Page 43 of Jealous Stalker

CHAPTER 16

S.t.a.l.k.e.r

She opens the door before I even knock.

Ella.

Bathed in soft lamplight, hair loose around her shoulders, eyes wide and shining like she was holding her breath the whole time I was walking up the steps. She looks like she’s been waiting for me her whole life. Like maybe she knew, the first time I touched her pillow or reset her alarm, that this moment would come.

“Hi,” she says, a single word shaped like a question. LikeAre you really here?

I step inside without thinking. Without breathing.

Then Iambreathing—because I’m close enough to smell her, and it nearly doubles me over. Vanilla. Clean skin. Girl.

Her hands twist together, a nervous tic she’s done a hundred times. I’ve seen it from the shadows. From her mirror. From her bed.

But I’ve never seen it this close. I’ve never had the right totouch.

Until now.

I lift one hand, gentle as dawn, and brush my knuckles down the side of her face.

She exhales like I knocked the wind out of her.

“You’re really here,” she whispers.

“You asked me to be,” I murmur, throat thick. “And I’ve never wanted anything more.”

Then—God help me—I kiss her.

There’s no hesitation. No slow build. Just months of hunger, of watching, of knowing every inch of her except her mouth—and now, it’s mine. Our mouths crash together with all the force of need and relief and blind, reckless adoration.

She makes a sound. I answer with a growl.

Her hands clutch my shirt. Mine frame her face, then her waist, then her hips, like I’m trying to memorize her all at once. The world tilts, spins, disappears.

This isn’t a kiss. It’scontact. It’s combustion.

When we finally break apart, breathless, shaking, she looks up at me with those storm-lit eyes and says, “I don’t want shadows anymore.”

“You won’t have them,” I promise. “Not from me. Not ever again.”

Ella

I don’t knowhow long I stand there, wrapped in his arms, trying to remember how to breathe.

He’s in a hoodie tonight—hood low, the shadows swallowing most of his face—like even here, in the safety of my apartment, he can’t quite believe he deserves the light.

His name feels different now that I’ve spoken it aloud. Realer. Heavier. Like it carries every stolen breath, every note, every fantasy I didn’t dare confess—not even to myself.

But he’s here. And I’ve never felt more safe. Or more ruined.

I rest my forehead against his chest. The soft cotton of his hoodie brushes my skin, and beneath it his heart pounds, frantic under my cheek. The steady rise and fall of his breath grounds me.

“I thought I’d be scared,” I whisper.

His hand moves slowly up my spine. “Of me?”

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