Page 16 of Make You Mine

It’s a lot to take in for anyone. Fucks with their head.

Closing my eyes for a few seconds, I focus on the soft breeze coming from the open balcony doors. The scent of salt water has always soothed me—lulls me into a state of calm where I can think rationally.

Page after page, it’s full to the brim with notes on both of them. His fascination with her is plain to see within every line—morphing into a sick obsession the older she becomes. My mind pulls to the forefront a few details that stand out from the file…

*Ava went to school with the accused. Three years younger than him, they didn’t run in the samecircles, but he was close friends with her childhood neighbor, Anthony Salcedo.

*She ran into him again as a customer at her shop. He came in daily after the first encounter: 7 a.m. (February to the end of September) ordering the same thing: black coffee with a half-dozen apple pie donuts.

*Asked her out on a date consistently, which she turned down politely. Over the last month, he increased his insistence from once a week to an almost daily occurrence; Jason was demanding the day she caught him. Miss Perry reported his last words to her that morning as follows:

“We’re inevitable, Sugar, and soon I’ll own every single inch of you. That’s a promise.”

*The first body was found a mile from her home after the first refusal: a twenty-four-year-old brunette he picked up at a bar and choked to death. Examination of the body concluded that there was no sexual assault, just physical.

“How old was she when his obsession started?” a thought that forces me to take a metaphorical step back and analyzehowno one noticed. Who’s helping him?

That’s when Perez’s words from earlier crashed into me. The tightness in his expression gave more than the sternness of his command; it was a plea. A warning.

“Very few people know of her whereabouts outside of the ex-military guards driving her across state lines. They’ve alreadybeen instructed to deliver her to your home within the next six hours, Elijah, and we’ll be keeping it that way.”

“Ava Perry?” I whisper her name aloud, opening my eyes just before the doorbell rings. A few seconds tick by, and that ring becomes four quick raps against the wooden surface. They’re loud, but not as annoying as the continuous pressing of the doorbell.Standing, I grab my gun from the coffee table and make my way over. I’m more than halfway there when whoever is on the other side knocks again. Inpatient or in a rush to...

My eyes shift left to a clock on the wall, and I realize just how much time has passed since coming home. Two hours where I’ve been lost inside my head while reworking the puzzle pieces this case brought to my door.

Another knock. Softer this time.

I don’t look through the peephole, though, knowing it’s her, and pull the door open. The problem with that; I didn’t think things through. I’m not prepared for what greets me, and in that minuscule second where my eyes meet a pair of light blue ones, I curse Perez for my destruction.

I’m caught. Can’t look away.

My eyes scan her face, memorizing everything from the freckles over the bridge of her nose and cheeks, to the small scar over her right eyebrow. It’s tiny, a crooked line partially hidden beneath the hair there, and I find itcute.

Lowering my eyes, I settle on her plump mouth. Its natural berry color is appetizing, even more so as this tiny beauty bites down on her bottom lip while looking up at me through long, thick lashes.

She’s simply gorgeous. Blushing.

The blood throbs within my veins and my cock hardens; it pulses with each rise and fall of her chest. With the way, her own eyes look at me with curiosity.

“Detective Ford?” she asks, and as those lips slightly pucker at the end, I know why I’ve been feeling off. Why I knew taking this assignment was a mistake…

AVA

My life will never bethe same. How could it be?

I’ve gone from owning a quaint little café to being on the run. From having friends and a life of my own to absolutely nothing in the blink of an eye because I was given no choice but to disappear.

There were no goodbyes. No last hugs. Nothing.

Taken from my home in the middle of the night, I was told to cooperate and follow instructions. To simply go with two men I don’t know, and trust that they’ll keep me safe until we reach my next handler a few states away. This is the second time I’ve been moved in the past few months: from Dallas to San Antonio and now Los Angeles with nothing but empty promises that this will all be over soon.

This is the loneliest I’ve ever felt.

Not even when my parents died did I feel so isolated. For my safety, I’m being kept hidden from the public eye and the plethora of hungry reporters vying for an exclusive I’ll never give. Then, there are the morbid fans following every printed snippet while making up their own theories on the case.

Some are right. Some are way off.

And I can’t blame them either. How many times have I watched crime documentaries and put the pieces of the puzzle together in my head, finding angles that others never thought about? It was my way to unwind: a glass of wine and some pizzawhile a gruesome story unfolded, often without criminals seeing the inside of a prison cell at the end.

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