ask me for a favor?” He stops
his pacing long enough to fix me with an angry glare.
I can’t stand being talked down to, especially by him, so I stand up, too.
Squaring my shoulders, I meet his hateful gaze head on. I refuse to shrink in
front of him.
“It’s not a favor,” I say. My voice is strained by the effort it takes to keep
calm. “I’m asking you to do the right thing. If we don’t act fast, someone
could end up getting hurt.”
“Yeah, that sounds like your problem, kiddo. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
He turns to leave, and without thinking, I grab a hold of his arm and spin
him back round to face me. His eyes are wide with alarm.
“Can’t you just do the right thing for once in your life? For me?”
“For you?” My dad pulls out of my grip and takes a few steps back. “I owe
you nothing! You were the one who walked away from me—”
“You made it impossible not to!” My temper has finally cracked. He almost
looks pleased with himself as he carries on.
“—telling me you never wanted to see me again, calling me all kinds of
trash, saying what a waste of space I was.”
“Yeah, well, you walk out of here without helping me and you’ll just be
proving me right.”
He scoffs. “And if I help you? Are you suddenly going to change your mind
about me? Start coming over to watch the game together?”
I drop my eyes. I don’t know how logical it is for me to be the one feeling
guilty right now, but here we are.
“That’s what I thought,” he says. “You came here to use me, to take what
you wanted, and then disappear. And you think I’m the bad guy?”
I look up at him then, my eyes daggers that I wish could actually pierce
him. They don’t. And they don’t stop him from talking either.
“Son—”
“Don’t.”
“—I gotta say, you’ve turned out to be a chip off the old block.”
“Shut up.”
He holds up his hands as a sign of surrender. “Just calling ‘em like I see
‘em. You think I don’t know a sleazebag user when I see one? I wrote the
book on it, Petey.”
“Screw you.” I advance on my dad in two short strides and in seconds, I
have balls of his shirt in my fists and he’s pressed up against the wall. “I am
nothing like you,” I say, decades of disdain seething in my words.
He lets out a smug, strangled little laugh. “You sure about that?”
My dad uses both his arms to push his way out of my enraged grip and
slinks off to the side. I don’t move, afraid I might go for him again. So I
stand there, staring at the blank wall, trying to regain control of my temper.
“So, I guess I’ll see you in a few years, then.”
I hear the door open and my dad leaves. I close my eyes and focus on my
breathing. I have to calm down. I can’t believe I’m going to walk out of
here having failed. With everything about this case coming up empty, I
don’t have a clue what our next step is going to be.
At least this way I figured there might be an alternate address for Trevor. A
lot of kids are living with their parents when they apply to college, and that
could be why he never showed up at the address we got from UMass. But if
the guy had bought that car after moving out, the insurance papers might
have his new address. It was a long shot, but a good one.
I could get Ross and the guys to try the other dealerships, but this is the
only one central to the school, Trevor’s parents, and Emily’s old apartment.
If chances were slim I’d find his sales records here, they become close to
zero at any other dealer.
“Peter?”
I jump at the sound of my name. There’s a mature, stern-looking woman
standing in the open doorway. I recognize her as the assistant we passed on
our way in. My dad’s assistant. I’ve never met her before, but he must have
told her my name just now when he ordered her to throw me off the
premises.
“It’s okay, I was just leaving.” Without making eye contact, I edge around
her and try to make a hasty getaway.
“Before you go,” she says, blocking my exit with the cream-colored folder
that she’s holding out to me, “your father told me to get you these.”

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER ELEVEN

Emily

I t’s been almost a week since I stopped going to classes, and I’m still not
able to relax. After Peter left, I got dressed, opting for my yoga pants
and an old school t-shirt from my freshman year, only because I didn’t see
the point in dressing up if I am forbidden from setting foot outside the
apartment.
Being in a particularly sulky mood because of that, I put on some Lana Del
Rey and flopped onto the couch with my Organic Chemistry textbook. I’m
sure anyone else in my position would be glad for some time off school, but
with graduation still hanging in the balance, I’m a wreck about it.
My phone rings, the sound piercing the stillness of the apartment. I check
the time as I answer and realize I’ve been lying here reading for three hours
already. But before I give my lunchtime hunger pangs any attention, I
answer the call.
“Hey, Heather, what’s up?” I’m happy to hear her voice. She’s been calling
me every day to check up on me. I miss her.
“I miss you, that’s what’s up,” she says, as if she’s reading my mind.
“Please tell me we can do something this weekend.”
“Peter doesn’t think it’s a good idea. Not until they can get a location on—
on the stalker.” I curse softly under my breath at nearly letting Trevor’s
name slip.
That’s another one of Peter’s rules: nobody can know he’s a suspect until
the cops are ready to bring him in. I hate having to keep things from
Heather this way, but she’ll understand once I can explain it to her.
“And how are things with Peter?” I can hear disappointment in her voice,
but also something else that sounds like amusement.
“Are you ever going to give me a break on this?”
“Oh, come on, Em, you can’t expect me to say nothing when you break the
news that you’re seeing someone, have subsequently moved in with him,
and that he just happens to be a chief of police with ripped abs.”
I laugh. “As your best friend, I can ask anything of you.”
“Yeah, but as your best friend I reserve the right to make fun of you at
will.”
I won’t say it, but I like that Heather spends some time giving me grief
about Peter on these phone calls. It makes me feel as though things are
normal. Even if it’s just for a little while.
We talk for an hour, just like every other time she calls. She fills me in on
school and life on the outside, and I lament about being cooped up and
losing my mind, just like every other time she calls.
“Okay, so spill,” Heather says, after I’ve given her a boring rundown of my
breakfast routine. “What’s the deal with you and Peter?”
“What?” I don’t know how to respond to that. Mostly because I haven’t
really made much sense of it myself.
“Don’t play coy with me, Em. I’ve known you for four years now, and I’ve
never heard you get this way about a guy. Hell, you’ve never had a guy to
speak of.”
“There’s nothing much to say, Heather. I don’t know what you—”
“Fine, I’ll spell it out,” she interrupts me impatiently, but in her Heather
way, so I know she’s not mad or anything. “Is this a convenience? Are you
going to be scanning the classifieds for apartments to rent once this whole
creepo stalker thing is over…. Or is it the other thing?”
I wait for her to go into detail about what the other thing might be, but she
doesn’t. She’s waiting expectantly for me to answer her question.
I’ve never thought of Peter as a convenience. I mean, yes, it worked out that
he had a place for me to stay when I couldn’t go back to my old apartment
and that he’s in a position to drive the investigation of my case. But I was
never using him for any of that.
And the thought of leaving him once it’s all over makes my stomach ache.
“It’s the other thing,” I say eventually.
A loud squeal rings through the phone. I can hear Heather quite clearly
freaking out, even though I have my cell phone a good distance away from
my ear.
“Are you finished?” I project my raised voice toward the mouthpiece and
hear Heather immediately quiet down. “I wish we could have had this
conversation in person,” I say, once the phone is back at my ear and Heather
is again approachable.
“I know, me, too. But you can still give me all the details over the phone,”
she says hopefully.
“Details? You mean about how I think I’m falling for him, but I can’t be
sure if it’s real or whether it’s residual effects of this messed up life or death
situation we’re in?”
“Don’t say that. You know better than anyone whether it’s real or not,
Emily. You just have to learn to trust yourself.”
“Trust myself. Great, that sounds easy enough. Let’s see…yep, done. I trust
myself. Gee, thanks, Heather. What would I do without you?”
“Bite me. I never said it would be easy, just that it should be done. You
know I’m right.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. As always.”
“Glad you noticed. But look, I have to pick up Mark at the library in ten
minutes. Same time tomorrow?”
“Yeah, sure, abandon me why don’t you?”
“Love you, too,” she says, and hangs up.
I put my phone down on the couch next to me, and feel sad and empty. For
the time I had Heather on the line, it felt like she was there with me. Now
I’m alone again. Alone and caged in.
Peter’s keys are still in the door where I left them after locking up this
morning when he went to follow up on that lead. It’s like they’re calling out
to me from across the room.
The security in this place is really good; he said so himself the night he first
brought me here. And the whole reason I’m here at all is because Trevor has
no idea about Peter.
Surely it wouldn’t hurt for me to step outside for a minute or two?
There’s a chill in the air despite the blinding afternoon sun glinting off the
clouds. I take a second to get my bearings. I haven’t really explored the
surroundings of Peter’s building since we only ever move through the space
between his parking spot and the entrance.
To my left, there’s a cobbled pathway weaving through pale purple
hydrangeas, all the way up to the end of the building. To my right is the
same kind of path, but shorter. It stops at the high wrought-iron fence that
gates in the apartment block. Adjacent to the fence are several mailboxes
against the wall, black against the muted gray. I’ve brought along Peter’s
mailbox key as part of my cover story for being outside and make a mental
note to check the mail on my way back inside.
I opt to take the path to my left, obviously, because the parking lot is ahead
and I’ve already seen enough of that.
There are only a few cars in their bays, given it’s the middle of a weekday.
If I had to guess, I’d say one of them belongs to the brunette on Peter’s
floor. She has a noisy toddler and is most likely a stay-at-home mom. I
never learned her name, even though we’ve shared polite smiles on the
elevator once or twice.
Come to think of it, Peter doesn’t seem to be friendly with any of his
neighbors. I’ve never seen him take a call from someone that wasn’t a
colleague, and when we go out, there are never any run-ins with people in
his social circle.
The collateral damage of a life dedicated to work.
Instead of making me feel better, this walk is making me feel worse. It’s
being in my head that’s the problem, I know. The location doesn’t matter at
all. I miss people, and listening to things they have to say that have nothing
to do with me.
I don’t understand how Peter has managed to do this for so long. Isolating
himself, with nothing but work and sleep to fill his hours. So far, it’s the
biggest difference between us. If this is real and I’m falling in love with
him, what would our life together look like? Would he be open to, well,
opening up? Or would I be the lonely wife, explaining to guests at every
event why her husband couldn’t make it?
I stop walking a few feet from the edge of the path and turn to head back
inside. Sight-seeing around the apartment complex has suddenly dropped to
the bottom of my priority list. I’m going to call Heather back and set up a
lunch date for tomorrow. And maybe, if I sell it just right, Peter will agree
to join.
As I pull open the large door to the entrance hall, the black mailboxes catch
my eye. For a second, I consider abandoning my cover story. I don’t think
Peter would fall for it anyway. He’d just tell me I should have left the mail
for him to collect.
But I’m tired of being told what to do.
When I get to the mailbox, my internal battle seems to have been for
nothing because it’s empty except for one envelope. Rolling my eyes, I grab
it and quickly lock up the mailbox again before dashing inside. These past
few days of social extraction have clearly increased my mind’s ability to
create unnecessary drama. Heather would be proud.
I pass the elevator, choosing the stairs instead. It feels good to get my heart
pumping and work up a sweat, even if it is a small one. This staircase dash
will more than justify my popcorn with a side of Netflix later. I smile to
myself as I push through the door that opens onto Peter’s floor. It’s nice
how some things have stayed the same at least.
Back inside, I replace Peter’s mailbox key, toss the envelope on the kitchen
counter, and grab a water from the fridge. I’m about to go through to the
living room to get my phone when my eye catches something.
That familiar knot of anxiety starts up in my stomach as I stand there, feet
planted on the floor, looking at the brown envelope on Peter’s kitchen
counter. The envelope with my name scrawled across it in black marker.
I should probably have called Peter first thing, but before any rational
thought can catch up with my actions, I’m on the bed, my shaky hands
plugging the unmarked USB into Peter’s laptop. The explorer window pops
up almost instantly and my heart jumps into my throat.
There’s a single video file on it. It’s called simply, Emily.
I look around, half expecting Trevor to step out from the closet, or the
bathroom, or from under the bed. He doesn’t. I’m still all alone.
I double-click the file.
All of a sudden, the apartment is far too quiet a backdrop for my internal
freak-out. I wish the album I’d chosen earlier was longer. At least with the
music on, it felt as though there was some life in here.
Finally, the video window opens on a blank scene.
No, not blank. It’s a room with bare, white walls. Only once the masked
figure steps into frame and sits down do I notice there was a chair there at
all.
He’s wearing a bottle green hoodie with the hood up and one of those
masks made famous by the hacker group, Anonymous. The dead eyes and
fixed smile creep the hell out of me.
Emily, I love you.
The distorted voice comes so suddenly and so loudly, I jump back against
the pillows, kicking the laptop away from me. But it doesn’t stop. I press
my hands flat against my ears to drown out the sound. I can still hear it,
though. It’s like a looping GIF, playing over and over again.
I want to make a run for it. To call Peter and tell him the psycho knows
where I am. But I can’t move. And I can’t look away from the laptop’s
screen either. Stinging with hot, fearful tears, my eyes stay glued to the man
there. To the hooded figure sitting down, over and over, staring through me
with dead, black eyes.
Telling me he loves me.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWELVE

Peter

E mily still hasn’t said a word.

