Home > Books > Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse Duet, #1)(99)

Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse Duet, #1)(99)

Author:H. D. Carlton

This time I do smile, and the dilation of her eyes has my cock growing stiff.

Fuck, stop it. It hurts.

But when her tongue darts out, wetting her lips, I no longer give a fuck about the pain.

My hand snaps out, grabbing the back of her head and bringing her in close. She gasps, her pink lips parting, and in this moment, all I want to do is slip my cock past them and watch them wrap around me. I’d walk on glass if it meant getting to fuck Addie’s mouth again.

She struggles, but I hold her steady, her hands planted on the railing to support her weight. Her purple robe is draped open, but not enough to expose the bite marks I left last night on her tits.

“You’re right. I do love the sound of watching you for lifetimes.” I drop my voice low, as deep as I want to shove my cock inside her. “I also love the possibility that I have fallen in love with you in each life. Fucked that sweet pussy of yours and made you fall in love with me as much as I am with you. What did I tell you, little mouse? That you couldn’t escape me. If it’s real, then I’ve chased you across time and space, and you’ve never been able to get away.”

She gapes at me, seemingly speechless for several moments before she gains her wits. “You don’t even know if that’s true,” she whispers. “Or how many lifetimes you’ve stalked me for.”

I grip her hair and twist until her ass is flush with the metal rail. Her hand grips mine, nails scoring my flesh as she fights against me, but it doesn’t deter me from bending her backward over the railing, the tips of her toes scarcely touching the floor.

“What the hell, Zade?!” she screeches, her smoky voice breaking from fear. But my little mouse stills, her chest heaving. And it’s then that I nearly break.

She trusts me.

“Hush, baby,” I murmur. I keep one hand firmly lodged in her hair while my other hand glides across her stomach. I hover over her and inspect every curve and detail that makes up the face of the woman I’m madly fucking in love with.

Even with her eyes rounded in panic, she’s the most enthralling creature I’ve ever laid eyes on.

My fingers trail across her freckled cheekbone, down her jaw, and to her neck. Her breath catches, and her pulse thunders. I can’t help but smile, pleased by the reaction I draw out of her every fucking time I touch her.

I trail my fingers down to her parted robe, those bite marks on her tits now on full display. A low hum gathers in my chest, building to a growl when I pull apart her robe further until it falls completely to the sides, baring her creamy flesh and those rosebud nipples.

They tighten in the cool wind, and my mouth waters with the need to bite down on them.

“My little unsuspecting mouse, living each life without any knowledge of what’s to come. Not knowing that I’m yearning for you, watching in the distance until I make myself known.” I drag my lips across her collarbone, trailing up the column of her throat towards her ear. “For centuries. Both of us wearing different faces, inhabiting different bodies. But the same souls, colliding over and over, until this planet decides to crumble and our souls have nowhere else to go.” I hum in amusement, enjoying the quickening of her breath.

“Can you imagine it?” I ask softly.

I pluck a nipple between my fingers, another low groan vibrating my chest. She shivers beneath my touch, her little pants desperate and breathy.

“Can you imagine what it would feel like to have my love for that long?”

She swallows, her eyes pinned on the water beyond the cliff as a shaky breath loosens past her lips. “Do you know what it sounds like to drown? That’s what it would feel like,” she says, her voice husky and uneven.

“Tell me, baby. What does drowning sound like?”

“Like the first breath of air after being trapped underwater. It's a sound of both pain and relief. Of desperation and desire. When you’ve gone so long without oxygen, that first breath is the only thing that makes sense, and your body takes it in without permission.”

“Isn’t it the most exquisitely painful thing you’ve ever felt?” I jerk her head closer, wringing another gasp that skitters across my lips. “You’re mine, Adeline,” I growl. “I don’t care if we're reincarnated or not. Here and now, this is fucking real. And in this lifetime, you are mine.”

I let her go, and she doesn’t waste time scrambling up and plastering herself against the house, her hands gripping the siding as if I had shaken her world, and she’s grasping for something to ground her.

I can feel the intensity radiating off of me. The buzzing has grown louder, and I’m not sure whether I need to fuck Addie or go shoot someone in the face.

“Are you okay?” she asks quietly, sensing the turmoil raging inside of me.

I look over to her, and it seems as if she shrinks beneath my gaze. It’s not until I notice the tremor in her hands that I realize I’m glaring.

“Fuck,” I say, swiping a hand roughly down my face. The raised scars only serve as a reminder. “I’m sorry, mouse. I got shitty news this morning. I keep getting shitty news.”

She frowns, a crease forming between her brows.

She clears her throat, draws the robe closed, and cautiously steps back towards me, fidgeting with the belt again.

Brave girl.

Her awkwardness almost makes me smile, but I feel a little too empty to do anything other than stare.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she finally asks, glancing up at me before she reaches for her coffee.

“Do you want to hear about it?” I counter, cocking a brow. A red flush rises to her cheeks, but she lifts her eyes and holds them steady.

“Yes.”

This time, it’s me who looks away.

“That involves hearing about what I do for a living. Which is kill people.”

She releases a shaky breath, but instead of retreating as I had expected, she nods her head. “Okay.”

That single word only made up for four letters, meant more to me than she could ever imagine.

“You’re not going to like what you hear,” I argue, and for the first time, I think I’m searching for an excuse not to tell her. I’ve always been honest with her, but right now, I don’t think I can handle her vicious rejection.

“Maybe not,” she concedes. “But you said before you save women and children. Was that not true?”

I pin her with my stare, conveying just how serious I am. “That is what I do. All of what I told you is one hundred percent the truth. I just didn’t go into detail about what I do once I catch them.”

“Torture them,” she easily guesses. Those four politicians exposed that truth.

She pauses, her caramel eyes boring into me. She’s absently chewing her lip, contemplating something, it seems. Whatever she decides, she nods her head slightly to herself.

I’m very curious to know what’s going on in that head of hers.

“Tell me,” she says, her tone firm and unyielding. “I want to know everything… about you.” She ends her sentence with a wrinkle of her nose as if she thought she’d never say those words. It brings a small grin to my face.

“You mean besides what it feels like to have my cock in every hole of your body?”