Primal Pursuit

Poppy is one in a million. My favorite game ever.

I send her a text.

Next round starts…now.

Chapter

Nineteen

POPPY

Fucking Davian Starkhas been driving me crazy.

One text an hour ago, and nothing. He thinks he?—

My phone pings again.

Find the place with the steeple, open the door, and…

I stare at my phone. And what? He’s going to try to fuck me in a church?

Try? Ha. There’s no ‘try’ about it, and he knows it because every time I plan on thatnothappening, it happens.

Sex.

But not in a church. That’s where I draw the line.

There’s no shock in him wanting to fuck me in a church, either. The man is twisted, depraved, and downright psycho. And it seems I’m herefor it.

I take a breath and get up, pacing my living room.

I haven’t forgotten my mission, to carve information out of him and find out who hired him before I cut my revenge from his flesh. I’ve spent years of my life obsessing over this. It’s going to happen. It needs to. Not even hot, wild, bone-melting sex can change that.

Not one moment of realizing how we fit, Tetris style, can change it.

This is not a story about love or friendship or about two similar people connecting. It’s violence, obsession, hate, me hunting the hunter. That’s why he catches me—why Ilethim catch me. That’s why I’ve been having sex with him, making him think he wins every time.

“And the tattoo?” I ask the room, going into the kitchen to stare at my fridge’s sad state of affairs. I pull out the bottle of water and take a sip.

The tattoo is my reminder of what I’m doing to get my revenge. After it’s all over, wherever I go—I almost laugh at the thought that pops into my head of me in the suburbs, living a quiet life. Even as a kid, I never thought that. In fact, I never thought about my future beyond graduating and going to college.

Maybe I’ll do that. Or just open a coffee shop in that small, imaginary California beach town.

Fuck, I can do it all when I’m done. The world is right there. For the taking. Davian free.

For more than two weeks, I’ve been looking over my shoulder, checking my phone every twenty minutes, and inching up alleyways. Waiting. Just waiting for whatever diabolical move Davian’s going to make next.

At one point, I thought he’d…moved on, that I lost his interest. That I bored him.

But no man offers for you to stay in some soulless and impersonal place while he’s out of town if he even suspects that he’s done with you.

No. The hunter’s still interested. His new texts confirm that.

It feels like I’ve been waiting forever for him to text me, because I need our next game like it’s air. Wanting to know when and where.

Hell, I’ve stopped myself numerous times from texting him first, to get that ball of excitement rolling, but the hunter doesn’t want that. And, as a hunter hunting the hunter, pretending to be prey, I have to be that prey. His target.

I press my thighs together and lean against the sink, keeping the phone in the other room.