Not since the phone call. I thought she sounded strange, almost robotic,
when she called to tell me to come home, that she needed me.
I dropped everything, radioed my team to haul ass to my place, and left the
station immediately. By the time I got to my apartment building, Ross and
the guys were already inside. The building, that is.
When I got off the elevator, they were standing outside my door. Emily
wouldn’t let them in. It took a few minutes of coaxing from me before she
eventually opened it.
One look at her, and I knew it was bad.
After the video, though, all that adrenaline that had been driving me balled
up together into this heavy mass of guilt that settled right in my chest. I
promised I would keep her safe. I should’ve done better.
“Can I get you anything?”
Emily’s curled up on the bed in the hotel room, staring off at nothing. The
way she’s lying there, with her hair tied up and her legs pulled in, she looks
decades younger than she actually is. Small and terrified. She doesn’t
answer me.
I go to check the lock on the door, even though I’ve done so three times
already. I cross the floor and tug at the curtains, making sure not even a
sliver of what’s outside can make it through. These things I do in an attempt
to make me feel safer, so that I can make her feel safe. Because I’ve failed
her once and I don’t want it to happen again.
But safety checks are meaningless, of course. None of it matters. This sicko
has been one step ahead of us the whole time, and now he’s starting to
flaunt it. That’s why I have my guys on patrol outside, on the lookout for
that Mazda anywhere close to the hotel.
I go to sit on the edge of the bed at her feet. I’ve never felt more alone in
my life. And that’s saying something coming from me, the guy who has
spent so many years married to his work. Mr. Independent, who enjoys the
emptiness of his apartment and his social calendar.
But now that I’ve found Emily, I can’t imagine not having her in my life.
It’s scary as hell, but I know it’s true. I just don’t know if she feels the same
way. She’s pulling away from me, I can feel it. It’s subtle, but it’s definitely
there. She blames me. I would, too, if I were her.
“We should be safe here for the time being,” I mutter to the plush, beige
carpet under my feet. “I have a team downstairs, and another on a 24-hour
patrol of the area.”
Silence.
“I could run you a bath?” I’m running on empty, saying anything that pops
into my head. “I saw they have candles in there. Might be nice.”
If something doesn’t give soon, I’m calling it a night. Maybe that’s what
she needs, some space, and we’ll talk in the morning when she’s had time to
process.
“Candles?”
Oh, thank God, she’s finally said something. I turn to face her as she pulls
up to sit.
“Candles?” she says again. I know that look on her face. I’ve seen it before.
My heart sinks. “Are you fucking kidding me, Peter?”
I say nothing.
“There’s a crazy person out there who’s hellbent on terrorizing me, possibly
to death if he can have his way, and you’re talking about candles?”
“I don’t know what you want from me, Emily,” I say, and push up from the
bed.
My temper’s slipping a little. Understandably so, after the day I’ve had. But
she doesn’t know anything about that, about the dead-end case, about my
father, any of it.
I take a breath. “I just meant it would really help if you didn’t freeze me out
like this.”
“Sorry if my trauma is a little too inconvenient for you,” she says, and pulls
her knees up, hugging them to her chest.
“Don’t do that. Sulking isn’t going to help anything. I’m trying to have an
open conversation with you.”
“And I’m trying to figure out how the hell we got here, Peter. How we
ended up in this hotel room because he found me at your apartment.”
Shit.
“If you had a team watching his every move, how did that happen, Peter?
How did a man whose description they have, driving a car they’ve been on
the lookout for, get into the secure apartment block of a cop he’s never met,
to deliver something to a woman he’s not supposed to even know is there?
How did they miss that?”
Emily looks absolutely lost and afraid, and she’s turning to me for answers.
I sigh heavily and run my fingers through my hair. I don’t think I can avoid
the truth much longer. And after what happened today, maybe it’s best that
she knows everything. Better to have her guard up than make a silly
mistake because she doesn’t have all the facts.
“It’s because they weren’t watching his every move,” I say, and move to
lean against the closet behind me.
Her face clouds with confusion as my words percolate in the space between
us.
“I don’t understand,” she says, dropping her legs over the side of the bed.
“I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to panic about
something that could end up being nothing. It—”
“What didn’t you tell me?” Her voice is low, filled with a warning that I
know I’d be better off paying attention to.
I shake my head slowly. “We never had him, Emily. We were never even
close to having him.”
“What do you mean, you were never close?”
“He dropped off the map the day after he talked to you from his car. The
address was a dead-end, he hasn’t been showing up for classes, he’s just…
gone.”
She bites her lips, glowering at me. There’s so much racing behind those
eyes of hers, but what strikes me most is the hurt I see there. Plain as day. A
part of me wishes that she would lash out at me, get angry, because the
silence is way worse.
“I was trying,” I say. “I even went to my dad today, who I haven’t seen in I
don’t know how long and who I didn’t necessarily want to see again, ever.”
“Gee, thanks for that mighty big sacrifice, Peter. I feel so much better about
being lied to now.”
“That’s not what I meant. I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t mean to what?” Without warning, Emily closes the gap
between us until she’s right up in my face. “Make it sound like you’re the
saint in all of this? Try to play it off like I should be thanking you?”
I open my mouth to respond, but she jumps in before I can say anything.
“Because there’s nothing saintly or even medium good about lying and
going behind my back, Peter. Especially not when there are things like, oh,
only my whole goddamn life in the balance.”
“Emily—” I try to take a hold of her hands, but she immediately pulls away
from me.
“Don’t Emily me,” she says, seething.
“I was trying to protect you. Don’t you get that? I thought I was doing the
right thing. I was doing it, all of it, for you.”
She scoffs. “I suppose I can’t blame you.” Her voice is strained and low.
“After all, it’s not like you had the best role model when it came to how to
treat a woman.”
I can’t believe she’s gone there. Of all the hurtful things to say to me—
“My mom was right about you all along,” she says, with an empty laugh
that hits me square in the chest. “The apple really doesn’t—”
“Don’t.” My jaw is clenched, my fists balled at my sides.
If there’s one thing on this planet I can’t stand, it’s being compared to my
father. Not when I’ve worked so hard to be the total opposite of him. And
now, as I’ve just learned, the thing I can’t stand even more is that Emily
thinks I’m like him.
“Don’t what, Peter? Don’t say things that are true, because you’re all about
the lies we tell?”
“I’m nothing like my father, and you know that. So don’t do that. You want
to argue with me, fine. Let’s have at it. But don’t do that.”
She drops her eyes, and even though she doesn’t say anything, I know I’ve
gotten through to her. Arguments are fine to have, but when they spiral into
hurt and destruction, that’s when your real problems begin. I’ve seen it
happen enough times in my father’s relationships to know that for a fact.
“I was doing it for you,” I say then. “How can you not see that? I knew that
if I filled you in on just how badly the investigation was going, that you’d
—”
“Well, I’m not some precious little thing that’s made of glass, Peter. I won’t
break at the slightest obstacle. And you sure as hell don’t get to choose what
I can and can’t handle,” she says, her chest heaving from the way her breath
is coming, ragged and fast.
And then it hits me like a pile of bricks. She’s right.
Even though my intentions were good, I had no right to keep details about
the case from her. By negating her own control over her life, I basically
acted exactly like my father.
“I’m sorry, Emily,” I say, with all the sincerity I can muster. I hold out my
hands to her. “I didn’t see it at the time, but I get it now. Keeping you in the
dark wasn’t the best way to protect you.”
Her shoulders slump, telling me the fight has gone out of her, too. I
approach her slowly with my arms still outstretched.
“It won’t happen again,” I say, as I come up in front of her.
She doesn’t pull away.
Instead, Emily steps into me, allowing me to wrap my arms around her as
she buries her head in my chest.
“I hate fighting with you,” she says, her voice trembling. “Of all people, not
you.”
“Okay, new rule,” I say, kissing the top of her head. “No more lies, no
matter what.”
Her head bobs against my chest as she nods. “Deal.”
I gently stroke her head, relishing the relief of having her in my arms like
this. I didn’t think it was possible before, but it feels as though we’re even
closer than we were a few hours ago. Our connection even deeper. I don’t
understand it, but I’m not interested in analyzing the thing to death. It is
what it is, and it’s fucking amazing.
Amazing and incredible, how this person has managed to upend my life in a
matter of days, to the point that I’m standing in a hotel room, thinking about
how I never want to let her go.
OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Emily

I wake up, and the room is plunged in darkness. Peter’s steady breathing
is the only sound at all. I roll over and look at him.
He’s lying with his back to me, his shoulder rising and falling with every
breath. The rhythm of it is so hypnotic, after watching him for a moment
my eyes begin to droop. But I don’t want to go back to sleep just yet.
I move closer to him, shaping my body around his form, with my one arm
over his waist. I press against him, loving the way our bodies fit together,
the way they seemingly become one. His breathing guiding mine, his
heartbeat in my own chest.
“Peter?” I place the softest kiss on his spine, lingering there just a little
longer than I should.
He inhales deeply, and then quietly moans the breath back out. But he says
nothing. I know he’s just as exhausted as I am, and that I should probably
let him sleep. But my own sleep is broken because of something terrible,
and I know I won’t find peace until I fix it.
“Peter,” I say again; this time I rock my entire body to give him a nudge.
“Peter, wake up.”
Finally, he begins to stir and shifts onto his back.
“What is it?” he says, his voice thick with sleep. “Are you okay?”
“I will be,” I say, moving into his outstretched arms. I snuggle up to the
welcoming comfort of his bare skin against mine, trailing my fingertips
lightly up and down his smooth chest. “I just wanted to say sorry. About
before.”
His hands snake into my hair and begin gently massaging my head. “It’s
okay, Emily. We’re both sorry, we both said things that could’ve been left
alone.”
“No, no.” I lift myself onto my elbow so that I can look at him. “I don’t
think you’re like your dad at all. I feel horrible for saying it. But mostly I
hate that I hurt you.”
“Let’s call it even then,” Peter says, “and start over.”
“You forgive me, right?”
He cups my cheek with his hand, his thumb making small, feathery circles
that send shivers down my spine. “Of course I do, Emily,” he says.
“Good, because I couldn’t bear it if you hated me.” I cross my one leg over
his and press in closer. I place a soft kiss on his chest and rest my chin
there, still looking at him.
Something moves behind his eyes, and then he says, “I could never hate
you. You know, all these years, after losing contact with you, I thought it
was you who hated me. I thought you didn’t want to have anything to do
with me because of what my dad had done to your mom.”
I swallow. “Oh, Peter.”
The look of vulnerability on his face is excruciating. If he only knew!
My heart breaks a little at the thought of him out there in the world,
believing that I resented him, when at the same time so many of my days
were spent longing to have him back in my life. One way or another. I
would’ve been happy to have him around as a friend.
Of course, having him as more than a friend was my first preference.
“The time we were apart,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “so much of
that was spent hoping I’d see you again.”
His face brightens a little. “It was?”
“God, yes. I used to send text messages to that old number all the time.
Even when I got no reply.” My cheeks grow warm. I can’t believe I’m
telling him this. “It’s stupid, I know, but—”
“It’s not stupid, it’s amazing.” He shifts under me, the motion causing his
thigh to rub between my legs. “You’re amazing,” he says, and bends down
to place the sweetest of kisses to my lips.
And for the first time since all of this started, I feel the courage to be totally
open and honest with him.
“Peter, I—I’m in love with you.”
The widest smile breaks onto his face and he laughs softly, the vibrations
coursing through me.
“You don’t know how good it feels to hear that,” he says. “Because I love
you, too, Emily.” He kisses me again. “I think I’ve loved you for a really
long time, in fact. I just didn’t know it what it was.”
Those words send a rush of emotions bursting through me, not all of them
good.
He must notice, because he looks concerned when he says, “What is it?”
“It’s just,” I sigh heavily. “I don’t know.”
“You can tell me.” He wraps his arm around me, his other hand still on my
face.
I nod softly. I know I’m safe with him, that I can share anything with him
and it’ll be okay. Besides, I feel like tonight has been a real milestone in our
relationship. A development in our already intense connection. And so I tell
him.
“I just feel like this whole thing was doomed before it started.”
A furrow creases his brow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean our parents, for starters.” A look of realization dawns on his face.
“They hate each other, Peter.”
“I know.”
“How are we supposed to deal with that? What kind of life would we have
together? I feel like that’s such a huge obstacle that we won’t be able to
overcome it. I’m terrified that the poison from their relationship will spill
over into ours.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
He’s trying to reassure me, I know, but it’s not working.
“And then there’s the small matter of Trevor.”
“Emily—”
“No.” I place my fingers on his lips to stop him from speaking. “I know
what you’re going to say. That we’ll get through it, and that everything will
be fine.”
I drop my hand from his mouth and wish I could kiss him. But I just grab a
hold of his hand instead and grip it tightly.
“But, Peter, you know as well as I do that it’s not that simple. Can you stand
to live your life in hiding? Because I know I can’t. And I feel like the
second I let down my guard, something horrible is going to happen.”
“Look, I promised you I was going to get this guy, and that’s what I’m
going to do.”
“I trust you. I know if anyone can get him, you can. But what happens in
the meantime?”
He doesn’t say anything, but pulls me even closer to him.
“I just don’t want to end up regretting anything. I don’t want to do this with
you if it’s going to be ruined in the end,” I say.
“Emily.” He finally finds his voice. “Do you honestly think that what we
have is so fragile it can’t withstand a little hardship?”
I scoff at this. “I’d hardly classify our parents a little hardship, Peter. Same
for the psycho-killer stalker. It’s foolish to think—”
“Hear me out,” he says, and I grow quiet again. “You and I, we’ve had this
connection between us since we first met all those years ago. It was there
even when we were both too young and stupid to know it for what it was.
And even though we’ve been apart this whole time, that connection never
went away. Right?”
I nod my agreement.
“Now,” he goes on, “now that we are here, in this moment, together,” he
puts his finger under my chin to tilt my head up, “you can’t deny that our
connection has only grown stronger instead of fading away.”
The unmasked look of pure love in his eyes makes hot tears spring up in
mine. I feel so much for him, lying here in his arms, that I can hardly
breathe.
“I believe we’re meant to be, Emily. I believe that with every fiber of my
being.”
“I feel it, too. I just don’t know if—”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “None of those other things matter. Not your
mom, my dad, Trevor, not any of it. Because we will find a way to get
through it all in one piece, and we will be together. Happily. It’s our
destiny.”
I laugh softly and wipe the tears from my cheeks. “Did you just pull the
destiny card on me?”
“Maybe I did. But only because it’s true. I don’t care if it’s cheesy or
whatever. I love you, Emily.”
If I thought my heart was full to bursting before, hearing him actually say
those words sends me over the edge.
“I love you, too, Peter.”
And before I realize what’s happening, Peter has flipped us over and
positioned himself on top me.
“And I want to spend the rest of my life showing you just how much I love
you,” he says.
He spreads me open using his knees and sinks between my legs. I sigh into
the feel of his cock twitching against me there and buck my hips to rub up
against him.
“You may not believe that we can make it, but I’ll spend every second of
my life showing you we can.”
And then he kisses me, hard. His tongue plunges into my mouth with a kind
of urgency I haven’t felt from him before. It’s like he wants to convince me
so badly that our love will work, and this is the only way he knows how to
do it.
And how can I resist it? How can I question it when I can feel his
overwhelming love for me in every touch, every look?
A slow heat rises in my center.
I break from the kiss, breathless, and say, “I believe you, Peter. I want to
spend my life loving you, too.”
He rocks his hips down into me, sliding his deliciously hard cock between
my already dripping folds. The sensation starts as a tingling in my clit that
curls and then snakes its way through my aching core, branching out and
taking over my whole body.
It’s like we’re made of pure energy, him and me, and our bodies are on fire.
I wrap my legs around him and pull him closer. I want him so badly I could
cry.
“Emily, wait,” Peter says, his breathing comes in ragged pants on my
mouth.
But I don’t want to wait. I’ve never needed anyone as much as I need him
right now. The tension between my legs is growing more painful with each
passing second, and I know that Peter is my answer to its release.
I glide my hands lightly up the length of his body, starting at his tight ass.
He shudders under my feather-light touch. I keep going, ghosting all the
way up the ripped muscles in his back, over his strong shoulders, until
finally I clasp them around his neck. I pull him down so that his lips are just
grazing mine.
“I need you, Peter. I want you inside me. All of you.”
And when I take his mouth with mine, he thrusts into me with such force I
cry out. The length of him, unsheathed and throbbing inside me, is like no
other ecstacy I’ve ever felt. And still, I want more. It’s like we can’t get
close enough.
“Yes, oh God, Peter!”
Spurred on by some desperate hunger, he pulls out halfway and plunges
into me again. Harder than before. A low growl reverberates through his
body as he pushes himself deeper. Lifting my legs higher, I give him more
of me and he accepts it passionately. Fills me up.
I’m gasping for breath, my head spinning with the wonderful feel of the
man I love, loving me so hard.
He’s working up a steady rhythm, his face buried in my neck, strangled
breath hot and wet against my flushed skin.
“Fuck, Emily, you feel so fucking good.”
I clench my muscles, gripping his cock as tight as I can, and the primal
moan that breaks from his lips just then is nothing less than euphoria. He’s
trembling on top of me, and the idea that I’m the one who evoked this
reaction is so fucking hot.
“I love you. God, I love you.” Peter’s words are steamy whispers crawling
on the surface of my skin.
They burn through me like white-hot bolts of lightning to pool between my
legs and erupt in a mind-blowing quaking that takes over my whole body.
I’m ready. I’m so ready to let go and let my entire being unravel. The tell-
tale spasms start up in my core. I’m so close! I’m done.
Then Peter puts his mouth to my ear and growls, “Turn around.”

