Severed Ties: A Dark Stalker Romance (Tainted Love Book 1)
Severed Ties: Chapter 39

Hot tears roll down my cheeks and I choke on each breath I try to drag in.

There’s no reason for me to react this way. I didn’t know the woman. It didn’t even happen in the same city I was in at the time. But the fact people like that exist makes me sick to my stomach. And worse than that, the idea of a young Tommy, a boy who had no parents and who was a victim of circumstance being forced to watch that, breaks my heart.

The feelings I have for Tommy are confusing and wild, like the man himself, I suppose, but it doesn’t stop me from hurting for him and for the things he’s seen.

“You think these scars make me see you any different, little fawn?” he rumbles, his bloody fingers dragging up my body until they’re hovering just at the edge of the scar that has caused me nothing but regret and sorrow. “My obsession with you didn’t come from how smooth your skin is, Clara. It was the way you looked up at me when I helped you out from under your desk. I was fascinated with you from the first time my eyes brushed over you, but it was that moment that cemented your place as the object of my obsession.” He drags his index finger over the scars, but I can’t look down, can’t drag my eyes from his dark ones. They’re captivating in the most sinful of ways. “These scars only prove you can handle my darkness. I hoped I could stay away from you, or at least far enough you didn’t know I was watching, but this cements your role.”

I stare at him, waiting for some kind of punch line, but his attention has moved to the scar. “Cements my role?”

He taps my stomach and I drag my eyes down to where his are locked. Written in blood is a new word, and one that makes me feel equally turned on and sick.

MINE.

“Now, my little fawn. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to fuck you until you can’t breathe without my cock lodged inside you, and then I’m going to get Doc over here to stitch me up.”

My eyes widen. “Uh, shouldn’t we have Doc come first?”

It doesn’t escape me that I don’t dispute him fucking me because I’d be lying to us both if I said I didn’t want it. The man has been the star of more sex dreams than I can count and has given me more orgasms without ever touching me than any other man.

The corners of his lips turn up into a cruel smirk, his eyes dancing with a danger I know I won’t run from. “But you look so pretty covered in my blood, little fawn.”

I open my mouth to respond, but there are no words. Nothing that will make what he said make any more sense at least. But then again, none of this makes sense. The life I’ve led, the things Tommy was forced to see as a child, the things he does on a daily basis, the stalking, it’s all batshit crazy and I’m just along for the ride.

His eyes drag down my body, taking in each curve, each imperfection I would normally try to cover. But he’s hungry. Every inch of my body only makes his eyes grow darker, and perhaps I should fear him. He’s an uncaged beast. The man you call when you need a problem taken care of in the most painful of ways. But somehow, I know he won’t hurt me. He’s not capable of it.

“What are you thinking, Clara?”

“That you won’t hurt me,” I reply immediately.

He chuckles, reaching behind him and feeling around the bed for something. It’s not until the glint of a blade catches my attention that I finally drag my eyes from him, and my stomach sinks. “I think what you mean to say, little fawn, is that I won’t kill you.” He drags the tip of the knife up between my breasts and up the left side of my neck. “Pain is a funny thing, Clara. It’s not black and white like most people make it seem. It’s fuel. It’s light. It’s love. It’s the air we breathe.” He shakes his head, a laugh falling from between his lips. “Everyone thinks I’m a crazy fuck because the bite of pain is better than any drug I’ve ever tried. It’s fucking addictive.” His eyes flicker to mine, and the heat in them matches the fire in my core. “I’m going to show you a whole new world of pleasure, fawn.”

The nickname rolls from his tongue at the same time the knife nicks my neck. A sharp pain causes me to hiss out a breath, but it’s more out of instinct, like when you stub your toe on the side table or hit your elbow when you walk past a door handle. Blood drips down my neck, across my collarbone, and down between my tits, the same path the knife wandered a few moments ago.

Tommy’s eyes are fixated on the droplet as it makes its way down my body, past the scars, through my belly button and toward the apex of my thighs.

He drops to his knees without warning, and I waver on my feet. I’m unsteady for so many reasons, but perhaps the most terrifying of them is that I’m learning to lean on Tommy in more ways than just physically. It wasn’t a conscious decision, or at least I don’t think it was, but it’s a fact I’m going to have to deal with when all this is over.

He’ll let me down just the same way everyone else has in my life. There are no ifs. It’s just a matter of when.

His tongue trails up my thigh until he meets the stream of blood and laps it up like it’s a sweet treat, but he doesn’t stop there. He trails down until his mouth hovers above the apex of my thighs, and I tremble above him.

“I knew you’d taste like heaven, Clara. You’re as close to the pearly gates as I’m ever going to get, and if I get to devour your sweet body over and over again, that’s better than any eternal plane I can imagine.”

His words steal the air from my lungs and make it impossible to drag in a breath because no one has ever said anything so…weirdly sweet to me in my life. Not the boy who took my virginity or any of the men who followed. Hell, the men in my dreams don’t even cut it.

He chuckles, his breath whispering across my sex and causing a shiver of need to rush through my body. I need him. Even if I shouldn’t. Even if it’s wrong to want a man who has been stalking you since the day you met him. None of that matters because if he doesn’t touch me soon. If he doesn’t soothe the ache between my thighs, I’m going to go insane.

Tommy’s eyes flicker up to meet mine, a haze of lust in the sea of blue. I didn’t think it was possible for him to be more attractive or for his darkness to be any more alluring. But I was wrong. With his free hand, he trails his fingers up until he meets the small stream of blood rolling down my body, and then, as if it’s something he’s done time and time again, he pushes those same fingers inside me, pulling a startled yelp from my throat, followed by a heady moan that matches his.

“Fuck, fawn. You don’t know how good you taste. If I thought you would survive it, I’d bathe us in your blood and relish every fucking second.” His mouth covers my aching sex and his tongue laps at my overstimulated clit. I’m not sure how it’s possible for it to be so sensitive, seeing as he hasn’t touched it until now, but the movement almost makes me lose my footing.

He gathers more of my blood, and although I should be sickened by every move he’s making right now, it only makes my cunt pulse more. I never thought I’d be a woman interested in something so…taboo, but when he reaches up and gathers his own blood beside mine before reaching down to stroke his cock, my body is set alight with pleasure, and the orgasm that slams into me is like a runaway train.

It’s wild and unpredictable, just like the man giving it to me, and I can’t drag my eyes away from his hand, choking his cock. Our combined blood coats his shaft and somehow, it’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen in my fucking life.

“I need you, little fawn. I need you at my mercy. I need your pain and your fear, but only ever for me. If anyone else hurts you, I’ll end them. If anyone else scares you, I’ll wipe their sorry fucking ass off the face of this earth.” His fingers are still pumping inside of me, their steady motion causing my body to tremble in the most delicious of ways, but almost as if the orgasm gave me clarity, something occurs to me.

Tommy is never going to let me go.