Page 14 of Hunting Pretty

I didn’t know if I was ready to hear it. I didn’t want to admit that even to myself.

“Perhaps you’d like to talk about Cormac?” Dr. Vale crossed one thin leg in dark corduroy over the other and balanced his notepad on his thigh. “Breakups can be difficult.”

“Yes. That… well, I…” I chewed my lip as I looked around Dr. Vale’s home office, buying myself time.

I’d never been here before. His home office was much more professional-looking than his campus office.

It was all slimline wood and chrome furniture and stiff black leather armchairs, monochrome gestalt images in square black frames in sets of three on his slate and white walls.

I liked his campus office more. It felt more like a living room. It actually had books with worn spines and potted plants and photos on his desk of his wife and two kids.

Speaking of his wife and kids, I couldn’t hear themstomping around and talking in his house. They must be out.

“Ava?” Dr. Vale tapped his pen on his pad, something he only did when I was frustrating him.

“I’m seeing someone,” I blurted out, then brought my mug of chamomile tea up to my face, the soft floral scent doing nothing to calm me.

“I see.” Dr. Vale straightened in his high-backed chair. “Are you sure that’s a good idea given that we haven’t yet resolved why you ended your relationship with Cormac?”

“No, I’m not seeing—I mean, yes, I’mseeinghim. But notseeingseeing, if you know what I mean. That would be bonkers,” I rambled, now mostly to myself. “Seeing as I don’t even know his name or even if he’s…”Real.

Dr. Vale made a noncommittal noise in his throat. “I’m confused, Ava. Do you mean—?”

“Someone’s watching me.”

Dr. Vale froze for a second before the scratching of his pen on his pad filled the space between the ticking of the clock on the wall. “Go on.”

“At first I justsensedhis eyes on me. Ifelthim stalking me. And I thought I was just… you know…”

I let out an awkward laugh and scratched at the navy and gray Darkmoor college crest on my mug, a shield decorated with open books and curling ivy, and a scroll underneath withLux in Tenebris, meaning Light in Darkness, written on it.

“But last night…” I continued, “last night Isawhim.”

Dr. Vale’s pen stopped scratching. “You… saw him?”

“I mean, it was dark. He was mostly an outline really.”

I didn’t know why I didn’t want to describe my intruderto Dr. Vale. Didn’t know why I wanted to keep the image of him to myself.

“Okay,” Dr. Vale said, drawing out the last syllable. “And then what happened? Did he speak to you? Touch you?”

My eyelashes fluttered shut and in my mind’s eye,hisicy eyes bored into my soul as I came hard around him, my pussy clenching around a memory.

“Clean up the mess you made.”

I could almost taste the leather of his glove and the musky sweetness of my illicit orgasm.

I shifted on the couch, trying to ease the growing ache between my legs.

It almost didn’t matter if he was real.

How he made mefeelwas real.

He broke apart the dull hollowness that clouded me, like I was waking up for the first time.

He stirred something electric in me, a wild rush that made my heart race and my senses spark to life.

He made me feel more alive than I ever had.

---