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Peter

I f someone came up to me a month ago and told me that a few weeks

from then, I’d be watching Emily hang some frames on our living room
wall while I read the morning paper on the couch, I would’ve told them
they’re crazy. And yet, here we are.
It’s incredible to think about how we got here and what we may be risking.
But every morning I get to wake up and see her beautiful face, feel her arms
around me, it makes it all worth it. We’ve settled into a comfortable
domestic routine that’s so good, I sometimes can’t believe this is my life.
“What do you think, hon?” Emily stands aside so I can get a clear look at
her latest attempt with the picture wall.
I lower the newspaper and try to seem interested in the three modern art
prints. She picked them up online as a passive aggressive retaliation after I
told her we couldn’t go to her favorite gallery’s new exhibition two weeks
ago. I’m pretty sure that, along with using my credit card to make the
purchase, making me sit through all this is part of my punishment.
The frames look exactly like the previous arrangement and the one before
that. But I know better than to say so, of course. Instead, I’ve perfected the
art of feigned interest to help me survive it unscathed.
It begins with a thoughtful tilt of my head and narrowing of my eyes. Then I
have to deliberate with myself. “Hmmm,” I say, tapping my forefinger to
my chin. And then a sudden revelation is needed to drive the performance
home.
This time I go with, “You know, babe, I think you’ve really nailed it this
time. The composition instantly uplifts the whole room.”
I look over to her and have to bite back a laugh. Because Emily’s glaring at
me, hands on her hips, looking unimpressed.
“The composition instantly uplifts the whole room?” She’s eyeing me
suspiciously.
“Yes, exactly.”
“Oh, okay, I just wanted to double check. Because the one I showed you a
minute ago also instantly uplifted the whole room,” she says, using her
fingers to air quote the last part.
Crap.
My perfect art just got busted.
I start laughing, but Emily doesn’t seem to find it funny at all from the way
she’s scowling at me. The look on her face just makes me laugh harder.
She’s so cute when she gets this way. It makes my heart melt.
“Aw, babe, I’m sorry,” I say, tossing the paper aside and going over to her,
arms outstretched. “Come here.”
She slaps my hands away. “No. Leave me alone.”
I ignore her over-emphasized pouting and pull her into me. She pretends to
struggle, but I know she likes it. She’s already told me my arms are her
favorite place to be.
“Look, I love that you’re putting all this effort into making our home
beautiful.”
This gets her to give up the act, and she looks up at me with a broad smile
on her face. “Our home,” she says, wistfully. “I’m still not used to the
sound of that.”
“Well, you better get there fast, because this is how it’s going to be from
now on.”
I place a soft kiss on her lips and she hums her pleasure. There’s a second
where it feels like this is going to be one of those kisses that could lead to
something more, but my excitement is bulldozed by the sound of shrill
ringing.
Emily groans and steps out of my arms to go answer her phone.
“Ignore it,” I call after her, but she’s already answering.
“Hi, Mom,” she says, rolling her eyes.
She walks through to the kitchen to take the call, making the motion of a
knife slicing her throat as she comes by me. I smile, but a twinge of guilt
coils in my belly, and when Emily disappears into the kitchen, my face
drops the fake smile instantly.
The phone calls from her mother come regularly, and I’ve overheard Emily
lie countless times about where she’s staying and who she’s with. I know it
bugs her, even though she hasn’t said as much.
And to make things worse, it’s my fault.
I was the one who promised her that things would work out. But it’s been
more than a month and we’ve made no progress in that department. Now,
Trevor isn’t the only one we’re hiding from and it sucks. When that phone
rings and it’s her mother, it sucks even more.
All this secrecy is like a black cloud hanging low over the indescribable
bliss we’ve found in each other. If I’m honest with myself, it’s the one thing
keeping me from actually moving off the sidewalk and going into Tiffany’s.
Going in and buying the engagement ring I’ve been staring at through the
window every day for a week.
“You know what I hate?” Emily comes back into the living room and tosses
her phone on the couch.
I scramble to hide any evidence of my thoughts that might be on my face
and shrug. “The patriarchy?”
She gives me a look, the one I’ve grown accustomed to getting whenever I
make stupid comments. “No, dummy. I mean, yes, of course I hate the
patriarchy. But also I hate how whenever she calls—”
“Your mom?”
Emily nods. “When she calls, it just reminds me of something.”
“Reminds you of what?” I go over to her and give her shoulder a gentle rub.
“It’s so easy to forget,” she says, “when it’s just you and me, and we’re
together. There’s this protective bubble of ignorant bliss, you know?”
I nod, smiling. I know exactly what she means. And I also know where
she’s going with this.
“So I hate when she calls and inevitably, the bubble bursts,” Emily says.
“Because say she asks me to lunch. I then have to think about where I’m
allowed to go, of a day when there’ll be a team available to tail me. It’s just
—”
I take her into my arms again. “I know, sweetie, I know.”
“I’m so tired of it, Peter. I want my life back.”
Her utter exhaustion with the situation is evident in her voice, and it makes
me feel even worse.
“Soon, okay? I can feel that we’re closing in on this guy. It’ll be soon.
Promise.”
Another promise. The word is beginning to feel stale in my mouth
whenever I say it. The last thing I want is to disappoint Emily, to have a part
in her unhappiness. When I think about our life together, there’s no room
for any of this negative bullshit. I want to be for her what she’s been for me.
But it’s becoming more and more obvious that time is running out, though.
Emily won’t be able to live like this for much longer, and I can’t keep
watching her grow more and more depressed about it. This is supposed to
be the happiest time of our lives. And if I’m ever going to get a ring on her
finger, I better start following through on these promises.
Sooner rather than later.

I get to start on my new goal as soon as I get to work later that day when
Ross comes over to me as soon as I walk in to the station.
“Hey, Chief, what’s up?”
“Same as five minutes ago when you called me. What do you have?” I
continue through to my office, with Ross hurrying close behind.
“Boss.” Denise stands up behind her desk and holds out her hand as I go by.
“Hi, Denise,” I greet her in passing, swiping the stack of bright pink Post-
Its from her outstretched hand. “No calls until 11, please.”
“Sure thing, Boss,” she says, and pulls my office door closed behind Ross
and me.
This is the new rhythm of my work days. I start much later than I used to,
not only because I like to begin my day having breakfast at home with
Emily, but also because now that we’re out in South Boston, the commute is
killer. During peak hours, it’s worse than that. Then I also finish up a lot
earlier because I want to be home with Emily before nightfall. It’s also
easier to keep a look out for anyone tailing me when the sun is up.
Emily was right this morning; living like this is exhausting.
“Please tell me you’ve got something good,” I say, sinking into the soft
leather chair behind my desk.
Ross takes up one of the chairs opposite me. He looks excited, more excited
than I’ve seen him in far too long. A little spark of hope ignites in my chest.
“After all the brick walls we keep coming up against,” Ross says, “this isn’t
just good, Chief. It’s a godsend.”
Now he has my interest piqued. Unless he’s taking me to see Trevor locked
up in custody, I don’t see what he could have that hits the same kind of
high. “Well, spit it out already. I’m dying over here, man.”
Ross edges forward and leans in, like he’s getting ready to share the
deepest, darkest secrets of the universe. It’s all a little dramatic in my
opinion, but I’ll grant him that. He’s been busting his ass on this case. Even
more than me, if you consider the amount of leg work he’s putting in.
Interviews, surveillance, you name it, Ross has taken point on it all.
“We got a positive ID on the car.”
I sit up in my chair. For some reason, my breath is stilted and shallow. It’s
almost as if I’m afraid that I’ll scare the good news away if I breathe too
hard or make any sudden movements.
“Got a hit on the registration at some mechanic down in Stonybrook,” he
says.
“Stonybrook? That’s way off-grid.”
He nods. “I know, we got lucky. He’s small time, works out of his garage at
home. No cash, only EFT. And clients have to use their registration as the
reference.”
“Fuck me.” I breathe the words as I fall back into my chair, totally deflated.
For months we’ve been trying to get eyes on this guy, and for months he’s
been meticulous about covering his tracks. Our web crawlers haven’t been
able to pick up a single thing. Until now, that is.
“Does he have anything else? Phone number, address?”
“I can do you one better,” Ross says, a sly smile creeping onto his face.
“He’s got the car.”

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Emily

I texted Heather the all-clear as soon as Peter left for work. Less than an
hour later, she was sitting with me in my living room, a paper bag from
the pharmacy on the table in front of us.
It’s her first time in our new apartment, so I have to give her time to take
the obligatory tour. We have a small, two-bedroom apartment, but Heather
makes a big deal about it anyway.
“Oh my God, Em, I love the Masao prints,” she says, fawning over my
freshly framed photos on the living room wall.
“It’s not a grand opening at Robert Klein, but I guess they’re okay.”
She turns to me and pouts. “Ugh, it wasn’t the same without you there, Em.
I hated it.”
“Shut up, you didn’t.”
“I swear, I was sulking the entire time.”
I roll my eyes at this, but I’m thankful she’s trying to make it sound like it
wasn’t a great night out for my sake. It’s even more confirmation that I
made the right choice having her here today.
Another thing Heather goes on and on about is Ted, Peter’s colleague and
her private security detail, who I called and asked to bring her over. “I feel
like I’m Jason Bourne, or Queen Elsa or something.”
Several other references to various spy movies are made, much to my
amusement.
I get a kick out of her reaction because she makes me laugh, but also
because that was pretty much my reaction to this whole setup when it first
started becoming a thing. Now it’s just a nuisance. Particularly when I try to
do something that I don’t want Peter to know about.
So far it’s been trivial things, like sneaking out to see a lunchtime movie
with Heather and the gang. Things that I don’t mind Peter finding out about
after the fact in the reports he makes the security write up.
But this time is different.
I asked Ted to please keep Heather’s visit to himself. It took some
convincing, but eventually he agreed. He could have been lying, of course,
just telling me what I wanted to hear so I’d get off his back, because he’s
under direct orders to report any and all activity to Peter. For obvious
reasons.
But I’m hoping he wasn’t lying. And that he’s downstairs, keeping my
secret about my stealth plans to arrange a surprise for Peter. It was
something I made up on the spot, but if things go the way I think they’re
about to, I might turn out to have been telling the truth all along.
“You look happy,” Heather says. “I mean, even with everything else that’s
still kind of up in the air.”
“I know, right? I don’t get it either. I shouldn’t be this happy.”
Heather makes a face. “Screw that. You’ve been through enough, don’t you
think? Take your happiness where you can, Em. You shouldn’t be feeling
guilty about any of it.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I say.
“Hey, I’m always right, remember? Now, can we do this already?”
“I equally want to and don’t want to.”
Heather grabs the bag and shoves it into my hands. “I’d pee on it for you, if
I could. But you’re going to have to settle for me holding your hand while
you pee.”
A laugh bubbles out of me. It’s crazy how she can get to me like this, as
nervous as I am.
“I love you, H, but I’d rather you not be in my personal space while I’m on
the toilet.”
I get up and make my way to the bathroom, paper bag in hand and an over-
eager Heather in tow. It’s a path I’ve walked hundreds of times, but it feels
decidedly longer today.
A part of me feels bad for taking this pregnancy test without Peter, but
there’s a bigger part that knows it’s better to save the drama, whatever it
might be, until I know exactly what I’m dealing with.
If it’s negative, then all this anxiety and terrifying anticipation will have
been for nothing. Better to have it be just me freak out than have it all
doubled by including Peter.
And if it’s positive...well, I haven’t really thought that far. I do know that I
want Peter’s baby. Nothing would make me happier than to have a family
with him. We both come from various versions of dysfunction and it would
be amazing to get the chance to be the kind of family to our kids that we’d
dreamed of having ourselves.
But there’s my mom and his dad, who still have no clue that we’re a couple,
let alone living together. And of course, there’s the small matter of my
crazed stalker who’s still out there somewhere. So, if the test is positive,
it’ll be the worst timing ever. Would Peter even want to venture through this
whole new dynamic with me?
“Wish me luck,” I say, going into the bathroom.
“Sure. What are we wishing for?”
I sigh heavily. “That an asteroid hits the planet and blows all of humanity to
smithereens before I can finish peeing on this stick.”
Heather crosses the fingers on both her hands and says, “Asteroids ahoy,
baby!”

