Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2)

by H.D. Carlton

I don’t care how loved they were. I don’t give a shit if they had families and if they had wives and little kids at home, eagerly awaiting their arrival. Daddy’s gone, kids.

She should’ve looked into becoming a mortician with the way she’s so good at dressing up a corpse.

“Jillian?” “Yeah?” “I’m going to murder so many fucking people for you.”

“Meadows, baby. Our last name is Meadows.” “Yours. Don’t get ahead of yourself. You’ll be expected to beg.”

There’s no stopping the savage grin from gracing my lips. “I love to beg.”

“Our mouths are touching the same spot,” she says shakily. “Does that count as kissing?” “You tell me, little mouse. When I make you cry out for God, does that count as praying?”

"I may own every breath in your body, but make no mistake, Adeline, you own mine, too. I am yours to command. To bend and break. To mold and manipulate. Do you think that makes me weak? Or do you think I'm strong enough to admit that even though my body can physically live on without you, I would never get my fucking soul back?” His hand slides into my hair and fists the strands tightly. "Without you, I will shatter. But with you, I am indestructible."

“What you’ve forgotten is that the heart beating inside your chest isn’t fucking yours,” he snarls. “It’s mine. And if my heart has stopped working, then pull that trigger, little mouse. Kill the rest of me. I’m nothing if I’m not the reason you breathe.”

I don’t want those men to take more from me than they already have. Because if I do, they’ll never stop. I’ll continue to hand over every piece of myself until there’s nothing left but a chalk outline.

He doesn’t answer, possibly holding on to hope that I don’t know exactly where he is. As if every breath he takes can’t be felt through the strings of my web.

“Are you angry because she never moaned your name?” Zade challenges. He’s right—I never did, despite how hard Xavier tried. “Did she cry out for God?” he pushes. “Yes,” Xavier spits, and fuck, I’m falling apart. I thrust against Zade’s hand, rolling my hips mindlessly, the bliss eroding my entire being. “Good,” he says, a grin in his voice. “That means she was crying out for me.” “Oh my God, Zade,” I sob, the orgasm building, forming into a sharp point right where his fingers are rubbing.

“I’ve followed you through lifetimes, Adeline. My soul needs you so badly that I’ve become a shadow, destined to hunt you for eternity.”

“You and I will never end, little mouse. Even when we’re six feet under, and our bones are dust, I will haunt your soul until it aches to be free of me. And then, I will hold you tighter.”

“I don’t ever want to be free of you, Zade. Not in this lifetime, and not in all the ones that come after.”

“I would kill for you—I have killed for you—but I would also put down a gun and never pick it up again if you asked it of me. The lengths I would go to for you are terrifying, little mouse. So easily, you could destroy me, and I would lie down and take it. I don’t care if I live or die—as long as it’s all for you.”

“You’ve always been an atheist to my word. You’re incapable of believing in something you can’t see and lack faith because you’re blind to what’s right in front of you. I’m yours to command—I always have been. You just need to see it to finally believe it.”

“That’s it, Adeline. Now take my cum like a good little girl.”

Heaven isn’t a place you go to when you die, it’s inside the person that’s worth dying for.