Page 1 of Sweet Doe
Chapter One
SLOAN
My vision tilts sideways, and for a moment I think I'm stuck in a terrible dream. But the icy winter breeze swirling through the room is real. The ache between my thighs is real. And the man standing before me—God help me—he's real too.
My body goes ice cold, every drop of blood draining from my face as reality crashes over me like an avalanche. The golden flecks in his eyes that I'd glimpsed through the mask. The subtle differences I'd ignored in my lust-drunk haze. The way his voice carried a rougher edge, a darkness that Alex has never possessed.
This isn't Alex.
This hasneverbeen Alex.
My heart slams against my ribs so violently that I'm sure it's going to break through any second. Every nerve ending in my body screams in panic, but I can't move. I can't breathe. And Idefinitelycan’t process what's happening right now.
"Who are you?" The words tear from my throat, raw and desperate, while I scramble backward, tripping over the leg of a pew before falling to the ground. My bare skin scrapes against the cold floor, but I barely feel it through the terror overwhelming me.
He watches me with those dark eyes, completely calm while my world implodes. There's satisfaction in his gaze—sick, twisted satisfaction that makes my stomach lurch.
He's enjoying this.
He’s fuckinglovingthis.
Enjoying my horror, my complete and utter helplessness in this moment.
When he speaks, his voice is low and throaty. "I'm his twin brother." A slow, predatory smile spreads across his lips, the kind of smile that lives in nightmares. "His better half."
His twin brother.
The words explode through my mind like fireworks. Alex has a twin brother? He has a fucking twin brother, and I've been... Oh God.
Oh God, what have I done?
My mind races frantically through every moment of tonight. Every touch, every kiss, every time I moaned Alex's name while this stranger's hands violated my body. The alley. The gingerbread house. The tree farm where I let him fuck me against the bark while snow fell around us.
It all makes sense now. The sudden change in Alex's behavior. The way he seemed like a completely different person. The darkness that felt so foreign yet so intoxicating. Because it wasn't Alex at all. It wasn’t him.
"You're sick," I whisper, my voice breaking. "You're fucking sick."
His laugh is low and rich, like fine wine gone bad. "Am I? Because you seemed to enjoy every second of it, sweet doe."
The pet name he's been using all night makes me feel immediately ill. He's been playing with me like a cat with a wounded bird, and I fell for every fucking second of it.
"It was so obvious in your eyes. The curiosity. The suspicion," he continues, circling me slowly while I’m laid across the floor."When you wondered why Alex was suddenly so... intense. Sohungry. So willing to break the precious rules that dictated his perfect little life." He crouches down beside me, so close that I can smell the musk of sex and sweat on his skin. "It's all coming together now, isn't it?"
It is. Every moment, every fleeting doubt I'd pushed aside in favor of my fucked up fantasy. The way his eyes looked different in the moonlight. The roughness of his touch.
I was too fucking stupid to recognize that the pastor's proper son would never become something this feral and dangerous.
"Where is he?" I demand, though my voice is unsteady. "Where's Alex?"
Something flickers across his face, dark and vicious, instantly forming ice in my veins. But before I can process it fully, he's reaching for something. A black box I hadn't noticed, elegant and ominous, tied with ribbon the color of spilled blood. Similar to the box he’d left in the cabin, only slightly larger.
"Here," he says, holding it out to me with false gentleness. "Open it."
Every instinct I have is screaming at me not to touch that box. Not to takeanythingthis psychopath is offering. But my hands move of their own accord, trembling as they reach for it. Because if they don’t, there’s no telling what he’ll do.
There’s a sparkle in his eyes as he watches me take the box.
The ribbon slides away easily, as if itwantsto be opened. I lift the lid with shaking fingers, and?—
