14. Ava

AVA

M y stalker’s breath on the back of my neck caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.

Run.

I sprinted down the dark aisles again, my heart pounding in my chest, the sound of my own footsteps echoing off the towering shelves as his wicked laughter followed me.

Fear twisted inside me, sharp and insistent, but beneath it—just below the surface—there was something else.

A thrill.

I hated admitting it, but it was there, humming through my veins like a current.

I could feel him behind me, always just out of sight, and the mix of danger and excitement had my pulse racing.

He’s close. I could feel it. I could almost hear his breath, the quiet intensity of his pursuit, and every nerve in my body screamed to keep moving. But the rush, the twisted excitement of it all, wouldn’t let me stop thinking about him.

I darted left and right through the aisles, searching for my way out.

The library was a maze, but I couldn’t think about getting lost.

I just had to get to the front desk. Someone would be there.

Or at the very least I could rush out the door to my car parked in the parking lot.

But in my panic, I couldn’t remember which way was out. I was totally disorientated.

My mind whirled, trying to focus, to outrun him, but part of me didn’t want to.

There was something about being chased by him, by my dark stalker, that made my skin buzz.

He was relentless, and I couldn’t help but wonder—did I want to escape, or did I want to see what would happen if he caught me?

My breaths came in quick, shallow bursts, and each step felt like a decision—keep running or give in to the adrenaline that was coursing through me, blurring the line between fear and desire.

No, I had to keep running. I couldn’t let him catch me.

I had to get help. Goddammit, where was everyone?

I could feel him behind me. I couldn’t hear him, though. All I could hear was my ragged desperate breaths and the booming thud of my heart pounding in my ears.

Which made it worse.

So I didn’t hear him coming .

A hand came out of nowhere and clawed at my breast, yanking me back by my jacket.

“Gotcha.”

I panicked, my limbs lashing like I’d been caught in a trap. I slipped my jacket free, colliding with the shelf at the momentum before scrambling away.

“Run, rabbit, run,” he called after me, mocking me.

Chest heaving, I ran down yet another long dark aisle. I turned left and right, weaving through the library, praying I’d run into someone or that I’d find the exit.

His tall broad dark silhouette emerged from a corner and into my path. “You’re not trying hard enough.”

How was he so fast? How did he get in front of me?

I skidded to a halt before turning and running the way I’d come.

But it felt like he was everywhere.

A hand shot out in the dark and grabbed my wrist. He spun me around into his iron chest. I inhaled his musk, amber and sweat and something delicate, something… familiar .

“It’s like you want me to catch you, rabbit.”

I shoved him away and he let me go, the shadows swallowing him whole.

It made me dizzy as he chased me in and out of the stacks, hair whipping behind me, legs burning. I glanced over my shoulder and the flash of his smile at the end of the aisle terrified me, because I realized he was right.

Deep down, I wanted him to catch me.

A memory, something buried deep down, flashed in front of my eyes .

The cold dewy leaves caressed at my hot cheeks as I pushed through them, unable to suppress a laugh.

I knew the noise might give me away, but I couldn’t help myself. The idea of being caught was too exciting.

It was too fun to run wild through the rows of sweet night-blooming jasmine.

I caught glimpses of him through the tangle of dark hellebores.

A wicked grin among the pretty black pearl lilies.

Dangerous azure eyes that watched me through the plump black hollyhocks.

The dirt beneath my Mary Janes muffled my fleeing steps from him. But it meant he couldn’t be heard either.

The knowledge that he could fall on me at any moment and I’d not be aware of it till it was too late made me want to scream.

But I didn’t. Because the fear exhilarated me. Made me feel heat in places I was told were naughty, which only made me want to feel it more.

I could imagine him on top of me when he caught me as the ground soaked my back. His hair falling into his face as he looked down at me. The cascading crimson wisteria like chandeliers over our heads as we panted from the chase.

I laughed again, because the truth was…

I wanted him to catch me.

The memory made me stumble in the Dublin library, disorientated.

I knew him. He knew me. We knew each other as kids.

He used to chase me through a garden.

