Chapter 1

1

Cash

Idon’t have to search for her profile on Instagram, because I never close it.

It’s always open on my laptop, her angelic image probably burned into the screen by now. Every single picture she’s ever posted has been memorized down to the tiny flyaway hairs around her temples, the position of her fingers, the amount of cleavage she’s showing.

Scout Snyder is my fucking obsession.

The first and last one I’ll ever have.

And she went to the movies last night.

Jealousy sears my skin like a raw steak being tossed onto a frying pan. The sensation is so unholy that I lean back in my chair with a hiss, my fists slamming down on the table and bobbling the laptop. It doesn’t matter that Scout only went to see a movie with some girlfriends—I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there to sit in the shadows and protect her, because I had a goddamn baseball game. I always have a game these days, but my mind is never on the sport anymore. It’s on her. Where she is, who she’s with, what she’s wearing and how I’m going to maul her when I finally snap. I’m so distracted by my deranged thoughts that my coaches are beginning to whisper about it when they think I don’t notice.

Not good. I’m on scholarship.

This is my final year to be scouted by the major league.

But ever since my college best friend introduced me to his younger sister, little miss Scout Snyder, I’ve been burning alive. Before the season started this spring, my nights consisted of following my freshman target from her dorm to the library to parties where I pretended to run into her. Oh, she would laugh, my honorary big brother is here. Meanwhile, I was putting the word out to every man at the party that she was forbidden to them.

Just being a good honorary big brother, right?

Looking out for my best friend’s kid sister.

Wrong. If any man besides myself ever lays a finger on her, I will dismantle them limb by limb. Murder. It’s something I never expected myself to be capable of. Ever. I’ve always considered myself to be a normal, all-American jock. I’ve dated girls my whole life, never getting attached to a single one of them. I’ve always been easygoing. The only thing I cared about was baseball. Making it to the pros.

The second Scout waltzed into my life, everything changed.

It’s almost like she has altered my psychological makeup.

I’m not normal anymore. I’m…

A stalker.

I stalk her. I break into her dorm in a hood and a surgical mask just so I can run my fingers through her panty drawer. Lay down where she sleeps. I write her letters. I email her anonymously, informing her that if she dates another man, I will paint the campus in their blood. How else am I supposed to tell her? In person?

No.

She’s my best friend’s little sister. And I don’t think that fact alone would be enough to stop me when I need a girl this fucking much. But these aren’t normal circumstances. I’m her stalker. I’ve been following her around for seven months, taking pictures of her…

Terrorizing her.

If I take Scout on a date, it’s over. I’m never letting her go.

I wouldn’t be a typical boyfriend. I’d ruin her life.

I’d keep her under lock and key. I’d be even more of a maniac than I am now.

Still, just the thought of being Scout’s man has me leaning back in the chair, tugging the hem of my T-shirt up to my throat and working down the zipper of my jeans. With my cock out and pulsing against my bare stomach, I quickly scroll to one of my favorite pictures. Scout at the lake on her family boat eating a grape popsicle, her plush lips wrapped around the frozen treat, her green eyes sparkling with happiness. She’s wearing a big cover-up T-shirt with a crocodile on the front, but her thighs are spread and there it is, just a tiny hint of her bathing suit bottoms.

The wet pink and white stripes that hug her virgin cunt.

I know it. I know she’s a virgin.

Fifty-six days ago, I hugged her a little too long at a party. I lifted her off the ground and let my lips brush over her cheek and she blushed like a tomato. Could barely look me in the eye afterward. Goddamn. Would she blush while I fuck her?

My expulsion of breath is loud in the kitchen, that first mean stroke of my fist causing my booted feet to shuffle on the floor.

“Come here and sit on my lap, Scout,” I demand through my teeth, picturing her wide green eyes, her indecision, but ultimately her trust and compliance. She trusts me completely. It’s the ultimate joke. “No, not like that. Face me.” She gasps and I reach up, in my mind, tangling my fingers in her blonde hair. “Sit down on my fucking lap. Legs wide open. Cunt to cock. Apologize for going to the movies without me. Rub yourself on my dick until I accept.”

