Primal Pursuit

She nods, and I take her lips again, this time harder, more desperate, swiping my tongue against hers before pulling away. “Under the light, Rabbit.”

Chapter

Thirteen

POPPY

I’m shakingthrough the rest of my shift while being bombarded with questions from coworkers asking who the hot older guy is I’m involved with. Thing is, there’s no answer a girl can give that wouldn’t be met with inquisitive stares. They aren’t far from the truth; we areinvolved. However, they envision a passionate affair, a love story, or a hot sugar daddy situation.

Jesus. There’s no way to explain the strange world of wild, dirty, risky play I’ve gotten myself into.

Earlier, when he had me against the outside wall, I wasn’t thinking of how much I wanted to kill him. All I thought about was how much I wanted him inside me. Rough. Wild. Dirty and so damn filthy.

This man is a master manipulator.

The kiss by the side of Supper was like nothing on this Earth. And shit…he sidelined me. He might not know who I am or why I’m playing this fucked-up game with him, but I still let him sideline me and he knows it. He knows what I want, how I want it, which is why he has the balls to tell me to meet him under the light. Demand it.

I think of not going, I do, but at the end of my shift, I find myself there…waiting.

Humiliation starts to burn, and my feet are achy, my bag heavier after a long day, and I’m more annoyed with Davian than usual.

“Asshole,” I mutter, glaring at a guy whose head swings to me as I say it. He turns and keeps going.

Davian Stark is either conducting some plan of unfettered evil, or he’s just not coming. And I’m standing here, looking like a hooker.

For the third time, a silver Toyota drives past slowly, and something snaps. It’s probably him. Probably gloating and watching and masturbating over me standing here, adding to my humiliation. This is what he wants—he wants to show me that he’s in control.

Fuck Davian Stark.

I turn and go home.

By day four, I still haven’t heard from him, and I hate how I want to text him. It’s a burn in my fingers, an itch in my veins. And I ache. Down deep. I want him. Almost as much as I want to kill him.

“You need to hold out,” I whisper on a bathroom break at Blue King. I don’t need the bathroom; I just need a moment away from the noise and the grabbycrowd. “You fucking need to hold out and keep it together.”

It’s excellent advice I’m giving myself, but it doesn’t calm this itch I have to see him.

I adjust my lipstick—a little red to try to get bigger tips. With all the lessons, rent, and food, I need as much as I can get.

God, I can’t wait for all this to be over so I can head the fuck out of Chicago.

Maybe New York. I can be some sort of career woman. Or a sweet Californian beach somewhere. A place where it won’t cost too much to set up. Maybe I’ll open a little café, serve bitching coffee, flirt with surfers. Just a life I can call my own and one that’s ghost-free.

Davian free.

“He’ll still haunt your dreams,” I whisper and stare at my reflection in dismay. When I look closely enough, I can see the marks he left on my throat beneath the concealer I plastered over it. Instead of horrifying me, planting the fear of Satan in me, the marks…they thrill me. It’s sick, just as sick as my obsession with him. An obsession that started with revenge, and now turned into…I don’t even know. There’s no label for what this is between us, what I’m feeling. But whenever I walk in the streets, there’s this flush of adrenaline in my system knowing he might be following me. Stalking me. Hunting me. It’s like I’m constantly aware of him. Even in the shower, I feel like he’s there watching my every move.

It stirs this hunger inside me that’s all kinds of wrong, but so fucking addictive.

The silver Toyota I saw the other night, the one he’sgot watching me for his own sick and twisted games, keeps showing up outside my work. And once on the street where I live.

I should be paranoid, scared, but I’m not. In my bag there’s a new, shiny, sharp switchblade. A smaller version of Davian’s, something comfortable in my hands for when I get the chance to slit his throat again.

Maybe I’ll chain him up and get him to tell me who hired him.

Whip it out of him.

Yes.