Severed Ties: A Dark Stalker Romance (Tainted Love Book 1)
Severed Ties: Chapter 45

My head spins with the realization. The only person I’ve really trusted since I started my new life not only knows I’ve been taken against my will by the guy that kills people for them, but she also knows that he’s been stalking me for months.

How could Wynter do this to me?

The thought makes my knees tremble so violently they give way beneath me as a life I never wanted flashes before my eyes. A life I have no control over, just like the one I ran from all those years ago.

But I don’t hit the cold concrete ground that chills my bare feet. No. Instead, there are strong, scarred arms wrapped around me, and I’m tugged against a hard, tattooed chest. Tommy doesn’t say a word as he lifts me into his arms and carries me back toward the bedroom.

My sex still throbs from him. Still aches for more, but it shouldn’t. I should be trying to get the hell out of here, not begging for more.

Except, he doesn’t throw me down like I expect him to. Instead, he shoves the sheets back from the head of the bed and lays me down before pulling the soft fabric up around my body. His dark eyes watch me thoughtfully for a few beats before he brushes my hair from my cheeks, his fingers trailing down my cheek in a surprisingly tender gesture.

“I don’t want you to see this as a prison, Clara. That’s not what it is. Right now, you’re here for your own safety, but there won’t always be a direct threat to you, and you’ll be able to do as you please within reason.”

“Within reason?” I choke on the words, seeing them for exactly what they are.

He nods. “You’ll have rules. Rules that will keep you safe and me sane.”

I close my eyes to stop the tears gathering at the rim from falling. He may not see it for what it is, but he’s setting me up for a life of misery, and I’ll be damned if I don’t fight like hell to escape, just like I did the last one.

“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Tommy suggests. “It’s been a long day, and we can discuss your rules tomorrow.”

Sleep? Is he joking? Today I’ve had my life pulled out from under me, my abusive father has found me, I’ve found out I’ve had a psychotic stalker for the better part of a year, complete with cameras throughout my apartment, and now I’m his prisoner? Yeah, sleep doesn’t seem all that likely.

But I close my eyes, knowing that although things feel hopeless right now, I’ve escaped before, and I’ll do it again and again. If for no other reason than to prove to myself I’ll never be the person my father raised me to be. A thief. A pushover. A punching bag. A pawn in a game I never agreed to play.

Heat surrounds me, stifling warmth that makes it hard to breathe. My skin burns but somehow it’s not unpleasant. If anything, it’s soothing. But that doesn’t make any sense because I hate being hot. There’s a good reason I moved to Chicago when I escaped my family.

It’s not until I feel something long and hard pressed against the curve of my ass that I realize why it feels like I’m sitting on a furnace.

Tommy.

The events of yesterday come rushing back and make my stomach churn. I shot him. I shot him, and now he’s holding me against his warm, very naked body. The only scrap of clothing left between us is the sweater I fell asleep in, which is now conveniently bunched up just beneath my tits, rendering it useless.

He moves slightly, his arm flexing around me as his hips pivot until his hard rod slips between my thighs. The move drags an involuntary moan from my throat. How can my body crave this man like it does its next breath, despite all the reasons I should be running in the opposite direction?

“Morning, fawn,” he rumbles, his voice thick with sleep.

“Good morning,” I squeak.

A rough chuckle brushes the back of my neck and his hand drags slowly up my body, beneath the shirt, until he tweaks my nipples one after another.

I hiss out a shaky breath, unable to swallow the moans he draws from my body with just a few light touches.

“I like waking up next to you, Clara. So warm and soft.”

He grinds his cock between my thighs until he replaces my pussy, which is too fucking wet. The evidence of my need for him coats my inner thighs and a pleased sound cracks through the sexually charged air.

“You’re ready for me, fawn.” He nips at my neck, the pain a direct contrast to the pleasure his thick cock elicits with each slow stroke through my folds.

“Does your greedy little cunt need me, Clara?” His filthy words only make my breaths come in harder, the need for relief almost unbearable.

He pries my legs apart and lifts one over his own to give him better access to my aching pussy. His cock is so close to my entrance, stealing the words right from between my lips. Because yes, god yes, I need him. In fact, I’m starting to worry if he doesn’t give me some kind of relief, I’m going to spontaneously combust, or my heart’s going to stop from how hard it’s thundering in my chest.

A rough palm slaps down on my throbbing clit, tearing a startled cry from my throat, and it’s followed by three more, each harder than the last.

His fingers glide through my soaking folds, pressing the tips of two inside me for a moment so fleeting I wonder if my mind is playing tricks on me. “I asked you a question, Clara. I asked if your greedy cunt needs me?” he growls against the shell of my ear.

“Yes,” I rasp, my voice so thick and full of lust, I almost don’t recognize it.

“Say it.”

My cheeks burn under his demand, but I’m too far gone. He could tell me to do just about anything right now and I’d do it if it meant he would take the ache away.

“I need you,” I moan. “My pussy needs you.”

Before I can take my next breath, the thick head of his cock is at my entrance, and it’s not until he thrusts forward in a brutal movement that I can drag in that next breath.

“I dreamed about this pussy, Clara. For fucking months I fucked my hand, wishing it was one of your tight holes, imagining the feeling of sliding into your heat, but fuck, I never knew it could feel so fucking right. Like coming home.”

I swear I stop breathing when the words fall from his lips like a prayer at a confessional because those words, the ones that make my heart stop and race all at the same time, are not words you say in the throes of passion, it’s what you whisper to your lover late at night, the words you say to someone you…

The thought is cut short when his cock strokes across the place inside me that threatens to detonate me in mere seconds, and a deep satisfied noise rumbles in my throat.

“Fuck, Clara. Your pussy is fucking sin. Wet and tight. Fuck,” he grunts, burying himself deep before withdrawing and repeating the move over and over.

There’s something so intimate about this position, about the way he holds me against his body like he can’t get close enough despite being inside of me, and my traitorous heart gallops at the idea that I mean something to this man. Something I shouldn’t want and already know because you don’t stalk someone you give zero fucks about.

His hand trails down to where he’s thrusting into me in slow, measured strokes that set my entire body alight and pinch my clit harshly, my body jolting at the mingling pleasure and pain. “Stop thinking, fawn. When I’m inside you, there’s only one thing you need to be thinking about, and that’s doing as I say when I say. If I tell you not to come, you will not come. If I tell you to bend over, you’ll do so without complaint or hesitation. And if I tell you to come over and over again to the point you can’t tell when one orgasm stops and the next starts, that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”

A strangled cry fills the room, and it takes me a few seconds to realize it came from me. Holy shit. Sex has never been like this. Or at least I don’t think it has. It’s been years since I’ve been intimate with someone, but this feels like more. The air around us is charged and thick, my body trembles violently beneath his touch, and my heart, my heart does stupid little flips it has no business doing while a sociopath drives himself into my too-wet heat.

I’m so fucked.