Page 22 of Jealous Stalker
I’m used to hard surfaces, used to sleeping rough and often not at all. Being a soldier trained me to accept the harder edges of life. But really, the hard times started long before that.
My body relaxes, sagging into her soft mattress. I’m used to hard surfaces, used to sleeping rough and often not at all. Being a soldier trained me to accept the harder edges of life.
But really, the hard times started long before that.
Before Iraq and before the uniform. Before I learned to shoot or survive or disappear.
I was nine when my mother left. Walked out the front door with a suitcase and a blank stare, and never looked back. My father didn’t notice—or if he did, he drank until he forgot. I spent more nights under the trailer with a flashlight and a switchblade than I did in my own bed.
There were no bedtime stories. No family picnics or vacations. No one to show me how to tie a tie or throw a punch that didn’t get me killed.
I figured out early that I wasn’t built for soft things. I was forged in silence. In fists and door slams and nights where the cold felt like company. I told myself it was better that way. That I didn’t need anyone. Didn’t want anyone.
Because men like me—we’re not built to be husbands. Or fathers. Out DNA is best left in a cheap motel’s toilet. We don’t get to sit at dinner tables or go to school plays or take Sunday naps with babies on our chest.
We’re designed to keep the bad things out for the people who deserve love and family and happy ever afters.
And when there’s nothing left to fight… we disappear.
So I accepted it. That I’d be alone.
Until her.
Until this girl with soft eyes and unguarded smiles looked around the gym like it didn’t scare her, likeshedidn’t need protecting—and all I could think was,but I want to protect you anyway.
Ella doesn’t know it yet, but she saved me the moment I saw her.
Now all I have to do is prove I’m worthy of staying in the light she never meant to shine on me.
I lean closer and breathe her in deeper. Because I know her sleep cycle inside out, I know she’s in non-REM, the deepest part of her sleep. So deep that if she didn’t feel me slide in beside her she probably won’t feel what I’m about to do next.
My palm feels clammy as I set it on the pillow next to her head, then slowly rotate it so my hand is open right beneath her nose. So she’s breathing me in straight into her lung.
And…fuck, watching it happen slams heat into me. My cock jerks. Hard. Fills. Throbs. It’s so painful I have to bite my lip to stop the animal grunt that works up my throat.
Then I feel her breath wash over my skin. And I can’t help it.
My dick jerks furiously. My balls scream in agony, rising tight and desperate.
I slam my face into the pillow, clench my teeth around a large chunk.
And, heaven help me, I come in my fucking pants.
My seed pumps from me like it’s a race to flee my body. My hips pump cloth and air, as I imagine I’m between her beautiful thighs, buried deep in her snug little pussy. And I come even harder.
The bed creaks and for a blind minute, I’m terrified my helpless release will wake her. But she keeps sleeping.
And I lie there, cum-soaked, catching half-breaths and falling deeper into love. Into madness. Into a deep obsession I know I’ll never be free of.
When I think again without blissed agony filling every corner of my brain, I exhale and remove my hand. My dick, hungry and desperate and nowhere near sated, is already thinking of stirring again.
But I force control. I have probably…ten minutes before she slips out of non-REM. I should leave. Bring the note back home and pin it to the wall next to the other one. I ordered a frame for the other one. I’ll need to order another one now.
Leave, dumbass.
But my body seems to be suspended in treacle. While my brain wanders.
If things were different, what would we be doing now?