“Sorry, Cash,” she whispers, sticking out her bottom lip, those big eyes swimming with contrition, her tits settling against my chest, hips starting to roll. “I didn’t want to go without you. I love knowing when you’re there. I feel so safe.”

A groan emits from my throat, my fist tightening around my cock. Moving faster. My eyes are strained on those pink and white stripes, her suckling mouth on the popsicle. “Next time, you stay home like a good little girl. Or else.”

“Or else what, Daddy?” she whispers in my ear, her cream beginning to seep through her panties, so I can feel it on my shaft. Daddy. Oh God, it’s the best/worst part of my daily, sometimes hourly, fantasies. I’m only four years older than Scout, but there is something inside of me aching to be the ultimate authority in her life.

Her guardian, her enforcer, her favorite.

“You’ll learn to stay home when I’m busy or I’ll take away your popsicles. No dessert for a week.” In my fantasy, this is where I press her face into the slope of my neck to muffle her protests about her punishment for unknowingly disobeying me, because I need to bury myself in her cunt. I can’t wait any longer. I rip her panties to the right and start shoving my hard meat into her untapped fuck hole, my eyes unblinking on the bikini bottoms on my laptop screen, imagining what it must be like. Tight and innocent. Shy but slick.

“I’m trying so hard to take it,” she says haltingly. “I want to take it for you, Daddy.”

“You will.” I throw her down onto an imaginary couch and flip her over, spitting on her little round ass cheeks, prying her thighs apart and guiding my dick to that sweet pink entrance, feeling it contract with nerves around my pressing head, only allowing in the first fat inch. “You were such a big girl, going to the movies by yourself, weren’t you, angel? That means you must be big enough to handle my cock, right?” I backhand her ass cheeks. “Relax your fucking cunt or this is going to get rough for you.”

Beads of sweat are rolling down my stomach, my back, the sides of my face.

In all my millions of fantasies about Scout, I’ve never once gotten fully seated inside of her before ejaculating and I’m not going to make it now, either. Even the imaginary version of her is too sweet, too perfect, too much of a mindfuck to let me last. My head drops forward and I violate myself roughly, grunting, panting, my balls thickening—

There’s a loud knock on the door of my apartment.

I swallow my next moan and slow to a stop, my sweat turning to ice on my skin. I feel exposed, like I’m going to get caught engaging in this ultimate shame. Fantasy fucking my best friend’s sister, being far too aggressive with her, making her call me Daddy, stripping her of anything resembling independence, because I’m a sick bastard who wants to possess Scout.

Own her.

I take a deep breath, trying to make my voice even. “Yeah? Who is it?”

“It’s Russ. Let me in.”

Russ.

Scout’s brother.

My best friend.

Did he hear anything I was saying through the door?

I slam the lid of my laptop shut and force my cock back into my jeans, wincing as I zip. “Uh. Hold on. One second,” I call toward the door, looking furiously around the apartment for any proof of my stalking activities. But no, my letter writing paraphernalia and all the items I’ve stolen from her dorm room are in a special box in my closet. The pictures I’ve taken are loaded onto my laptop, kept in a secret folder on my phone. Nothing is visible here. To be safe, I stow the laptop inside of my oven and jog over to answer the door. “Hey.”

Russ looks stressed. “Hey,” he says, shoving five fingers through his light-colored hair. “Can we come in? I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

“We?”

Scout steps into view, a purple backpack clutched to her chest—and a storm begins to rage in my ears. My pulse triples in speed. I clutch the doorframe to stop myself from reaching for her and dragging her into the apartment. God help me, I almost manhandle her in front of Russ, my body demanding I lay her down somewhere and press her down with all of my weight. Shout at her for wrecking my head. Making me go fucking crazy.

“What is she doing here?” I ask, raggedly, harnessing every ounce of my self-control.

“Scout has a stalker,” Russ says, his expression one of pure terror. “I need you to protect her while I’m out of town.”