Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2)

by H.D. Carlton

Even when he first made himself known and terrified the absolute shit out of me, there was always an odd sense of security in pushing his buttons, as if deep down, I knew Zade would never truly hurt me.

It’s the people who have no regard for their own life—people like me. We are the ones that are the deadliest.

You’ve always been unapologetically you.”

I glance around, trying to locate where my heart fell out of my ass.

“Happiness is fleeting. All that matters is that they’re living their life the way they want to.”

Adeline, you will not do stupid shit

“You’re going to tell me that confronting your stalker in the middle of the night wasn’t stupid?”

impulsive, and reactive,

there is a difference between those who are needlessly evil and those who do bad things hoping that something good will come out of it. I'll let you decide for yourself which one I am.”

“You tell me, little mouse. When I make you cry out for God, does that count as praying?”

Zade may be Hades, but the dark God has never been known to bow for anyone but his woman.

I’m fucking rattled, like an old A/C unit on its last leg.

“How many times will you run away before you learn that you can’t escape me?” he growls,

"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 sure you want to go there?” he asks, his voice dripping with sin.

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.”

He grins, the act damning to my soul.

I’m the raging sea that conquered him and sunk him to his very knees, and he was helpless to stop me.

“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.”

“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.”

They always say eyes are windows to the soul, and fuck if it isn’t true because I can see the fear invading her body. Yet she still gets off on it just as much as she used to when I was only a shadow in the night.

“I have no goddamn control when it comes to you. I lost it when I saw you in that bookstore and never got it back. You think me stalking you was control? Drinking from your body despite your cries? Do you think I have it right fucking now?”

He’s deliberately trying to scare me, knowing how much my body sings for the terror he instills in me.

“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.”

“You’ve taken my entire heart and soul and my ability to love another. Sometimes I hate you for that,”

“But I hope you know I’m always going to run from you. I like the way you chase me.”

“Fucking nirvana,” he purrs, dipping his tongue inside me before ascending to my clit.

“You will always be mine,” I growl. “Even in your fucking nightmares.”

“Your body was fucking made for me. So you’re going to be a good girl and fucking take it.”

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