Severed Ties: A Dark Stalker Romance (Tainted Love Book 1)
Severed Ties: Chapter 57

I’m barely conscious of the door unlocking, but a small smile pulls at the corners of my lips. Just like he promised, Tommy’s home before my alarm goes off. It’s strange to think that someone like him is the first person I’ve ever allowed myself to rely on, but I guess that saying is right. When you know, you know.

I’ve never allowed myself to trust anyone before, perhaps with the exception of Wynter, but this is different. It wasn’t really a choice, just like falling for him wasn’t, and for once, I’m leaning into my instincts.

I pull the covers closer, reveling in the soft sheets. I’m delightfully sore from the last few days of basically nonstop sex after years of abstinence. Every muscle in my body feels like it’s been touched by Tommy, and I’m not mad about it. Quite the opposite, in fact.

My pussy pulses at the thought of him taking me when he slips into bed. I’m not sure what he went out to do, and I knew better than to ask questions because I doubt I want the answer and I’d rather live in blissful ignorance for as long as possible. But regardless, I know Tommy well enough to know his cock will be inside me the second he gets between the sheets, and he’ll replace me wet and waiting.

Silence drags through the apartment for long minutes, and although he does move quietly, there’s something different about this ominous silence.

I crack an eye open, met with nothing but darkness, and sigh. Maybe he’s cleaning up in the bathroom. But when I roll over to check, the light’s off.

My heart beats heavily in my chest, the air in the apartment turning thick as I try to remember where the guns were the first time I snooped. There’s one under the nightstand on Tommy’s side of the bed. One strapped beneath the dining table. Two at either end of the couch, shoved between cushions.

But what if he moved them? I did shoot him, after all. It would make perfect sense for him to take away my access to weapons. The other problem I have? I’m naked as the day I was born. So wherever I go to get a gun, I’m either doing it with the sheet wrapped around me or naked. Those are my only two options.

I knew there was a reason I’d slept in pajamas every night for my whole life.

Maybe I imagined the door opening. It could have been the neighbor downstairs. But even as I think about it, I know it’s not the case. There’s no way I would have heard it so clearly, and I’m not in the business of waking up to things that aren’t happening. Hell, Tommy broke into my apartment while I slept all the time and I never woke up.

I slow my breathing and listen carefully for any kind of sound. The fridge hums quietly, the dishwasher swishes. But there’re no other sounds. Except…

I listen harder, and there it is. A tapping. It’s so faint I can barely make it out, but I know what it is immediately. They’re in the closet. Lying in wait for when I wake up or slip back to sleep if they’ve already worked out that I am, in fact, awake.

For once, I say a little thank you to whoever insisted men had to sleep closest to the door in case of a home invader, and I quickly roll across the bed and off the side, taking the sheets with me. It’s not an ideal situation because if I do have to run, I’m going to be very disadvantaged, but it’s the best option I have right now.

The sound of the door slamming open radiates off the wall. At the same time, my fingers wrap around the pistol and I sigh a breath of relief. Thank you, Tommy, for not having enough self-preservation to hide the weapons. Before whoever is in the apartment can make it around the bed, I take aim and remove the safety, and as soon as they come into view, I pop off three shots in rapid succession.

Too bad for me, I’m so focused on him that I don’t notice the other guy coming from my other side, nor the cloth that covers my face and then my eyes are drifting closed with nothing but the smell of chemicals to hold on to.