His hand caught my wrist as I ran past a corner and the strength of his grip made me lose my breath.

He wrenched me back into the shadows and he slammed me against the shelves and crushed me with the full weight of his body against mine.

The throbbing length of his erection became all I could think about.

I might secretly like it when he chased me.

But he liked hunting me.

I struggled, trying to break free.

But he ensnared my other wrist, hoisted both of my arms over my head, and pinned me against the shelving.

My button-down shirt came untucked from my plaid skirt and I felt exposed from just those couple inches near my belly button.

“What,” he growled into my face, “did I say about you continuing to investigate?”

I flushed. “Why do you want me to stop—”

He tore my shirt and I let out a yelp.

Pearl buttons scattered across the marble floors and cold air hit my chest. I wasn’t sure if I flushed more from shame or arousal.

“Stubborn doll.” He yanked down my bra and sucked a hard nipple into his mouth.

I threw my head back in pain, in pleasure, and my head collided with the book spines. He released me with a wet pop.

My stupid body swirled with relief and disappointment.

“Let me go,” I begged, not really believing myself as I arched my breasts toward him.

Inside me, self-hatred warred with my hatred of him.

I baited him. I knew what I was doing when I texted him back, goading him.

I was too fucked up. Too stupid. Too addicted to whatever sick thrill he gave me, unable to stop myself from practically begging for more.

He glared at me. “You obviously didn’t learn your fucking lesson the other night.” He moved his free hand to his black pants, unbuttoning, unzipping, and pushing them down to his muscular thighs. “Or maybe you like it when I punish you.”

Looking down between my naked breasts, his teeth marks red on one nipple, I shuddered at the sight of him, fear and desire sending flashes of fire and ice through me like a deadly fever.

He was huge.

Not just big, but monstrous. Heavy, thickly veined, its head glistening in the shafts of moonlight that slipped through the shelves behind him. The muscles of his thighs quivered in anticipation and for the first time I saw the cock for what it truly was: a violent weapon.

With a desperate whine, I bucked against his iron grip, his left hand still holding my wrists above my head. I might as well be tied up.

But I wasn’t sure if I was more afraid of the cock between his legs or that I’d end up begging for it.

When I met his eyes again, they were black pits. He kicked out my legs, placing his feet between them so I couldn’t close them even if I wanted to.

He slipped his hand under my skirt and ran his fingers between my legs and over my panties.

I bit back a moan as his fingers found my clit.

“You are soaking, rabbit.”

“No,” I cried out.

On some fucked-up level, I wanted this. Him .

Like this was all just some kind of twisted game we’d started playing in childhood and it had evolved into something very dark and very adult.

His fingers bunched into my panties and before I could cry out, he tore them off me, my skin smarting as the sides of my panties snapped.

He pocketed those torn panties too. Fucking sicko.

Disgust coiled in me at the thought of him stroking his cock later as he held my wet panties to his nose. Even as a twisted, fucked-up part of me reveled in it.

His hand returned under my skirt and I squirmed.

He growled in the back of the back of his throat as he ran his fingers along my slit. My lower stomach burned with such heat as I felt my juices coating my upper thighs.

I couldn’t want this. I shouldn’t want him.

He was doing this to me. This. Whatever this was. This was his fault.

Rage flooded in over the fear and I bucked and kicked. But he was too big. Too strong. Too fucking overwhelming.

“Yes, Ava, fight me,” he said, his voice thick.

That wasn’t fair. He knew my name and I didn’t know his.

He grabbed his cock and flipped up my skirt. “You know it makes me even harder when you fight back.”

“You fucking psycho—”

He thrust into me, spearing me open, filling me to bursting.

I gagged as the pain flared through me.

He held me firm against the shelf even as I struggled.

He let out a long curse. “Fuck, you feel… ”

“No. Please,” I moaned, unsure of what I was really asking for.

He pulled out of me and the absence of him covered my feverish flesh in goosebumps.

He drove back into me with such vehemence that I cried out, my fingers clenching into useless fists above my head, my hips slammed back against the row of books.

His eyes bored into mine, furious. “The more you disobey me, the more I’ll hurt you.”

