Page 1 of Stalking the Bride

1

CONRAD

I havemy sights trained on her as I watch from afar. My body is aching, straining to be close to her.

The glass of my sniper scope brings her beauty closer to me, blessing my retinas with every inch of her heavenly body as I obsess over her inches while she tries on her wedding dress, blissfully unaware of the fact that her every move is being surveilled.

I’ve cemented each delicious morsel of her body into my mind, from the hair she always tucks behind her ear, to the bountiful curve of her hips, to the dance of freckles across her chest which sit just above her pert cleavage.

Beauty can reach no higher heights than her.

Belle Hartley. Eighteen years old. My deadly addiction.

She’ll be the end of me, I know it. And I’m okay with it.

I have eyes on her all day from nine to five. That’s my job. Watching her off the clock is my one and only extracurricular activity.

Last night, she was hidden from my gaze while she spent time with her fiancé in the bedroom they will share after the wedding tomorrow. And I have never experienced such pain in my life.

Away from my eyes. Away fromme…

Furious jealousy stabs my chest like a flaming spear thrust through my heart by an angry god. I grind my teeth and groan at the blistering sensation, clenching my left hand into a fist which I pound into my leg, invoking enough physical pain to temporarily distract me from the emotional torment I feel when I think about what could have occurred in that bedroom with him while I was not there to protect her.

Protecting Belle is my job.

My one and only concern.

And as an ex-Marine working private security, I should have my shit together. But when I took this job, I had no idea I’d be guarding a goddess. Normally I’m guarding a politician, a CEO’s family while he’s out of country, protecting a diplomat’s children. But this is different. This job was meant to be standard security for a high-profile wedding, Fitch Cooper of the wealthy Cooper dynasty, but when I set eyes on Belle, his bride-to-be, everything changed.

Observe and protect. Act when required. Never get emotionally attached to a subject.

That’s what I’m hired to do, and that’s what I’m great at.

Or I was…until now…

I’m supposed to be doing everything in my power to make sure Fitch and Belle’s wedding goes off without a hitch, yet all I want to do is tear her fiancé apart with my bare hands. When he looks at her like she’s already his possession, I can barely stop myself from grabbing my gun and ending him. It may sound like tough-guy talk, but I can back it up. I’ve killed when I was deployed overseas. Iama killer. And I wouldn’t think twice about killing again if it meant protecting my angel.

Zero emotional attachment. No commitments.

That’s what they teach you when you become a sniper.

And that came easily for me, especially after my ex cheated on me with my best friend the first week of my first deployment. I saw the deception in her e-mails to me, and when I confronted her, she admitted everything. She said she’d be gone when I got back, and she was. After that, I turned my back on females. On everyone. I became cold, a rock planet alone in the far-out blackness of space, orbiting no one. No connections. No emotions. Nothing.

Then Belle walked into my life and changed everything.

Now I’m like clay being reshaped by her delicate hands, twisting into something new.

My resolve is slipping. The iron will that made me one of the deadliest US snipers is cracking.

I’m no longer Belle’s security…I’m her stalker…

I watch her at work, never letting her out of my sight. And after, when I’m technically off the clock, I go to the home where she still lives with her parents and spy on her with my scope from across the street. I break in late at night and lie at the foot of her bed and listen to her breathing, basking in her scent that soothes me like a mother’s kiss.

Christ, I’m completely losing it.

Belle is engaged to the man who hired me. That should mean something. I should be professional. Do my job. Observe and protect. But I just can’t help myself when every fiber in my body is screaming out in desperation for this girl. It’s only been three weeks since I was hired, but it only took two days for me to become her stalker…

If I ever let myself slip, forget my duty, my job, I’ll lose complete control.

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