I’m lying in bed watching TV when I hear the key in the front door. I
quickly grab the remote and turn off the show that I wasn’t really watching
in the first place. If Peter came in and asked what it was, I seriously
wouldn’t be able to tell him.
It was merely background noise for the gamut of emotions storming
through me. My first choice was Crichton’s Andromeda Evolution, but I
couldn’t get myself to focus. So, after spending ten minutes trying to read a
single paragraph, I gave up.
Now I pick up the book again and open it to a random page. Peter’s muffled
footsteps are getting closer, and my heart feels like it’s about to pound its
way clean out of my chest.
“There you are,” he says, as he appears in the doorway of our bedroom.
I sit up and ,out of habit, lay the book face down on the bed beside me.
That’s how much I’m freaking out; I’m careful to save my place in a book
I’m not even reading.
“Here I am. How was your day?”
He bends over to kiss me. Once on the mouth, and once on my forehead.
“It was a good one,” he says, sitting on the edge of the bed where he starts
to kick out of his shoes. “Let me grab a beer, and I’ll come back to tell you
how good of a day it was.” He bounces up off the bed and turns to me,
unbuttoning his shirt. “Do you want anything?”
I look up at him and shake my head. It’s like all my words have been used
up.
“You okay?” Peter studies me with narrow eyes. I shrug, and plaster a smile
on my face to sell it. “You sure?” I nod.
He doesn’t seem very convinced and looks at me a second longer.
Thankfully, the dull snap of a button popping off distracts him.
“Crap,” he says, holding the disc between his fingers. “They don’t make
things the way they used to. Ah, well, nothing lasts forever, I guess.”
Peter tosses the button onto my bedside table and then turns to leave. He
makes it all the way to the door before he freezes in place. Then he starts to
turn back, slowly, and his face is scrunched in pure confusion.
“What’s that?” He points to the pregnancy test lying on my bedside table.
His button had landed right next to it.
Here we go.
I take a deep breath. “It’s a pregnancy test.”
His eyes grow wide, and he starts approaching the test with the kind of
trepidation you’d expect if it were a real live snake. His gaze is fixed on it,
while I can’t tear my eyes away from his face, while I desperately try to get
a handle on what he’s thinking and feeling.
“Is it—what are those—what do the lines mean?”
“It’s positive,” I say. My voice is barely above a whisper.
Peter rakes his fingers through his hair and blows out a long, heavy breath.
“Wow,” he says, and hundreds of emotions play across his face at the same
time.
“I know.” I swing my legs over the side of the bed and reach out to take his
hand. “Peter—”
He finally looks at me, and the moment his eyes meet mine, the mix of
emotions gives way to the biggest smile.
And then he’s laughing. A loud, giddy laugh that rattles through me,
shaking loose my own happiness which I had carefully kept caged up this
whole time. I was waiting to see his reaction before I let myself feel
anything, and now that it’s done, I’m overcome by wave after wave of total
and utter joy.
Peter pulls me up and into his arms, lifting me off the floor as he spins me
around. We’re spinning, and laughing, and everything inside our little
bubble is perfect. He lets out this ear-splitting howl of celebration that
makes me laugh even harder.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe this,” he says through his laughter, which is
beginning to simmer down. “I can’t believe it!”
“So, you’re happy?” I ask as he sets me down. There’s no more spinning,
but he’s still holding onto me.
“Of course I am. Aren’t you?” He strokes my cheek lovingly.
A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. I don’t have to answer that.
He knows.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Peter

M y life is a whirlwind right now. Between the baby and the stalker
case, I feel like I’m constantly torn in two. Everything feels like it’s
happening at the same time and only some of it is in my control. That’s not
the kind of thing I’m used to. A couple months ago, my life played out
according to my say-so, down to the date and time.
Oh, but I wouldn’t change it. Not for the world.
We’ve finally decided to break the news to our parents. There couldn’t be a
more perfect time. Emily was hesitant at first, but I told her that our baby
was going to be the one to heal this family. I can feel it in my bones.
So that’s why, instead of accompanying Ross and the team to Stonybrook
today, I’ll be joining Emily and her mother for lunch.
I don’t know which of the two events I’m more nervous about.
The mechanic that Ross spoke to said the car he enquired about, the Mazda,
will be there for one more day getting repairs. Then the owner is due to pick
it up. The plan is to get there before Trevor does and dust the car for prints.
We’ll then have something to match against the partials we lifted from
Emily’s old apartment.
I wish I could’ve been there for it. But, as important as it is that we catch
this sicko, rebuilding our family at this crucial time is way more vital.
I check the clock on my office wall and it’s almost 12 p.m. Emily was
supposed to have called me by 10:30 to give me the details of the lunch
with her mother.
My foot begins to tap anxiously under my desk and my fingers provide their
drumming accompaniment. It’s always like this. The minute I’m out of
touch with Emily for whatever reason or if something doesn’t happen as
planned, like this phone call, I’m instantly a ball of nerves.
I know she’s safe at the apartment. I have a patrol vehicle in the area 24/7,
and two guys stationed in the apartment building at all times. But still.
I pick up my phone to call her when it suddenly starts ringing in my hand. I
let out a sigh of relief at the sight of her picture brightening my screen and
answer immediately.
“Hey, you, this isn’t 10:30.”
“Peter, he has my number,” she says, the words tumbling out of her mouth.
My blood runs cold.
“How did he get your number? When did he contact you? What did he
say?”
“He’s been sending all these texts. He sounds crazy. Like clinically insane
kind of crazy, Peter.” Even over the phone, I can tell she’s really shaken up.
“Emily, when?”
“A few minutes ago. It was a whole bunch of texts, one after the other. And
then it just stopped.”
“Give me his number,” I say. With a phone number and time stamp, our
tracing equipment might be able to place him in a general area. It’s a start,
and it’s better than nothing. I know Emily must be creeped out, but getting
this extra information about the stalker is good for the case.
“It won’t work,” she says. “After the texts stopped, I tried calling the
number but it was dead.”
“Motherfucker.” I beat my fist on my desk, making the stationary rattle.
He must have destroyed the SIM card. It’s likely he has several more now
that he’s gotten his filthy hands on Emily’s number. He’ll be virtually
impossible to trace this way, but he already knows that. Damn, this guy is
definitely smart enough for the messed up hobby he’s picked out.
I take a deep breath, massaging my temples, and then say, “So, what was he
saying in the messages? Did he threaten you at all?”
She’s quiet for a moment. I can hear her breathing, and it’s almost like I can
hear her thinking on the other end of the line. She’s considering whether to
tell me something or not, I just know it.
“Emily, tell me.”
There’s a pause that seems to last forever.
Then she speaks, her voice filled with fear. “He was saying crazy things.
That he’s the only one who should be with me. That he knows we’re
meeting my mom today, and if you show up there, he—he’s going to hurt
you.” Her voice trembles at the end, and I can tell she’s fighting back tears.
A heavy sigh escapes me. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time.
“Peter, he said that he’s the only one I should be taking to meet her and that
he’ll know if you’re there.”
Fuck.
I know Emily well enough to know exactly where she’s heading with this.
But I’ll be damned if I let some psycho loser waltz in and destroy my
family. That’s how I think of her now. And with the baby on the way, I have
even more reason to fight for this new life of ours.
“Listen, Emily, this guy is clearly out of his mind.”
“I’m scared. What if—”
“No, don’t let him get to you. You have to think of the baby, okay? Let me
worry about Trevor.”
For a moment I consider keeping quiet about the lead on the car, but then I
remember the huge fight we had in that hotel room.
“Besides, there’s a good chance we’re picking him up today. We finally
have a lead on what his location might be.”
“What?” She sounds hesitant to believe it. We’ve been trying to break this
case for so long, I don’t blame her.
“Yeah, trust me on this. It’s going to be okay.”
“I’m canceling with Mom today. We can postpone until you have him in
custody.”
“Emily, no,” I say, my tone taking on a stern edge I haven’t used with her
before. “You said it yourself. You’re tired of having your life dictated by
this maniac. We shouldn’t let him ruin this special time for us.”
“But, Peter—”
“You’ll be safe. I’ll be there and we’ll have Ted for backup. I don’t think
he’ll show his face, though. He has other business to attend to in
Stonybrook.”
“Stonybrook? What are you talking about?”
I smile to myself. Not even these stupid text messages can upset the day I’m
having today. Everything is finally falling into place, and this guy is going
to get what’s coming to him.
“Nothing,” I say to her. “It’s handled, that’s all you need to know. Now,
what have you decided about lunch?”
“Fine,” she says. She doesn’t sound too happy about my take on things, but
at least she’s going along with it. “Mom’s meeting us at Coppersmith in
thirty minutes.”
I scoff. “You’re taking your mother for a food truck lunch? Sweetie, we’re
supposed to be easing her into this, not upsetting her even more.”
Emily laughs softly. The sound of it is empty, and I know it’s because of
these texts. She’s still worried.
“She’ll be fine,” she says. “And if she isn’t, I know I’ll be fine as long as
you’re there.”
“Damn straight. Okay, it’s already after twelve, so I’ll be a few minutes late.
Traffic from here is always a pain. But save me a seat. I’ll see you soon,
okay?”
“Okay.” And then after a second’s pause, “Peter? Please be careful.”
“It’s going to take more than some crazy college kid to keep me from you,
Emily. Now you and Ted better get going or you’ll be late, too. Love you.”
“I love you, too, Peter,” she says, and hangs up.
I can hear in the tone of her voice that she’s not convinced of anything I just
said. But this is a line of thought I’m going to have to keep repeating until it
sinks in with her. I’m not going to have my family living in fear, and I sure
as hell am not going to let this guy jeopardize my future with her.
A few months ago, I don’t think I would’ve cared at all if I got taken out by
a gunman or hit by a bus. There was nothing in my life worth preserving.
All of that has changed now, and I’m ready to fight like hell to keep it that
way. Whether it’s a psycho stalker or disapproving mother, I’m not going to
lose what I have with Emily.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Emily

I ’m riddled with nerves as I sit waiting for my mother. I’m nervous about
what her reaction is going to be when I tell her about Peter, and then
when she hears the news about the baby. But mostly I’m nervous, terrified
in fact, about Peter and what the stalker said to me earlier.
He obviously didn’t identify himself in the texts, so there’s no way to know
this really is Trevor we’re dealing with. I’m still going on nothing more
than the fact that I think I recognized his voice that day when he called out
to me on the street. But whoever it is, this person is an A-grade psycho.
The way he worded those text messages gave the distinct impression that he
truly and honestly believes I belong to him. And before today, when it was
just me he was threatening, it was bearable. I had Peter for support and his
best guys working the case. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened
to Peter, though. I would never forgive myself.
I just wish he didn’t have to be so stubborn about this. That he had agreed
to miss lunch. I would have felt a lot better knowing that he was safe. I have
Ted, who has become my trusted shadow whenever I step out of the
apartment, so there’s that at least. But Peter refuses to have any kind of
security detail. He says he can take care of himself, and I believed him up
until now.
We don’t know what we’re up against with this stalker, and whatever Peter
might think of his skills as a cop, there’s just too much at stake to go around
playing hero. For one and most importantly, I don’t want my baby to have
to grow up without a father. So much of my joy over this pregnancy is tied
to the fact that I’m getting a chance to build a beautiful family. That family
includes Peter.
“My God, Emily, you couldn’t find a spot in the gutter?”
My mother’s voice pulls me out of my head, and I look up to see her
weaving through the tables as she approaches me. The look on her face
almost makes this trip worth it. I knew it was a good idea to pick this place.
“Hi, Mom.” I stand up to kiss her cheek before she sits down opposite me.
“You’ve never been here before? The atmosphere is great.”
She rolls her eyes emphatically. “If you like this sort of thing, I suppose.”
She inhales deeply through her nose and then picks up the menu with a
disgusted grimace. “Honestly,” she mutters to herself, “I don’t understand
you kids sometimes.”
“The food here is great; just give it a chance, you’ll see.”
I pretend to be studying my own menu, but actually I’m peeking over the
top of it and studying my mother. She is pulling all kinds of faces as her
eyes scan the words in front of her.
Suddenly I get the feeling that Peter might have been right. Maybe it wasn’t
a good idea to upset her right before breaking the news.
My phone’s on the table and I tap the screen to bring it to life. The time I
see there, emblazoned across the screen in huge numbers, makes my heart
sink. It’s 1:15. Peter told me he’d be a few minutes late, but that was almost
an hour ago.
I glance over my shoulder to where Ted is sitting hidden behind a
newspaper. He’s been that way since we got here. As always, we stagger
our arrival, with Ted going in first. Then I follow a minute after and make
sure to find a seat within close proximity. I sigh and turn back around. If
something had happened to Peter, Ted would be notified. So the fact that he
hasn’t jumped into action is good news. This settles my nerves, but only a
bit.
I’m fully aware that there’s still time for things to go horribly wrong.
“What’s wrong with your face?”
“Hmm?” I try to put on my best innocent confusion expression, but it
doesn’t look like Mom’s buying it.
“Emily, I made that face,” she says. “I should know when something’s not
right.”
Her intuition about me catches me off guard. So much of our relationship is
spent in this constant push-and-pull that very little time is left to enjoy the
finer side of our mother-daughter dynamic. As a result, I sometimes forget
about it. Like now.
I tell myself that it’s a good thing, this perceptiveness of hers. It means that
there’s still a concerned, caring mother in there somewhere. Behind all of
that controlling and judgemental behaviour, of course. And if that’s true,
then maybe this lunch won’t go over too badly.
“I have something to tell you,” I say, not wasting any time.
My mother appreciates that. She was never one for beating around the bush.
And since waiting for Peter isn’t an option, I feel like I should just rip off
the bandage and get it over with. He can help me pick up the pieces, if there
are any left, when he finally gets here.
“I hope it’s that you’ve come to your senses about this whole ‘needing time
off from school’ thing and that you’re going back.”
“No, I’m still—it’s not about school.”
Now I feel bad about the cover story I gave her for why I wasn’t going to
classes. Peter felt it best to keep her in the dark about the stalker; same with
Heather and the rest of them, too. There are so many lies swirling around
me, I can’t keep them all straight.
That’s another reason why it feels good to be doing this today. There’s at
least one thing I get to be honest about, and it just so happens to be the best
thing in my life right now.
“Then what is it? And I don’t think I’m going to have anything here,” she
says, discarding her menu.
I ignore her obvious unhappiness about the food situation and dive right in.
“I’ve been seeing someone.”
Her eyes grow large and her eyebrows shoot up in genuine surprise. But
then her expression quickly clouds over again when she says, “I had a
feeling there was a man involved in your decision to leave school.”
She’s got it so right, but not in the way she thinks.
“Emily, I don’t know how else to stress the importance of—”
“I’m not leaving school, Mom. And Peter has nothing to do with my break,
either.”
A deep crease furrows her brow, and she looks at me dumbstruck.
Shit.
I didn’t mean to let it slip out like that.
“Peter?”
I take a deep breath and nod.
“Peter Peter?”
I nod again, careful not to jump into any long explanations until she’s ready
for them.
My mother falls back in her seat, looking like she’s had the wind knocked
straight out of her. “So, this is why you set up this lunch? You wanted me in
a public space so that I’d be forced to keep my reaction civil.”
Well, the thought did cross my mind. But I don’t say that.
“I warned you about him, Emily. I told you the men from that family are—”
“Peter’s not his father.” I stop her before she can go any further. I hate
hearing her talk about him like that. “He’s gentle, and kind, and—and I’m
having his baby.” I square my shoulders when I say it. I need her to know
that I’m serious about this.
Her mouth drops open so far it looks like it’s about to hit the ground.
One good thing about her shock is that she doesn’t have any words to throw
at me.
“We love each other, Mom. The connection we have is like nothing I’ve
ever felt before. I want you to be happy for us. Do you think you can do
that?”
She shakes her head vigorously, as though she’s trying to clear out her
jumbled thoughts. “A baby.” She scoffs. “I’d like to see you become a
doctor now.”
“People do this all the time, study while also having a family. I have no
intention of dropping out just because—”
“You don’t get it. I worked my ass off to give you the opportunities I never
had, so that you didn’t have to live through the things I did. Do you have
any idea what it feels like to be me? To sit here and find out that after
everything, your life is going in exactly the same direction as mine?”
“No, it’s not. Don’t you see that? Peter’s great, and he supports my
dreams.”
“Oh, please, spare me. You’re throwing your life away, and for what?”
There’s a red hot anger building up inside of me, bubbling to the surface. I
fight to keep it at bay. I need this conversation to end with her accepting us
and our baby.
“Mom, if you would just give him a chance, you’d see—”
“I’ve already seen it. Hell, I’ve lived it! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I
loved a great guy who swore to love me forever, chose his baby over my
career, watched him leave, and struggled on my own to somehow build a
life while raising a kid. Yours isn’t the first story of its kind, Emily. There’s
nothing special about it.”
I don’t know how to respond to that. I’ve never heard my mother talk so
candidly about her past, and especially about what her life was like when I
came along. The hurt in her voice is almost unbearable. Her disappointment
in me seeps into the air between us.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry that your story went the way it did, Mom.”
She gives a bitter laugh, shaking her head again. “Right. And you believe
yours will be different.” Then she gets up with a sigh. “I know there’s
nothing I can say that’ll change your mind. Because I know what I
would’ve told my mother.”
“Can we just talk about this some more? Peter’s on his way. He wanted to
talk to you.”
“I can’t deal with this right now. I’m going to need some time.”
And with that, she walks off.
I don’t know what to feel. There were so many charged emotions in our
short exchange, and only some of them had to do with me. It’s clear that my
mother still has a lot of demons in her past that she hasn’t dealt with. I wish
she would let me help her with them, instead of using me as a kind of
carbon copy do-over for her life.
“Miss McAfee?” Ted appears beside me all of a sudden. He has a habit of
doing that. He also refuses to call me by my name. The whole ‘Miss’ thing
always makes me feel at least a hundred years old.
“Yes, we can go home now,” I say, rising slowly to my feet. “Maybe stop at
the McDonald’s drive-thru on our way, or—”
“No, ma’am, I can’t take you home just yet.”
“We can’t?” His face is inscrutable, but my heart picks up speed and the
strangest feeling crawls through the tiny hairs on the back of my neck.
“There’s been an accident,” he says.
OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Peter

“I wish you had told me about it first,” I say to Emily.

