Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1)

by H.D. Carlton

I’ll be seeing you soon, little mouse.

Later, I’ll ask God why She made me the way that I am,

I turn and rush back inside, feeling like Lucifer’s hounds are nipping at my asscheeks.

God, why did you make me the way that I am? Next lifetime, can you not do such a shitty job?

“I haven’t sent a nude since I was twenty. I take nudes because I like my body and want to stare at it all day.” Daya laughs. “I fucking love you.”

God? Me again. We really need to talk about your life decisions when you made me.

When you make someone fall in love with the darkest parts of you, there’s nothing you can do that will scare them away. They will be yours forever because they already love all the fucked up bits and pieces of you.

I plop on the bed, crisscrossing my legs as I stare at my phone like it’s a mousetrap with a big ass block of cheese in it. Gourmet smoked gouda fucking cheese, to be precise. The phone lights up with an incoming text, the vibrations in the bed traveling straight up my legs. I snatch it up. I fucking love gouda cheese, goddammit.

I’ll never recover—not when my soul has been ripped from my body and dragged down to hell. I fell so deeply that I’ve found myself in the devil’s lair, being feasted on by the dark god himself.

I have the most insane urge to turn around, walk back in that house, bend over the couch and let him fuck the rest of whatever sanity I have left out of me.

Just because the sun is pretty doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous to stare at, Addie.

I want to slap him. But the asshole would probably like it, and then turn around and slap me back. And my dumbass self would probably like it, too.

That’s the first thing I learned when I was put in Catholic school as a child. Good girls don’t lie. The second lesson is don’t trust the Devil and his influence. But what they forgot to mention is not to piss him off once you’ve been influenced. Maybe because that’s common fucking sense.

“One day, you will realize that you are not trapped in a prison,” he murmurs roughly. “You are in my church where I am your God, and you are my equal. I’m not a jail, little mouse, I am your sanctuary.”