“Fuck you,” I spat out, trying to slip my hands out from his grasp.

He nipped at my jaw as he slammed my wrists even more brutally against the shelves. “Go on. Keep disobeying me, Ava. I do enjoy punishing you.”

He grabbed my thigh with his free hand and held it up so he could thrust in and out of my pussy.

The angle hit all the right places and my back arched like I’d been electrocuted. I whimpered, my eyes filling with tears that threatened to spill over.

I hated that I was helpless. That I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop him from fucking me.

He had me entirely under his control as he fucked me without mercy, books falling all around us. He dragged his teeth over my breasts, biting and nipping at my nipples, pleasure and pain mixing into an intoxicating poison.

I could do nothing to stop it, any of it.

Even worse, I hated that a part of me didn’t want him to stop.

This was so wrong. Being fucked by a dangerous man whose name I couldn’t remember .

A dark stain spread across my skin, like I was tainted, poisoned.

But God, it also felt so good. My skin buzzed with electricity. I was soaring.

I was alive .

I was sick. Broken. I loved all the dirty, dark things my stalker was doing to me.

My desperate pants soon turned to high-pitched moans and he pushed me so hard against the shelves that they began to rock.

I could do nothing to stop him from using me, from claiming me, just like I could do nothing to stop the orgasm that roared through me.

I came. Hard. Harder than I’d ever come in my life.

A scream tore through my throat toward the high ceiling. My sweat-slicked back writhed against the shelves digging into me.

I wasn’t soaring. I was falling. Crashing to earth like a cursed angel.

He roared as he came, his hips slamming against mine. Once. Twice more.

I struggled to catch my breath as my vision went in and out.

Suddenly, he let go of me and pulled out.

Cold air hit my sweaty skin. My body ached for his warmth.

I slid to the floor on weak knees until I slumped like a rag doll against the stack. Sated. Spent.

My torn shirt hung open over my breasts which rose and fell with my ragged breaths. A wet smear down my inner thigh stretched to my knee-high socks. Angry red marks encircled my twitching wrists which hung limp at my sides.

“Last warning, Ava.”

Then he was gone.

Slipped away into the darkness.

I let out a sound halfway between a sob and a sigh.

Shame made me draw my ruined shirt over my exposed chest as I pushed myself up to my feet.

But the sting of my bitten nipple against the fabric excited me; it was fucked up, but I liked that he’d marked me.

I couldn’t leave the library like this. I had to find my jacket. I weaved back through the aisles, trying to remember where I’d slipped out of it.

There it was, lying like a dark pool in the middle of an aisle.

I snatched it up and pulled it on, my arms aching from being held up over my head for so long. I buttoned up the jacket, covering my torn, disheveled clothes, and only then did I feel partly okay.

I made my way slowly back to my desk, glaring at the occasional security cameras above my head.

I bet he was controlling the library’s security cameras. I guessed he might steal the footage to watch himself defile me later.

I wanted him to see that I wasn’t ashamed or afraid. Even if I was.

I planted my feet, glared right at the camera, and stuck up my middle finger at him.

When I got back to my desk, the banker’s lamp was turned off .

Fuck him. I wasn’t afraid of my past anymore. I’d pour through every single line in my adoption record.

I’d find what he didn’t want me to find.

I switched the lamp back on and reached for my adoption file.

I froze, cursing him under my breath. My file was missing.

Him chasing me, fucking me against the bookshelves was a distraction.

He’d stolen my adoption records.

My lead was gone.

My past had been stolen from me yet again.

And in its place was another fucking Belladonna Lily, its delicate petals mocking me.

I could feel my teeth grinding, my jaw so tight I thought it might crack, and I couldn’t stop the fury from twisting through me.

I snatched up the lily and ripped all its petals off before crushing them under my feet.

He’d stolen my adoption records.

Which meant there was something in those records he didn’t want me to find.

Determination steeled inside me. He thought trying to hinder my investigation would stop me. He thought “punishing” me would deter me.

He was wrong.

It only made me more determined to uncover Liath’s secrets.

My secrets.

Regardless of the danger I might be running headfirst into.