She’s frantically folding laundry on the bed, acting strangely distant with
me. I can’t help feeling like she’s taking this out on me. Like it’s my fault
that lunatic clipped my car and forced me off the road.
“Look, it was the right thing to do,” she says, looking up at me. “Your
father’s already on his way over, so it’s no use you going on and on about
it.”
She hands me a pile of freshly folded t-shirts. I move to take them, but she
doesn’t let go immediately. Instead, she fixes me with a steady look.
“He has a right to know, Peter.”
I give her a stiff nod and she releases me to go about my packing duties.
“I know this is the plan,” I say, putting the t-shirts into my closet one at a
time. I’m deliberately making the task longer than it should be because it’s
easier to talk to the darkness inside there. “To get them both on board with
this. With us.”
“Exactly.” Her voice comes from behind me, where she’s still folding away.
“I’m just saying, a heads-up would’ve been nice.”
“Yeah, well, you were drugged up and asleep when he called you. Of course
he had questions when I answered your phone. I didn’t have a choice but to
invite him over.”
I rub the stiff strain in the back of neck. I was lucky to get out of the
accident with nothing more than a few scrapes—also lucky to get super-
strength painkillers for my whiplash. They knocked me out and allowed me
to escape reality for a little while.
Imagine my dismay coming back to the world and finding out that the first
order of business would be seeing my dad.
A loud knock on the front door filters into the room then, and I turn to
Emily. Her nervous expression is a clear mirror of mine.
“Game on,” I say with a shrug, and go to answer it.

After the awkward greetings and tour of my new apartment—our apartment

—we move to the living room for coffee. Emily’s even set a fancy serving
tray out and everything. It’s adorable how hard she’s trying to make a good
impression, and I feel bad that I didn’t have that chance with her mother.
My father is seated in the armchair, and after setting down the coffee and
handing him his cup, Emily comes to sit next to me on the two-seater
couch.
“So, this is what’s happening,” my dad says in an agitated tone.
Emily and I share a look, and then look to him and nod.
He shakes his head, and with a sardonic laugh, says, “Talk about dejá vu.”
I reach out for Emily’s hand and hold it tightly in mine. She returns the
gesture with a squeeze of her own. “We’re not you and Trish, Dad.”
He gives me a mocking salute with his coffee mug. “Sure, sure. You guys
are idiots. At least me and Trish knew what we were getting into. We knew
the odds were stacked. But you two actually think this is a good idea. Well,
it’s not, I can tell you that.”
“We want our family to get past whatever happened before,” Emily says,
choosing not to engage with his scornful judgement of our relationship.
“It’s important to us that our baby not only knows its grandparents, but gets
to grow up with them in a loving environment.”
“Loving environment?” my dad scoffs.
“I remember a time when we had that,” I say. “Before things went south
with you and Trish. And I’m willing, for Emily’s sake and the sake of our
baby—” I feel her give my hand another squeeze. She knows what this is
taking, for me to approach my father at all, to make peace. “I’m willing to
let bygones be bygones and try to have a better go of it with you.”
He takes a sip of his coffee, eyeing me with interest. I know he’s trying to
decide whether to take me seriously or not.
“And what does your mother have to say about all this?” he asks, waving
his hand in the general direction of the two of us.
Emily sits up straight, apparently shocked at being addressed so suddenly.
“She’s warming up to it,” I say, and watch her let out a relieved breath that I
stepped in.
“Look, we know it’s a lot to process,” she says. “But Peter and I really love
each other.”
“A lot.”
“And with the baby on the way, we feel it’s long overdue that we let this
water pass under the bridge.”
My dad puts down his coffee and stands up. Emily and I watch him rise
over us like a giant. I suddenly feel like a little boy again.
“This is insane,” he says, “and you two are insane for thinking it’ll work
out.”
And that’s that. He starts to leave.
I’m not at all surprised by his reaction, so it’s nothing to me that he’s on his
way out.
But Emily jumps up and follows him.
“This is happening,” she calls out, and he stops to turn and look at her.
“We’re happy and in love, and can’t wait to start our lives together. And
whatever you might think or feel about it doesn’t matter.”
“It shouldn’t,” my dad says simply, with a shrug of his shoulder. “It’s your
life, and you should do what makes you happy.”
I come up behind her just as my dad says that, and both of us are standing
there in mild shock. Was that something nice he just said?
He chuckles softly to himself as he continues to the front door, and right
before he leaves, he calls over his shoulder to Emily and I, who are rooted
to the spot, “Be sure and send me a pic of the sonogram when you go.”
And then he leaves.
“Did that just happen?” Emily looks at me with wide eyes.
“Must be a brain tumor.”
She starts laughing, and I follow suit.

Later that night, we are in bed. There’s a spark of hope in me after the
meeting with my dad; it looks like things might just work out on that front.
I turn to Emily, and she’s on her phone. Snaking my arm across her bare
stomach, I nuzzle up to her. “Penny for your thoughts?”
It’s become this sweet exchange between us since she first said it to me.
Now we use it when we want to let the other know that they’re not alone.
Usually, Emily melts against me and the words spill out of her mouth.
But not tonight.
Instead, she tenses up under my touch. That’s never happened before.
“Hey.” I touch my finger to her chin and make her look at me. “Are you
okay?”
Emily sets her phone down on the bedside table and twists onto her side so
she’s facing me.
It doesn’t escape me that the way she moved also made sure she’s no longer
so close to me.
“I can’t lose you, Peter.” Her eyes are glistening with tears that haven’t
fallen yet.
It strikes me how heavy her heart is, when I’m right next to her feeling light
and hopeful.
“You won’t,” I say, and cup her cheek with my hand. “You’re not going to
lose me.”
She leans into my touch and closes her eyes. A single tear falls then, and she
sniffles as she lifts her head again.
“That’s just it. I almost did,” she says.
“The accident?” I scoff. “That was nothing, Emily. The guy is more bark
than bite, I swear to you. His driving skills confirm that.”
But my attempt to lighten the mood isn’t working.
She sighs heavily.
“Look, I’ve dealt with a lot worse in my career,” I say. “So trust me when I
say that there’s no way this guy will ever get the upper hand over me.”
I close the gap between us, and with no more space on the bed for her to go,
Emily lies back and lets me. I press up against her. The feel of her soft,
supple skin against mine works its magic and I immediately get hard.
“I’m really tired tonight, Peter.”
Her words stop me in my tracks. This is the first time she’s made an excuse
to get out of sex; her appetite has been unfailingly voracious. I understand
she’s going through a lot, but I also know the release will help ease her
nerves.
“Are you sure?” My fingers create a ghostly trail down her slender neck and
across her chest.
Her breathing deepens as I take her nipple, tugging it lightly.
She turns on her pillow and her mouth is right by my jaw. “I’m scared,” she
says.
It’s a whisper that’s barely there, and it damn near breaks my heart.
“Don’t be. You won’t get rid of me that easily.” I bend down to kiss her,
teasing her nipple some more.
My cock is pulsing against her thigh, and I begin rubbing myself there to
ease the tension.
Her soft moan trembles into my mouth and she pulls me on top of her,
spreading herself wide for me. I go to kiss her again, but this time she turns
her head and buries her face in the curve of my neck. So I close my eyes
and slide into her. The feel of her tight sheath around me sends sparks of
lightning up my spine.
A loud groan escapes me as I speed up my thrusts with urgency.
“Oh God, I love you so much.”
“I don’t want to lose you,” she says.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER NINETEEN

Emily

I bring up the text messages on my phone again. No matter how many

times I look at them, the same dread creeps up on me each time.
You’re mine.
A shiver steals through me.
Another one reads:
You better keep your lover boy away from that lunch.
Or he’ll be sorry.
That was the one I was reading in bed last night. Peter doesn’t know I still
have them. If he did, he would probably be upset. But I can’t bring myself
to delete the texts. I can’t explain it, but having them on my phone helps.
For so long it’s felt like we’ve been trying to catch a ghost in the wind with
a shredded net. The texts are solid evidence that, unlike ghosts, this threat
exists. It reminds me that my stalker is real. And if he’s real, it means he can
be caught.
I exit the message screen and toss my phone onto the table. It lays there,
blank and silent, and for some weird and inexplicable reason, I find myself
willing it to ring. To whistle off a notification. Anything.
It doesn’t.
Exasperated with myself, I go into the kitchen to get some water. I’m really
craving a good, strong cup of coffee right now, but I’m trying to limit my
caffeine. For the baby. I allow myself two cups, one for breakfast with Peter
and the other for at night before bed.
And Peter. He’s been so great to me, especially since the news of the baby.
If he was affectionate and caring before, it’s doubled now. He sulks every
morning when he has to leave for work, kissing my belly before going out
the door. And then I can expect several calls throughout the day while he’s
gone, checking in to make sure I’m okay. I don’t know how I got so lucky.
The shrill ringing of my phone floats through from the living room. Speak
of the devil, I think to myself as I go to answer it. When I pick up my
phone, though, it’s Heather’s name on the screen.
“Hey, you.”
“Hey, me?” she says. “You don’t get to hey me until after you’ve made this
right, McAfee.”
I roll my eyes. She’s upset that we still haven’t celebrated yet. But between
things with our parents and my new text buddy, I haven’t been in a
particularly celebratory mood.
“I’m so sorry, my dear, dear, bestest friend in the whole world,” I say,
laying it on especially thick.
She sniggers into the phone. “I miss you. When can I come around? And
don’t say you don’t know. I may cry.”
“We wouldn’t want that.”
“You okay?” Her voice goes back to normal as we move from the joking
around part of the conversation to the real reason for her call—to check in
on me.
“Meh. You know how it is,” I say, careful not to commit to any one feeling.
I wouldn’t know where to begin.
“Yeah, totally. I mean, just last year I dropped out of school because a crazy
stalker wanted me dead, and then I fell pregnant.”
I snort with laughter. “Okay, okay, geez. The baby is giving me weird
nightmares. No morning sickness, though, which is great. And Peter’s
working a good lead on the case, which is also great, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“No, I know. And also, I never dropped out. I’m on leave due to extraneous
circumstances. How’s school by the way? You still surviving campus
without me?”
I take a big gulp of water and swallow my disappointment that it isn’t
anything stronger.
“Honestly, Em, I don’t know how I make it through my days without you
here. But yeah, classes are going well. You missed a shitload of drama last
week.”
College drama. It does nothing for me anymore. How could it? All that stuff
seems so rudimentary and childish after everything I’ve been through lately.
“Like what?” I ask her anyway, because I know she’s dying to tell me.
“A bunch of cops showed up on campus to question that TA that Trevor’s
dating.”
My heart speeds up and my mouth goes dry.
“Wh—what for? What did they want?”
“Well, the rumor mill has been working overtime on that one. Apparently
she’s the one who called them, and from there the details get sketchy.”
My legs are jelly. I need to sit down. Peter didn’t mention anything about
this to me. I flop onto the couch.
“Some people are saying she called the cops on Trevor after he lost his shit
and got violent with her, but there’s another story saying she called to report
him missing.”
How could Peter’s team not have picked up on this? Whatever the reason,
any activity related to Trevor is supposed to raise flags at the station. Or at
least that’s what he told me.
“Has, um, has Trevor been around?” I try to sound as nonchalant as I can.
“That’s how the whole missing person thing started,” Heather says. “He’s
been MIA on campus for weeks.”
My phone beeps in my ear, signaling another incoming call. I pull it away
to look and my heart jumps into my throat.
It’s not a call, but a text.
“Sorry, Heather, I have to go,” I say, without even bringing the phone back
up to my ear.
I kill the call instantly, and with shaky fingers, I open the new text message.
You can end this. Do you want to?
My fingers start typing before my brain can catch up to what’s happening.
Yes. PLEASE! I just want this to be over. What do you want from me?
I hit send.
My ears are thudding and my breathing is coming shallow and fast. I should
probably have held off on answering. I should have told Peter first.
He’d explained to me how they could triangulate the stalker’s location
using cell towers. He said that even with the old SIM card destroyed, I
should notify them if the creep makes contact using a different number.
But bringing Peter into this doesn’t feel like a good idea. Not after the
accident, and what else might happen to him. I don’t want to make things
worse. I don’t want to be the reason anything bad happens to Peter.
My phone beeps again. I open the message.
I just want to talk.
I type, I’m listening, and hit send.
Almost instantly, my phone beeps again.
In person. NO COPS.
Shit.
I know I’m treading in dangerous territory here, but one thing I know for
sure is that I can’t risk endangering Peter. If going to see Trevor is what’s
needed to finally put this whole thing to rest, then I don’t see any other
option. So I reply:
Okay. Send me the details.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWENTY

Peter

I left the office early because I just wasn’t feeling up to it.

