Page 9 of Jealous Stalker

But lately it’s become an unwelcome feeling that creeps up when I let my guard down.

She’s light and good and soft.

And me? I’m all sharp corners and shadows.

I lost the hearing in my left ear in Iraq. One wrong blast. One second of chaos. I still remember the agonising ringing afterward. The way the world faded in one direction, like someone sliced my perception in half.

It was hell.

But it made the other senses sharper. I can hear the tiniest breath now from across a room. I can sense movement, shifts intemperature, the energy in a space when something changes. I used to think it was a curse.

Now I know it was training.

Forthis.

Forher.

I can hear Ella's breathing right now from behind her door. Slow. Deep. Safe. Iknowwhen she’s dreaming. When her body twitches. When she’s about to move.

And sure enough...

Her door creaks open.

She appears in the hallway, a pale wisp of light in the dark. Her eyes are open, blank, that sleepwalker’s glaze chilling and precious all at once.

The string is tied to her wrist, trailing behind her, but she doesn’t see it looped around the corner of the hall table.

My heart kicks up, brutal and deafening in my ears.

She tugs again, confused—sweet brows drawn together, mouth parted in a soft exhale that shreds the last of my restraint.

The string catches where it’s looped around the hall table’s edge. It tightens harder and her wrist jerks backward.

Her balance falters. She stumbles.

Fuck.

“No, no, no…” I breathe, already moving, already hers.

Two strides, and I’m on her.

Hands gentle and deliberate and possessive. So damn possessive.

I crouch low, so close I can feel her warmth against my chest, my breath dragging hard between clenched teeth as I reach for her wrist.

And I’m touching her.

Sweet God, I’m touching my princess for the first time.

Her skin ishot silkbeneath my fingers.

But the string bites into her soft skin, and like a flipped switch a flash of rage boils in my blood—at the world, the risk,the knot itselffor daring to mark her before I could.

“Shh, I’ve got you,” I murmur, lips brushing her temple, the scent of her hair sliding through me like a prayer I don’t deserve to whisper.

She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t wake. Just sways like she knows me. Like her body’s already tuned to mine in some secret way.

I work the knot free, every brush of my knuckles against her pulse a test of my control.

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