Page 93 of Hunting Pretty

The nurse held her body tense, as if she was waiting for his approval before daring to breathe.

She glanced toward the door that led out to the hallway. Would she cry out for help? Something in her wide eyes told me she feared what he would do if she tried.

I stared at him, forgetting the sting in my knees and elbows, and looked at him the way she must see him.

He towered over the petite nurse, the top of her head barely coming up to his shoulder.

His muscled shoulders remained relaxed and confident, exuding unarguable authority, the weight of his gaze seemingly enough to silence her dissent.

She opened her hand and offered the materials to him.

“Thank you,” he said as he released her.

The nurse fled the room with one last frightened look for me over her shoulder.

“You didn’t have to scare her,” I said.

He shrugged. “Not my fault if she was scared.”

He dropped the medical materials onto a rolling trolley and pulled it beside me.

Then he slowly spread apart my legs and stepped between them.

A strange shudder went through my body, starting at my headand going all the way down to my toes that curled in my patent leather shoes.

His fingertips were warm as they brushed against my skin, sending a rush of warmth through my belly as he pushed up my pleated uniform skirt.

His hair fell across his face, our mouths so close that I could feel his warm breath on my cheeks.

He whispered, “I will always protect you.”

Something tightened in my belly.

I… I shouldn’t be feeling things like this for him. It was wrong.

“This will hurt,” he said as he dabbed the antiseptic onto a cotton pad.

But as he applied it to my scratched knee, I didn’t feel it at all.

I only felt his other hand resting flat and firmly against my inner thigh.

His thumb made small, reassuring circles and when he grazed the scalloped lace edge of my panties, a hot ache went through me.

I sucked in a gasp as I slammed back into my body.

“Ava?”

I was in my kitchen, still being held by my stalker. I stared up at him, my mouth parted as I struggled to breathe.

It washimin my memory.

My shadow. My Scáth.

His face had been younger, cheeks plump, shorter hair, and no visible tattoos yet. But he had the same piercing blue eyes. And the same feeling of safety swirled in me as he held me now.

Iknewmy stalker.

“Y-you,” I blurted out.

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