My guys out in Stonybrook are due back after camping out there for days.
Trevor never showed. The mechanic eventually moved the Mazda to his
yard, where he apparently has a collection of abandoned vehicles.
It doesn’t make sense and it bothers me the whole drive home. Why would
Trevor go that far out of his way to get his car to a repair shop, actually
make the payment for said repairs, and then just forget about it? The only
thing I can think of is that he had a back-up vehicle to get around in.
The car that clipped me in the hit and run the other day was an old Ford
pickup. Witnesses saw it happen, but as far as getting a description on the
driver or the registration of the vehicle goes, we came up empty. One of the
street cameras on Dorchester caught the pickup speeding by, but the image
quality was shit on a biscuit.
And with the backlog in the image rendering lab, we’ll be lucky to have it
cleaned up before the end of the week. I gave them a call first thing this
morning and tried throwing my ‘Chief of Police’ weight around in the hope
of getting them to put a rush on it, but nobody’s going to prioritize a person
of interest in a stalker case when there are actual murders to solve. As far as
everyone else is concerned, any asshole could’ve forced me off the road. Of
course, the text messages Emily has received say otherwise.
It’s all of this—dead-end after fucking dead-end—piled on top of the way
Emily was with me last night; it’s got me feeling totally unsettled. I was in
the office, but unable to focus on anything, not even the case.
Strangely enough, my mind has no problem putting all of its attention on
the way Emily pulled away from me last night. Or how when we made
love, it felt like she was waiting for it to be over.
The apartment is encased in an eerie silence when I get home. Usually
there’s some soft music playing or the TV on.
“Emily?”
I duck my head into our bedroom, half expecting to find her lying on our
bed with her nose in a book. But she isn’t there.
Part of me knew that, because I can sense that the apartment is empty. No
signs of life aside from me. My footsteps sound awfully loud as I go
through the place, checking each room in turn. I know I won’t find her, but
I do it anyway.
I passed Ted on my way up and he didn’t mention anything to me about
Emily being out. I know that she’s snuck out before, but I’ve always gotten
a text or phone call about it so that at least someone knew what she was up
to and where she was headed. I get that she feels frustrated and cooped up,
so I grant her those flights of freedom when the feeling is just too strong.
But I didn’t get a phone call or text today. And Ted is blissfully unaware of
her leaving. This knowledge sends my mind racing to all kinds of dark
places as I finish up in the bathroom. This is so unlike her.
The kitchen is my last stop, and that’s where I find her note. Of course
she’d leave it right next to the coffee machine and not somewhere like the
bedside table or whatever. Emily knows my routine, and she knows that
when I get home, my coffee is the first order of business.
I don’t know what to think when I pick it up to read it, but there’s a heavy
sensation filling my chest, like I’m drowning.
Peter,
I gave Ted the slip. Don’t be mad.
Be home soon.
Emily XO
P.S. I left you the last brownie
I stare at her neat, printed handwriting for much longer than is necessary.
It’s as if the words will multiply and give me more information.
They don’t.
I put the note down and start a fresh pot of coffee. Then I go over to the
refrigerator. The brownie she promised is there, but I don’t take it. I don’t
really have much of an appetite right now. I don’t even want the coffee.
It’s weird how strange the apartment feels without her in it. How empty and
lonesome. And that in itself is weird, too. Because I’ve been alone my
whole life and not once was I ever lonely. In fact, I used to love it.
But all that changed the minute Emily came into my life. Now I’m
wandering around our apartment, not knowing what to do with myself. It’s
embarrassing how much I’ve come to need her.
Distraction. That’s what I need. It’s the only way I’m going to survive the
time between now and when she gets home. I hope that it’s soon.

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 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Emily

I was expecting to be led to an abandoned warehouse, somewhere where

nobody would hear my screams. Imagine my surprise when Trevor
texted me to meet him at the Convention Center.
The Convention Center.
That’ll teach me to stereotype my stalkers.
When the cab drops me off, it’s just after 6 p.m. Peter will be getting home
soon. He’ll walk into an empty apartment and find my note. Hopefully he’ll
take it for what it is, watch a bit of Netflix, and wait for me to get back.
This isn’t the first time I’ve gone off on my own, so there’s a good chance
things will play out that way. What I’m nervous about is what could happen
if they don’t work out like that at all. If Peter freaks out and calls in the
cavalry to find me, things could get really bad. For both of us.
Convention Center aside, I already know that Trevor isn’t exactly one
hundred percent stable. I’m going to have to be really careful about how I
handle him. One wrong move, and it’ll be over. Whatever ‘over’ means.
Although, I have to admit that I’m not too stressed out about this meeting,
because despite all the crazy, Trevor was the one who suggested we talk
after all. This resolution was all his idea. I figure he must be feeling the heat
from the investigation closing in on him and that’s why he wants it over
with. Or he could finally be getting tired of having a plaything that never
comes out to play.
Whatever his reasons, I’m just relieved to have an opportunity to end this
thing and restore some sense of normalcy to my life. I keep the vision of
Peter’s face in my mind. I’m doing this for him. And our baby.
“Hi, Emily.”
It’s him.
Trevor walks over to where I’m standing on the sidewalk. He’s wearing
blue jeans and a matching hoodie, looking like any average college kid.
But looks are deceiving; I know this. So, even though he’s smiling at me, I
don’t smile back. No matter what happens, or however much he acts like
he’s my friend, I have to remember who I’m dealing with. I can’t let my
guard down.
“You like nice,” he says once he’s reached me. “I like your jacket.”
“Thanks,” I mumble, and fold my arms across my chest in an effort to block
his gaze.
I suddenly feel extremely vulnerable and exposed in front of him, and for
the first time since I left home, I’m beginning to think that maybe it wasn’t
the smartest thing to keep Peter in the dark about this meeting.
There isn’t a single person who knows where I am right now.
“What do you say we head over to Drink? I’m parked just up that way,” he
says, pointing somewhere over my shoulder.
“I don’t drink,” I say.
I don’t tell him why I’m not drinking. That would probably be the fastest
way to piss him off.
“That’s okay,” Trevor says. His tone is light and breezy. In a creepy way.
Or maybe it’s only creepy to me because I know him for what he is: a creep.
“They have non-alcoholic options, too, you know. I’ll join you even. Guess
it’s not a good idea to load up anyway, with the driving and all.”
“What do you want, Trevor?” I can’t take the pleasantries anymore. I just
want this over and done with.
“To talk,” he says simply. “Some place comfortable, instead of out here on
the street.”
His reasoning makes sense to me in the moment. Besides, as long as we’re
in a public place, he can’t do anything to me.
“Fine,” I say, finally giving in. “But just for a few minutes. I can’t be late
getting home.”

The bar isn’t packed, but it’s not quiet either. The majority of the crowd
here looks like people passing through on their way home from work.
Loading up, like Trevor calls it, before having to face whatever mundane
life awaits them at the bottom of the glass.
I run off to the bathroom for an emergency break as we walk in. When I
come to our table, Trevor has ordered me a bottle of water and a beer for
himself. So much for not drinking and driving.
“So, I’m here,” I say, trying to get the conversation started since it’s clear
he’s doing his best to drag this whole thing out. “Let’s talk.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t be in such a hurry, Emily.”
I unscrew the bottle and pour myself a glass. “I told you, I don’t want to get
home late.”
He purses his lips. “Why? You don’t want to upset your boyfriend?”
Just then, I notice a flash behind his eyes, and it startles me. In an instant, it
turns him into the kind of guy you watch yourself around.
“How much longer are you going to keep up this charade?”
I’m confused. “What charade?”
“You and this guy,” he says. “I know you’re just doing it to get my
attention. Well, you have it now. So you can stop.”
I nearly choke on a big sip of water. “Get your attention? Trevor, I don’t
even know you.”
“Yeah, right. And all those signals you’ve been sending me on campus? You
do that to everyone you don’t know?”
“Signals? Okay, look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You
obviously have crazy ideas about—”
“I’m not crazy,” he says, suddenly seething, and I realize my mistake a little
too late.
“I didn’t say you were.” I try to backtrack quickly. “I was talking about this
idea you have of me being into you or whatever. That’s what’s crazy,
Trevor.”
“No, the only crazy thing is you denying it. Things would be so much better
if you just, you know, admit that you love me.” He lowers his voice on this
last part, glancing around to see if anyone’s within earshot.
There are a few people who are, but there’s also this general hum of
conversation that makes it virtually impossible to eavesdrop, even if they
wanted to.
“There’s nothing to admit because I don’t love you.” My irritation threshold
has been reached.
I’m so done with this guy. I have to leave. This thing is beginning to look
like it’s on the verge of escalating to a point outside of my control, and I
don’t like it.
The hand he’s been using to absently stroke the drops of condensation on
his beer now clenches into a tight fist. His lips are drawn tight into a thin
line. I’ve upset him.
“I don’t mean to offend you or anything,” I say, playing nice with my
stalker. As one does. “I just don’t feel like we have a connection. I’m sure
you’re a nice guy, and that plenty of girls would love the—”
My train of thought has come off the rails for some reason, and I find
myself lost. What the hell? It’s like there’s hair on my tongue and balls of
cotton wool in my head.
And Trevor’s got this creepy grin on his face as he watches me fight to keep
my shit together.
“Feeling okay, Emily?”
Crap. I think I’ve been drugged.
“Trevor, what did you do?” My words begin to slur.
“You should really check the glass before using it, Emily,” he says. “People
do all kinds of weird shit these days.”
He laughs that cold, bitter laugh and I feel my head getting heavy. Far too
heavy for my neck. Trevor swims out of focus in front of me, and I blink to
bring him back. It doesn’t work, and that stupid grin is the last thing I see
before everything goes black.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Peter

“A nything?”
Ross shakes his head.
I beat the desk with my fist and kick my chair so that it goes rolling across
the room. The team stops what they’re doing to witness my mini-tantrum.
“We’re not losing enough time, is that it? You think you’re going to find her
faster if you look at me?”
They take the not-so-subtle hint and all turn back to their tasks at the same
time.
It’s been twenty-four hours. Emily won’t be considered officially missing
until the forty-eighth. So, my office has become the ad hoc headquarters for
the search in the meantime, and I’ve crammed my entire team inside.
With each of us assigned to an area of the case, we’re bound to find
something. We have to. There’s no other option to get Emily and our baby
home in one piece. God, the thought of something happening to her makes
me physically sick. Having the work to focus on is saving my life right
now.
Denise appears in the doorway. “Chief, I’ve gotten through to Mrs.
McAfee. Line two.”
Trish. Finally. I lunge over to my desk and grab the phone. I punch the
button that answers the second line.
“Trish, thanks for taking my call,” I say, a little out of breath.
“Thank your assistant for hounding me so much it didn’t leave me any other
choice.”
The aggravation in her voice sets me even more on edge. But I have to
ignore it for now and just push through.
“Listen, there’s a really urgent matter we’re dealing with or I wouldn’t have
bothered you.”
“Can we skip the apologies and get straight to the point, please?”
I take a breath to steel myself. I didn’t really think about the implications of
this call. I’m about to tell this woman her daughter’s been taken by a stalker
I failed to apprehend. I send up a silent prayer and bite the bullet. “Have
you seen or spoken to Emily at all over the past couple days?”
The other end of the line is dead quiet. The silence reaches through the
earpiece, seeps down my throat, and strangles my heart.
“What the hell is going on, Peter?” she asks eventually. “What’s happened
to Emily?”
And as much of a pain as the woman is sometimes, the love and concern for
her daughter is painfully obvious in her voice, I have to grant her that.
“We’re looking for her, Trish. She’s been missing since yesterday.”
“Yesterday? And this is when you decide to tell me about it?”
“I’m—it’s still early days. She went out last night and there was no reason
to be concerned.”
Even as I’m saying the words, they sound stupid and empty. Making me
feel stupid and empty.
“And where the hell were you through all of this?”
“Look, there’s no time to go through all this with you. I just need to know if
you’ve had any contact with—”
“No,” she says. “The last time I saw my daughter she was telling me how
great you are. I guess the joke’s on her now, isn’t it?”
I bring my teeth down on the inside of my cheek, biting until the taste of my
own blood hits my tongue. I have to keep calm. I can’t let her get to me, not
now.
“I love your daughter with everything in me,” I say, my voice trembling.
I’m aware that the rest of my team is only pretending to be consumed by
their tasks, but I don’t care. “And I’m doing everything I can, using every
available resource, to find her.”
There’s a pause, and I can hear Trish breathing. When next she speaks, her
tone is softer. “Do you have any idea what happened?”
I shake my head even though I know she can’t see me do it. “It’s a long
story that I don’t have the time to get into right now. I will, just not now.
Now I need to focus on getting Emily home.”
“Well, from what I hear, you’re the man to do it,” she says.
It’s a small thing, but to me, in this moment, Trish McAfee couldn’t have
given me a bigger nod of approval. Silver linings, they say.
“Thank you, Trish.”
“Let me know if you hear anything.”
“Of course. Bye.”
A hoarse scream fills the office just as I put down the phone. It’s the sound
of a voice that hasn’t been used for too long, and then is suddenly
overworked.
I spin around to see Ross has assumed a power stance, waving a sheet of
paper in the air. His face is a mixture of relief, exhaustion, and victory.
“For the love of all that is holy, Ross, spill it!”
He grabs another printout from a pile on the chair in the corner and comes
over to me. “Look,” he says, holding the two pieces of paper side by side.
“I’m looking. Tell me what it is I’m looking at.”
His excitement is making the air around him vibrate, and it’s feeding into
me as well. For years I’ve trusted his judgement, and I would trust him with
my life. Emily’s life. So if Ross is amped about something, I know it’s
going to be worth my attention.
He shakes the one page. “This is the mechanic’s inventory list from the cars
in his yard. It was part of all the stuff the team pulled while they were out
there.”
“Got it.”
Waving the second page, Ross says, “This is the inventory our guys took of
the yard on the last day they were there. And look.”
The anticipation and uncertainty are not mixing well with me. I need him to
get to the point already. “Ross, they look like the same goddamn thing. Tell
me what I’m not seeing.”
By this time, the whole rest of the team has gathered around us, just as
curious to find out what Ross is on about.
He stands back so that he can see us all. “Here,” he says, holding up the
mechanic’s list, “we have a complete list of vehicles on the mechanic’s
property. And here—” He holds up the other one. “Here’s the list you guys
made. It’s exactly the same as the mechanic’s list. Except one vehicle is
missing on ours. Guess which one?”
It clicks immediately. And of course it makes total sense now that I think
about it.
The words fall out of my mouth in an astounded breath, “Holy shit, it’s the
Ford pickup.”

