Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2)

by H.D. Carlton

At one point in our lives, we’re all afraid to die. For some, it happens the first moment we fully understand what death means—before depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues arise. For others, it’s before they’ve found something to believe in—whether it’s God or something else that’s spiritual. And there are those who flounder through life, terrified of the day they take their last breath. I think for some, they aren’t so much scared of death itself, but rather, how they’re going to die.

Men have this funny habit of thinking they're entitled to women, especially when they don't respect them. As if their respect is a determining factor on how women deserve to be treated.

“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.”

“Happiness is fleeting. All that matters is that they’re living their life the way they want to.” “You believe that?” I ask, facing him. “That happiness is fleeting?” He shrugs, tossing the last bite of his cone into his mouth, and chews as he contemplates something. “Absolutely,” he says finally. “It’s not something solid you can hold on to. It’s vapor in the wind, and all you can do is inhale it when it’s near and hope it comes around again when it blows away.”

“It’s because I love you, Adeline Reilly. And I know you love me back. When I’m inside you, you won’t be thinking of anything else but how to get me deeper. The only fear you’ll taste is from a God sending you to heaven too soon.”

Money is an illusion, and a powerful one. It turns men into spineless assholes with no real regard for human life except their own.

"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.”

“You were never a whore for those men, little mouse. You know why?” “Why?” I whisper. “Because they never owned any part of you. They took what they did not possess. That doesn’t make you a whore; that makes you a survivor.” A sheen of tears wells over my eyes. I drop them to conceal the weakness, but he jerks my head up, refusing to let me hide. A devilish grin quirks his lips up. “But you are my whore. You’re my everything, and you become so much more with each passing day. I possess every fucking part of you, Adeline. Even when you screamed and cried that you didn’t want me, you could never let me go. All those nights you stood at your window, letting me watch you. Confronting me instead of running and instigating me knowing what would happen. And when you did run, you only ever used your mouth to try and get away. You gravitated towards me, just as I did you. And that is something no other man will ever have.”

“I don’t care if I need to set this world on fire until there’s no one left but you and me. The world will burn around us, and I’ll gladly live in chaos with you as long as the only person that is a danger to you is me.”

“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.”

“What do you see?” Sliding a hand across that same scar on her stomach, she exhales shakily. “You.” I lean up, curling my finger beneath her chin and raising her eyes back to mine. “Someday soon, little mouse, you will not be able to see anything else. I will be the only villain in your story, and the only one who has the power to make you scream.”

“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.” “Don’t say that,” I whisper. “I don’t lie, Adeline, and I’m not going to start now.

“I love you, Zade. Sometimes I can’t fucking stand it,” I say, my voice raspy and uneven. “But it was the only thing that kept me alive. You saved me. Even when we were apart, you saved me. And I hope to God you never stop hunting me.”

“I love you, too,” he rasps. Every day, we come a little closer to death—our bodies deteriorating just a little more. And if this is what dying feels like, then I never want to feel anything else.

“You do that, then there will be no diamond at all.” My gaze snaps to Addie, my heart coming to a screeching halt when I see her holding her knife to her own throat. Oh, hell no.

ADDIEEEEEEE QUEEENN

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