Page 1 of Little Darling

PROLOGUE

DOLLY

Ashadowed figure sat in a chair across the room from the bed I was in. It was clear it was a man by the sheer size of him. My breath caught in my throat, and my heart pounded so hard. There was a different type of discomfort that filled me as I focused on him.

He sat there just watching me. Those shadows surrounding him, created by darkness and moonlight, made him look ominous, even evil.

We didn’t speak, and I sure as hell didn’t move—not just because I felt like shit but because I was terrified.

Panic and terror filled me because Iknewhim.

I’d seen the man several times, wondering if he was watching me. Hehadbeen following me. And the way he observed me made it seem as if he knew exactly who I was.

He didn’t move, didn’t speak, and just kept staring at me, as if waiting forsomething.

Fear gripped me like a cold, suffocating weight atop my chest that made it even harder to breathe.

Who are you? I realized I only whispered those words in my head.

I tried to push myself up again, my hands trembling as I forced my body to obey because I’d be damned if I was going to be helpless on this bed. But before I could move more than a few inches, he leaned forward, and I froze.

The air seemed to thicken, charged with something dangerous and unsettling. And it all emitted from this man.

“What do you want?” It felt so stupid saying those words, given that it was clear he’d broughtmehere… whereverherewas… because I was the thing he wanted. It was for what, exactly, that I didn’t know.

“I saw you,” he finally replied, his voice low and deep and the scariest thing I’d ever heard.

My eyes felt bigger than my face as that tone sank in. And even though I already knew what he just told me—along with the next two things he said—hearing him speak them out loud sent shock waves through my system.

“I wanted you.”

A shiver traveled throughout my entire body.

“And so I took you.”

The finality in his words and the calm way he said them made my blood run cold.

1

DOLLY

Istood at the edge of the bustling street, the lights of the little city I was currently in flickering around me and making everything seem more alive.

The air was thick with the scent of fresh bread coming from a nearby bakery, a sweet, buttery aroma that made my stomach growl. Coming from a sleepy small town in the Midwest of America, for me, the hustle and bustle of even the tiniest European village had been sensory overload. It was a far cry from the suffocating quiet of my life back home.

Home… if I could even ever call it that.

But here—ever since I got off the plane and stepped outside—I could suddenly breathe.

I could do anything.

I could be anyone.

I had needed this so damn badly. God, had I needed this like a shock to my dying heart, and fresh oxygen in my depleted lungs?

Booking a one-month-long trip through Europe had been a spontaneous decision, and a once in a lifetime experience. I hadn’t even had a second thought about doing it. I drained my savings, didn’t say a word about it to anyone, and just left.

My family problems were like chains around me and, eventually, would have dragged me six feet under.

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