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Emily

W hen I come to my senses, it’s the smell that hits me first. It’s rank
and dizzying, and made all the worse by my contribution to it. I
don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious, but judging by the way my
body feels, I know it has to have been at least seven hours.
Still dizzy, I pull myself up to sit, the cable ties cutting deeper into my
already burning wrists. I’m strapped around a beam or something. I lean my
head against it. It feels two sizes bigger. Like it’s been stepped on by an
overweight elephant. And I can tell from the way my jeans are especially
clingy around my thighs that I’ve wet myself.
A strangled sob rips out of my throat and ripples off into the thick blanket
of darkness all around me. How could this be happening? How could I have
done something so stupid? And, oh God, how am I going to get out of here?
“H-hello?” I sniffle and simper my way to silence again, listening hard for
the slight movement that just caught my attention.
A light goes on, and even though it’s not bright in any way, it’s blinding. I
instinctively squeeze my eyes shut, wait a few seconds for them to adjust,
and then open them again.
“Trevor, please.”
Please, what? I think to myself. What exactly am I going to say to him to
make him release me? I have nothing. No plan.
He comes to crouch beside me and I flinch. This subtle reaction seems to
please him, because that creepy grin spreads across his face again. I can’t
believe how I could have ever thought he looked like an average college
kid. Down here, in this moment, his true self revealed is something closer to
pure evil.
“I tried, Emily,” he says. His cheery tone makes every hair on my body
stand on end. “I tried to do this the right way.”
I’m shaking now, but it isn’t fear that’s doing it—the terror I felt when I was
out there, not knowing who he was or what he wanted. What I feel now is
blatant anger because how dare he! “What exactly was right about anything
you did, Trevor?”
My question has taken him by surprise, I can see it. He must have been
expecting me to be his frightened little pet.
“Breaking into my apartment? Hmm? Was that the part you were referring
to?”
That smile drops instantly, and his eyes grow narrow with rage. But I don’t
stop.
“Or was it the part where you scared the crap out of me? Or threatened my
life?”
“Shut up,” he says through clenched teeth. The force of his words sends
drops of spit flying out of his lips. “All I did was try to make you see. You
don’t have to fight it anymore. You love me.”
I shake my head vigorously. “No.”
“Yes, Emily. You love me, and you know it.”
“No!”
I start to struggle against my restraints, but all that achieves is more pain.
I’m out of breath and so damn tired.
“See? See how it hurts when you deny yourself?”
I am so screwed. All I can think about is Peter out there somewhere,
worried sick about me. About us. Me and our baby. My heart feels like it’s
literally breaking in my chest.
For a second, it occurs to me to use my pregnancy to get sympathy from
Trevor. But very quickly after that thought comes another: what if finding
out about the baby—Peter’s baby—sends him over the edge? I decide it’s
not worth the risk. I’ll just have to find another way. Maybe playing on his
sympathies isn’t a bad idea, but without using the baby.
I groan, scrunching up my face in the best grimace of pain I can manage.
Luckily for me, I don’t have to act too hard because everything hurts
anyway.
“What? What is it?” There’s a definite hint of concern in his voice.
“It hurts,” I mutter, wriggling my wrists again.
Trevor sighs heavily as he takes a moment to consider his options.
Eventually he gets up and strides over to a rickety old work bench across
the room. When he returns, it’s with a pair of garden shears.
“Try anything, and this is going to get a whole lot worse for you,” he says.
I nod my silent agreement to his terms. This seems to be enough for him
because he proceeds to cut me loose without further fuss.
“You can’t run, anyway,” he says. “The only exit,” he points to the door at
the top of the staircase that leads out of the basement, “is locked.”
My arms drop down, at the same time numb and aching. I go to rub my
wrists, but instantly pull away with a hiss. The skin on both of them is
broken and torn, screaming red with inflammation.
“Do I get a thank you?”
I look up at him, trying my utmost to fight the sudden urge to lunge at him.
“Thanks,” I say.
“There, that wasn’t so—”
The high-pitched sound of a Spider-Man ringtone reverberates through the
basement, interrupting the rest of his sentence.
Trevor grabs his phone from the back pocket of his jeans and turns away
from me to answer it. He goes to stand by the workbench, speaking in
muffled tones.
If I can get my hands on that cell phone, I could contact Peter. But in order
to do that, I’d have to try and get close to Trevor. My heart drops to my
stomach. Because getting close to Trevor means I’d have to play nice.
“I said I’ll get there when I get there.” He kills the call and tosses his phone
onto the workbench, clearly distressed. I can see his shoulders rise and fall
as he works to get his breathing back under control. And then he turns to
me, the plastic smile is back on his face, and his game continues.
I glance at the phone on the workbench and send up a silent thank-you to
whoever upset him enough to make that mistake. Now all I need is for him
to leave me alone long enough that I can get it to call Peter.
“What are you doing?” Trevor takes a defensive stance, holding up both his
hands, ready to fight me.
“My leg’s fallen asleep,” I say, using the beam to pull myself up.
It takes some work, my body so heavy with exhaustion that I feel as though
I’m using every ounce of my strength. I don’t know how he can think I have
anything left to fight him with. I’m barely standing on my own, for
Heaven’s sake.
I let out a long, shaky breath once I’m finally on my feet. My head spins
from the change in altitude and Trevor seems to phase in and out of focus,
like back at the bar.
“What did you give me?” I ask him. I need a name so that I’ll know what I
can expect from my body, but I’m also afraid that the drug might have
harmful effects on the baby.
“Just a sedative.”
Okay, that’s good, I suppose.
“How long are you going to keep me down here? You know they’ll find me,
right? You know that there are already people looking for me.”
He gets edgy again. “I’ll keep you here as long as it takes. And nobody’s
coming for you, believe me.”
I start pacing a short line where I’m standing. I make a show of trying to get
the blood flowing in my legs, but what I’m really doing is plotting my path
to that phone. I just have to keep him talking, keep him distracted.
“As long as what takes, Trevor?”
He begins to mirror my movements, walking slowly up and then down
along with me. Our eyes are locked, neither one of us submitting to the
other.
“You know what I’m talking about,” he says.
I give an incredulous laugh. “You mean I’ll be here as long as it takes for
me to confess my undying love for you?” I stop my pacing. “Or until I
admit that we belong together?”
“You need to shut up.”
I can’t believe this guy. And another thing I can’t believe is the fight in me.
It’s like a furnace in my chest that refuses to die down.
“Yeah?” I advance on him, coming up short just a few feet from where he’s
standing. I’m ballsy, but I’m not stupid. “You want me to shut up, Trevor?
Make me.”
“Bitch.” He spits the word at me.
Then he reaches behind him, and to my genuine surprise, pulls a gun on me.
Well, fuck.
All that attitude I felt coursing through me a minute ago is utterly deflated
by the sight of the pistol aimed directly at my head. Now it’s fight or flight.
But Trevor is blocking my path to the stairs that lead out of here, which
means I’m going to have to do both—fight, then flight.
I act before my brain can talk me out of it and lurch forward, throwing an
elbow to his face as I leap past him.
Trevor cries out in pain. “What the fuck, Emily!”
I skip the first two steps and jump directly onto the third, stretching to take
the rest of the stairs the same way. But my legs are still like jelly and I
stumble on my second leap. I quickly scramble to get up and keep going,
but I’m not fast enough. My fall gave Trevor enough time to come after me.
“You stupid bitch!”
He pulls my ankle hard, sending me careening over the side railing where I
crash onto the cold, hard concrete. The wind is knocked clean out of me,
and I’m left coughing and spluttering in a useless heap. My back is searing
in pain. I can’t move. I blink away the hot tears stinging my eyes to find
Trevor standing over me.
“You should’ve just listened to me,” he says, waving his gun around. “All
you had to do was love me back, plain and simple. But no.” His gun arm
steadies out, aimed at my chest.
This is it. I can tell by the look in his eyes. There are no chances left, no
more mercy. He knows he’ll never have me, so now all that’s left for him to
do is keep anyone else from having me, too.
Right then, a deafening crash splits my ears and I throw my hands over my
head as broken pieces of wood fly through the air like missiles. Heavy
footsteps come pounding down the stairs. Trevor turns toward the sound,
and just as he raises his gun, a blurred shadow jumps the railing and
smashes him to the ground.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Peter

I land my punches as hard as I can, all to the fucker’s face. Months of

built up anger and frustration are loaded in every one of them. The
sound of each blow drives the next one to follow. My skin hitting his, the
dull crack of his bones under the weight of my rage.
Far off in the background I can hear footsteps, calls of Chief and That’s
enough filtering through to me. But they do nothing to slow me down, let
alone stop me. Because I’ve wanted this moment for too long. I’ve thought
about it every day, even dreamed about it. I’ll stop when I’m done. When
my fist rams straight through his crushed up skull.
“Peter, stop!”
Emily. Hers is the voice that reaches through the thick cloud of fury and
makes the beating stop.
Out of breath, I use his smashed up face as a boost to push myself onto my
feet. I stand over his limp, moaning body and the strongest disgust rises in
me. I suck it back, ball it up, and spit it out. It lands smack dab in the
middle of the bloody mess that used to be his face. A shining globule of my
saliva. The perfect topping for the perfect payback.
“Get him out of here.”
Ross, who’s been hanging back this whole time, giving me my moment, is
now the first to move. He bends down next to Trevor and begins reading
him his rights as he slaps a pair of cuffs on him.
“Peter.”
I feel a light tugging on my arm, and when I turn around, I’m nearly struck
down by the sight of Emily. Alive.
She rushes over to me, and throws herself into my arms with such force, I
stagger back.
“Peter, oh, Peter!” she cries into my neck.
I hold onto her like I’ve never held onto anything in my life. Like I never
want to let her go again. We stand there a moment longer, clinging to each
other for dear life. And that’s exactly what it feels like for me. Like she’s
my whole life.

I’m sitting with Emily in the back of the ambulance, my arm around her
shoulders, and we watch as the squad car takes Trevor away. Only once the
last of its lights fade away do we dare to shift our attention.
“How did you find me?” she asks.
“He was stupid enough to steal a stolen car. All we had to do was run the
plates. The owner died a couple of years ago. It was his house Trevor was
using.”
She sighs heavily, then rests her head on my shoulder. “Peter, I’m so sorry.”
“Shh, don’t.” I tighten my hold on her. God, it feels so fucking good to have
her back.
“It was my fault,” she says. “I shouldn’t have met with him. And I
definitely shouldn’t have kept it from you.”
“Hey—” I put my fingers to her chin and make her look at me. Her eyes are
huge pools of love and exhaustion. My heart aches for her. “It’s over.
You’re fine, our baby’s fine, and that’s all I care about.”
A soft smile tilts the corners of her mouth and she nods, her eyes brimming
with tears. “It’s over,” she says, and laughs softly. “It’s finally over.”
She takes my face in both her hands and places the gentlest of kisses to my
lips before resting her forehead against mine.
“You know what this is, right?” I ask, taking her hand and holding it to my
heart.
“Tell me,” she says.
The hurried activity of the crime scene fades to black all around us as our
bubble of bliss seals shut. I’ve missed it so much.
“It’s the beginning of forever, Emily. You and me.”
“And he or she,” she says with a laugh, and places my hand flat against her
growing belly.
I’m so overcome with love for them both, I can barely contain it. There are
no words left that could do it justice. So all I can do is show her, and I can’t
wait to spend the rest of my life doing just that.

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 EPILOGUE

I t feels like a dream. I’m looking at this woman in the mirror, and she’s
absolutely radiant. The flowing white dress she’s wearing fits perfectly.
Her smile doesn’t waver, and she’s filled with the purest excitement for
what lies ahead. There’s no knot of anxiety in her stomach and her
shoulders don’t slump under the weight of the world. This has to be a
mistake. Surely she can’t be me.
“Mommy, it’s time for my kisses.”
I smile at the appearance of Heather’s reflection beside mine. I couldn’t
imagine this day without her. But it’s the sight of the bundle in her arms that
really makes my heart overflow.
I take Eleanor, and she immediately snuggles close to me. I press my nose
to my daughter’s head and inhale deeply. God, I love the smell of her. It’s
like a drug. I close my eyes and really sink into it, taking another hit of that
new baby goodness.
“I bet you’re glad that whole asteroid thing never happened, huh?” Heather
laughs.
I smile. “Geez, that feels like a whole other life.”
“I know, right? We’ve come a long way, my friend.”
There’s a light knock on the door to my dressing room, and before I can
answer, it slowly creaks open and my mother’s head pops in.
Where some parts of our new life were easy to get used to, there are other
parts that still feel a little strange. Like my mother being a sappy
grandmother. It’s a whole new look for her, and sometimes it catches me off
guard. I love her for it, though. Eleanor does, too.
“Is there room for one more?” she asks.
“Only if you’re up for a hold.”
She doesn’t need a second invitation, of course, and immediately pushes
into the room and scoops up Eleanor.
I watch her do the obligatory head-sniff as she coos and cuddles my
daughter. It’s insane that I’m standing here witnessing it, that I lived to see
the day when three generations of McAfee women shared a room.
And I firmly believe that I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for the man
I’m about to marry. Peter, the love of my life, who’s saved me in more ways
than one.
The door to my dressing room swings open again, and there’s Peter. He
looks dashing in a black tux and his signature smile.
“Dude,” Heather says, “you’re not supposed to be in here.”
“Trust me, Heather,” Peter says as he walks in, “we’ve survived our fair
share of bad luck. I’m pretty sure we’ve tapped out that resource.”
He goes to kiss Eleanor on the head, and then comes over to me.
“Hey, you.” He puts his arms around me and pulls me close.
“Uh, we’re going to give you two some privacy,” my mother says, and
motions for Heather to follow her as she leaves.
“Alone at last,” I say. My face is beginning to ache with the constant smile
I’ve been wearing. “So, what’s so important that you’re willing to risk our
good luck over it?”
“I just needed to see you,” he says. “I was about to go out there and wait
with my dad, when all of a sudden I needed to hold you. So, here I am.”
“Holding me.”
“I don’t ever want to let you go, Emily.”
I wrap my arms around his neck, and right before I kiss him, I say, “You
don’t have to, Peter. Ever.”

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 EXCERPT

H e’s more than just a criminal.

He’s a merciless leader of two large gangs in LA.
And he has me in his possession.

What am I going to do?

I’ve been kidnapped by a billionaire.
And there’s no way out of this prison.
He owns not just my body but also my heart.
His mesmerizing touch makes me want to stay.
I’ve been told that he kidnapped me for a reason.
My father is out to kill him.
Am I too crazy to believe him?
Maybe.
The truth will eventually come out.
And then I’ll have a choice to make.

Stay loyal to my father…

Or fall deeper in love with this ruthless stranger.

