Page 13 of Little Blue

The certainty that he’s there when I wake in the night—the fantasy that he hungers for me—a man capable of breaking me, shattering me to pieces—it’s crushingly unrealistic.

Even more bizarre, this depraved obsession I have with the wolfman didn’t begin over the weekend, when he was freshest in my mind. No, it began when I returned home from work Monday night, when my memory first concocted his scent in my space.

It’s becoming more and more outrageous as the days pass.

I keep circling back to that fantasy. That dangerous, ludicrous, ridiculous fantasy that a man as magnetic as him could be obsessing over me enough to stalk me.

Jeez, it's not like I want a stalker. As fast as I’m driving toward complete insanity, I know in my heart of hearts that it’s wrong to entertain the dark thoughts I’ve been entertaining.

Maybe I’m sick. Maybe I’ve checked out one too many dark romance books from the library. Because I’ve concocted a dark tale of forbidden curiosity starring the man who gazed at me like a wolf would a rabbit.

And I had fled the man as though he were the big bad wolf in a fairy tale. Only, not a Disney fairy-tale. More like a Grimm Brother’s fairy tale. Where the princess is shredded by the wolf rather than, you know, taken and mated by him.

You know, the one that drips viciousness and lacks a happy ending.

Yeah, if there’s a fairy-tale for me—it’d be one out of that gorgeous, yet freaky leather-bound book of horrors.

I make a mental note to check out something with a happy pink cover the next time I visit the library. Something with bubbly blue font. Something stamped with happy red hearts.

Clearly, I have an overactive imagination. Mafia romances—addictive as they are—are doing nothing for my sanity.

Like, honestly—the mafia? If it does exist, it’s nothing like these authors romanticize it to be in their books. But there is something seductive about a dark man, incapable of love, falling in love with a woman he’d burn the world for.

My addiction, like all addictions, is not healthy.

I glare at the book on my nightstand from where I stand in the kitchen, still smelling winter and flame, spiced berries and sin. Him.

Yep, I’m returning the book unread.

This obsession isn’t healthy. I don’t even know his name, and he hadn’t asked for mine.

If I could just figure out what it is about him that I’m obsessing over, I could dissect it and reject it. Like a logical, healthy-minded woman would do.

Because, I mean, it's not as though I'm the kind of woman a man such as him, so obviously powerful, dripping wealth, and exuding danger, would glance at twice. He wouldn't. It's just not in the cards for me, catching the eye of a man like him.

I’m plain Jane, simple, and pitifully poor. I have nothing in this whole world, but for Lucy. I didn’t even graduate high school. If I hadn’t lied on my resume, I wouldn’t have the job I have now. And, honestly, because of my lie; I have no doubt that my time at Low and Bard Construction is borrowed.

Leaning into the counter, I fold my arms over my chest and do my very best to figure out why I’ve turned suddenly insane over a man I’m confident I’ll never see again. I picture him there at that table, sitting too close to me, and feel the familiar spike of fear in the deep of my belly. His arresting blue eyes had tracked my every movement like I was the prey he intended to devour—and I had been afraid.

I’d fled him.

In fact, it took everything I had in me to save face and walk away from him when I’d wanted to run.

None of this makes sense.

Why am I smelling him in my home? Why is he invading my dreams in the dark of the night?

WHY?

Lucy demands my attention with a long, determined meow. Doing my best to banish the man from my mind, I bend to give my boy some attention. Lifting him into my arms, his body rumbles with a sweet purr—but I’m frozen.

Lucy—my cat—smells like the wolfman.

Burrowing my nose into my cat, I inhale the scent stronger than it’s ever been.

As I pull back in horror, I know I’ve lost every shred of sanity I’ve ever possessed.

Hot tears sting the back of my eyes. My hands shake as I place Lucy on the floor. My breaths come in hard. My teeth chatter.

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