Malcolm

Perhaps I had waited too long to bring the whole thing up. The truth was, I
wanted to keep them out of it for as long as possible, my closest friends, my
greatest allies. I knew they wouldn’t take it well that someone was trying to
kill me.
Especially when that someone was Samuel Kline, the most notorious
hitman in the business.
But I was sure now, and there was no more time to waste.
The five of us were having brunch at a little downtown cafe, the kind that
you couldn’t find unless you knew it was there. The waiters here were like
family, and so it felt like the safest place to begin to plan things—out on the
patio under a large, sun-bleached umbrella.
“There’s something I need to tell you, the reason I brought you all here
today,” I said, my serious tone a stark juxtaposition to the teasing
conversation we’d just been having.
They all turned to look at me. Misha’s face, as usual, was hard as a rock and
difficult to read. I trusted the Russian man’s judgment though, and I knew
he would be the first to protect me.
“What? You mean you don’t just want to spend time with us?” Leroi jokes,
earning him a stern look from Noah. At thirty-one he was the youngest of
the group, and this tended to show through his playful demeanor.
Noah, on the other hand, was always serious. Not unreadable like Misha,
but instead like a calm and sturdy boulder that I always knew I could count
on.
“Now is not the time, Leroi,” Gilles said, pushing his glasses back up the
bridge of his nose. He was the only one who I had told beforehand. I needed
him to be able to gather intel so we could properly plan things out. The
information we had been able to find on Samuel was scarce, but it was
better than nothing.
“What is it?” Noah asked, leaning towards me looking expectant. He
probably had some idea of what was going on, he was intuitive like that.
He had known me for the longest, too, and I was sure that had something to
do with it. After all, I didn’t think of myself as a man that’s easy to read,
even if I am more emotive than Misha.
“I just got it confirmed yesterday, so we still have time,” I began, looking at
each of them individually. “But I’m definitely being targeted.”
“By who?” Misha asked, his voice gruff and deep.
“Samuel Kline.”
There was a collective groan all around the table.
“Shit, that sucks,” Leroi said. “Liam, that dirty bastard.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions yet,” Gilles said. He always liked to reason
things through, and not cause unnecessary conflict. “We’re not sure it’s
Liam sending him.”
“But who else would?”
“It’s true that Liam has the means and the motive to send Samuel after
Malcolm,” Noah said. He looked deep in thought, his forehead wrinkling
with lines of determination and contemplation.
Liam Hawthorne could be called my rival in the business. There were two
large gangs that ran the streets of Los Angeles when it came to drugs. He
led one of them, and I led the other.
I had known for a while that Liam was tired of the competition, and of the
ways that I kept his gang in check, but I hadn’t thought he would resort to
hiring a hitman this quickly. After all, I had my Four, the friends that were
with me now, and they wouldn’t just let the gang go to ruins if I was shot
and killed.
No, I’d reckon if I was, Liam would have more to contend with than he had
bargained for.
“The issue right now is not if it’s Liam sending Kline after me,” I said. “The
issue is that Samuel is going to try to kill me. Unfortunately for him, we
know what’s going on, so we have the advantage. So right now, we need to
figure out what we want to do about it.”
“Now, we don’t have much information about him,” Gilles said. “We know
he started as a hitman to provide for his family. He had a wife, dead now,
and still has a daughter. As far as I know, she has no idea what her father
does for a living.”
“Let’s keep her out of it then,” Noah said. “I would hate to drag an innocent
person into this, even if she is his daughter.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“Can we kill him?” Misha asked.
“That would seem like the most logical solution,” Noah responded.
“Or we could get him shipped out somewhere overseas,” Leroi suggested.
“How in the hell would you make that happen?” Noah asked.
Leroi shrugged in response. “I don’t know. That’s for you to figure out.”
“So we kill him.” Misha took a long drink of his coffee.
I nodded. “It seems like our only option.”
“Hey!” Leroi said at the same time that Gilles tapped my arm, fear in his
dark brown eyes.
“Gilles, what is it?” I asked in a whisper.
“He’s here, right now,” he said, pointing to a pair of figures walking up the
street towards us.
It was Samuel, and his daughter Aurora.
They were talking together and laughing. The two of them were clearly
close, from the way Aurora leaned in. The trusting look in her eyes killed
me. She had no idea how bad of a man her father was. It made me want to
tell her the truth.
Fuck.
I hadn’t been counting on this. I was terribly attracted to her. She was the
kind of beautiful that people wrote poems and songs about. She had dark
wavy hair that went to her collar bone, and the most enchanting green eyes I
had ever seen. Her figure was short and curvy, and she was built in a way
that reminded me of the muses of ancient Rome.
Truly a woman to inspire art. Or war.
“We should take care of it now, while we have the chance,” Misha said,
interrupting my thoughts as the pair were seated by one of the wait staff.
They hadn’t seemed to notice us, and I couldn’t help but agree that now
could very well be the most opportune time.
“I can make it quick, quiet, just like you like it,” Misha added, eyeing the
pair as if he was already calculating the shot he would take to finish it.
“No, we can’t do this now,” Noah said. “Not with his daughter here. She’s
innocent.”
“I’m not going to shoot her,” Misha said with a shrug as if that was the
problem.
Noah glared at him. “That’s not what I’m worried about. Can you imagine
how traumatizing it would be, to have her father die in front of her?”
“He will die either way.” Misha wasn’t getting it, but I could see where he
was coming from. Now was our chance, and we had ourselves to worry
about first.
“She’s getting up,” Gilles said. If we want to do it now, we should do it
while she’s away.
Noah looked visibly torn. I knew he wanted to protect me, but it was likely
he was thinking of his own trauma right now. I knew he didn’t want to
inflict that on anyone else either.
“You guys can do what you want, just do it soon,” Leroi said. “There’ll be
more people on this street the later it gets, and you guys know how much I
hate damage control.”
Thoughts were spinning around in my mind as I took one last look at
Samuel Kline, sitting there alone, waiting for his daughter to come back.
“Want me to do it now?” Misha asked, as serious as ever.
“No,” I said, knowing my answer would surprise all of them. I was a fan of
getting things done quick and tidy-like, but in this situation, I knew that
there was another way, a better way in fact.
“We’re not doing anything yet,” I said. “But don’t worry, I’m not going to
let Kline get the better of me. I have an idea, one that will stop him from
killing me without any bloodshed.”
“And how do you intend to do that?” Gilles asked.
“You’ll see, in time,” I said, watching as Aurora took her place back at the
table with her father. “You’ll see.”

Aurora

“And then, this asshole thinks it’s perfectly alright to ask if I’ll blow him,
can you believe that?”
“No, not at all.”
I was sitting in the front room of my workplace—The Humane Society—
while my best friend graced me with tales of her man-scapades from the
weekend.
I loved Hailey, with her short blonde bob that was currently styled into two
spiky pigtails. She knew how to fill the silence when I didn’t want to talk.
And even though we were supposed to be talking about both of our
adventures with men, she knew I didn’t have much to add.
I was perpetually single, and I liked it that way. I didn’t exactly trust men at
the moment, couldn’t after my boyfriend of six years cheated on me. We
had started dating in high school, and I had thought he was the one until I
walked in on him and another chick.
Then it was over, and I hadn’t exactly recovered enough to want to get back
into the dating sphere anytime soon.
But I enjoyed hearing Hailey’s stories, especially on slow days like this. It
was the middle of the workday, in the middle of the workweek, so we didn’t
exactly have anyone coming in at the moment.
She was working at the front desk, and she would always complain of
boredom until I agreed to join her for a bit. I would do my morning tasks,
and then I would take out some of the younger animals to help socialize
them.
Kittens were my absolute favorite, and I would let several of them roam
around at a time, keeping a close eye on them and picking them up and
playing with their paws every so often so they got used to being handled.
Sometimes I would bring out a puppy. A lot of the puppies at our shelter
needed to be trained to walk on a leash so that they would be more
adoptable, and playtime was always good for them too.
At the moment my animal of choice was a little sheepdog mix named
Trixie. She was fluffy and so affectionate, but right now she was stumbling
over herself as she tried to adjust to the harness. I righted her and continued
to listen as Hailey told more tales.
“So obviously that was a no-go, but I was drunk and needed a ride home, so
he offered to drive me. But of course, he takes me back to his apartment
instead of mine. And guess who’s this asshole’s roommate?”
“Who?” I asked, attention on Trixie as she tugged at her leash with her
mouth. I gently corrected her with a soft, “No Trixie,” and she stopped
immediately.
“Aurora, I swear, you have such a way with these animals. You know she
wouldn’t listen if I tried to tell her no.”
I smiled. “That’s why you work at the front desk.”
“Isn’t that the truth. Now, where were we? Ah yes, his roommate. It’s that
hot guy I matched with who just never responded to me. And we just kind
of have an awkward staring contest until he steps forward, glares at that
asshole, and is like ‘I guess I should give you a ride home.’ And then guess
what happens next?”
“What?”
“We totally hooked up, and honestly, he wasn’t bad.” She gives me a
sidelong grin and a wink. “We’ve been texting too.”
I laughed. “I’m happy for you Hailey, just be careful.”
“Of course, you know me, always careful,” she joked in a sing-song voice.
Then it was quiet for a few moments. “Aurora, are you alright?”
“Hmm?” I looked up, realizing I’d been spacing out. “Why do you ask?”
“You just seem like you have something on your mind. You know I’m
always here for you if you need to talk about something.”
“I know.” I was trying to figure out if it was even worth talking to her
about. Nothing had really happened. But still… that feeling.
“I was at brunch with my dad a couple of days ago,” I said, feeling a rush of
relief as I started to talk about it. “It felt a bit like someone was watching
me.”
“What you find arousing is your business Aurora, but that does not sound
healthy.”
“I hadn’t finished yet,” I said, my cheeks growing red. “I turned around and
saw probably the most handsome man I’ve ever seen, though he was older
than I usually go for. He had the most piercing blue eyes, and his hair was
the prettiest silver color—not like old silver, though there was some of that
in it as well. Like dark grey silver, the kind everybody is trying to achieve
but can never quite get, you know?”
“Anything else about this man you discovered?” Hailey teased, her
eyebrows raised.
I ducked my head in shame, burying my face into Trixie’s fur as I brought
her up to my face. “No.”
“Come on Aurora, don’t tell me you didn’t even talk to the guy? It’s been
forever since you’ve actually been interested in someone.”
“I guess if it’s meant to be I’ll see him again. It’s not like I’m really
remembering him that well anyway.” Trixie yipped from my arms, and I let
her down to the floor again.
Hailey crossed her arms across her chest. “Don’t give me that romantic
bullcrap. You need to promise me that next time you feel interested in
someone you’ll actually talk to them!”
I was saved from having to answer her by the bell above our door ringing as
someone walked in. Hailey immediately put on her best customer-greeting
smile as I tried my best not to look terribly awkward.
“Welcome to the Humane Society, what can I do for you today?”
The stranger didn’t answer her immediately. Instead, he scanned the
building, perhaps interested in the architecture. We were situated in one of
the older buildings in the city, after all.
Then he made direct eye contact with me. His eyes were a deep, cold blue,
and he had a smile that seemed so familiar, it was just nagging at the back
of my brain. But I couldn’t quite seem to remember where I might have
seen him before.
“Uh, can I help you, sir?” Hailey asked, clearly growing impatient.
“Not at the moment, just looking,” he said with a smile, his eyes never
leaving mine.
“To adopt?”
“We’ll see.” His gaze traveled down my body, and then followed the leash I
was holding to Trixie, sitting patiently on the end of it. “Is she yours?”
“No.” I shook my head. “My current apartment doesn’t allow animals. And
if I let myself adopt her, I’m sure it would get out of hand.” I let out a little
laugh, and Trixie looked up at me with wide eyes.
The man knelt and rubbed her fondly behind the ears. “She’s so sweet. I
don’t know how you can resist her.”
“Maybe you’d like to see about adopting her then,” I ventured, but the man
merely smiled up at me.
“I fear I don’t have enough time for a dog, especially a sheepdog puppy like
her. If I was going to adopt one, I’d want to make sure I could give them
everything they needed.”
His eyes were on me as he said this, and part of me wondered if he was
saying it just to get on my good side. The tone was a little flirty after all.
“Perhaps a cat then?” I suggested. “They need less attention, and if you get
a bonded pair they’ll pretty much keep each other entertained.”
“A bonded pair?”
“Yes, like really good friends.” I looked at Hailey with a smile. “Or
sometimes lovers.” I blushed and looked down as I said this, not quite
wanting to meet the man’s gaze.
“How lucky they must be,” he said. “The life of a cat is wondrous, to
lounge around in bed all day, and eat all you want. And then to have a lover
to share it with you…. ” His gaze was dark as he stared at me, and although
I would normally cringe away from the suggestion behind the words, I
couldn’t help but feel a strange pull to him.
“Only if they’re a good lover,” I countered, deciding I could afford to be a
little flirty. “Most cats are known for being lazy.”
“On the contrary, I think they just know where to spend their energy.” His
gaze traveled down the length of my body and then back up to my face. “In
that way, they’re very smart creatures.”
I smiled. “Whatever makes you happy.”
“There are a lot of things that make me happy. And putting on a good face
in front of pretty ladies is one of them,” he said, turning to Hailey and
pulling a checkbook out of his pocket. “I’ve come here to make a donation,
who do I write it out to?”
Hailey looked positively shocked, her mouth hanging open like a fish on
land, so I stepped in for her. “The Humane Society of Los Angeles should
be fine.”
“Got it.” He took a pen from behind the desk, and began making out a
check, then handed it over to Hailey. “Hopefully I’ll see you again soon,”
he said with a wink, directing this at me as he turned and left.
“Girl, did you just break your promise already?” Hailey asked when she
finally came to her senses. “Why didn’t you get his number?”
“I never promised you anything! Besides, he was too old for me, and a little
full of himself.”
“And why shouldn’t he be? Did you see that body of his? And how
expensive his suit looked? That man would be a fine catch, and he was
definitely into you.”
“It’s fine. If he really cares, he knows where I work, so he’ll come back.”
Hailey shook her head. “I can’t believe you just let that one get away.”
“I’m gonna put Trixie back, and then take my break, okay?” I said, wanting
to get away from the conversation. I needed some air, and a little bit of
distance before Hailey started teasing me about the handsome stranger
again.
Just because I felt attracted to him didn’t mean I wasn’t still wary, or ready
to even try anything with anyone.
I put Trixie back in her kennel and then, after making sure she had food and
water, headed out the back door to get some fresh air.
It was spring, so it was still chilly enough to actually feel refreshing outside.
Once summer came, I wouldn’t want to take my breaks outside as much
unless there was a nice breeze. It wasn’t like we had much scenery to look
at either.
The back door led into an alleyway behind the buildings. It was the kind of
place you wouldn’t necessarily want to be in after dark, but that was
perfectly fine during the day.
At least, I thought it was.
I got a prickly feeling on the back of my neck again as if someone was
watching me. But before I could turn around, a large hand placed a
chemical-soaked rag over my nose and mouth and pulled me back against
the hard frame of their body.
I tried my best to struggle but lost consciousness too quickly to do anything.
Before I knew it, my whole world was black.

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 AUTHOR’S NOTE

Thank you to all my readers, especially those who are reading my work for
the first time. I know there are so many books to choose from these days,
and I am glad and thankful that you all chose to spend a day or two reading
mine.
If you have a minute—or even, say, like 30-40 seconds—please take a
moment to leave a review on Amazon for OBSESSED. Reviews help indie
authors so much!

XO, Bella

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 STAY CONNECTED WITH BELLA WINTERS

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ALSO BY BELLA WINTERS

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