Page 63 of Stalked
Vane smiles behind his mask, eyes gleaming with dark satisfaction. “Patience, wildflower.”
When the flat of the blade slides between my thighs, I cry out. He teases me mercilessly, running the cool metal along my most sensitive flesh, circling my entrance, pressing gently against my clit. All without letting the edge break skin.
“Do you trust me?” He asks, holding the knife against my inner thigh.
“Yes.” The word leaves my lips with complete certainty.
The knife's flat side glides across my inner thigh, drawing goosebumps in its wake.
“Good girl,” he murmurs. The cold metal travels up my thigh, then teases along my slit, making my hips jerk.
“Be still.” His command is soft but unyielding.
I force my body to obey, though every muscle trembles with the effort. The flat of the blade presses against my clit, the steel warming from my heat. When he withdraws it, I whimper at the loss.
“Look at how wet you are,” Vane says, showing me the gleaming blade now coated with my arousal.
He returns the knife to my pussy, circling my entrance, applying just enough pressure to make me gasp but never enough to satisfy. My thighs strain against invisible bonds—I'm not physically restrained there, but his command to stay still might as well be rope.
“Please,” I whisper, not entirely sure what I'm begging for.
“Please, what, wildflower?” The blade slides against my folds again, my wetness making the metal glide effortlessly.
“I need—” My words dissolve into a moan as he presses the flat side firmly against my clit.
When he finally withdraws the knife from between my legs, I'm panting, desperate for release. He moves it to my hip bone, just below where it juts against my skin.
“Watch,” he commands.
I lift my head, eyes locked on the gleaming blade. With deliberate slowness, he turns the knife's edge against my skin and draws a thin line—barely more than a scratch.
The sting blooms sharp and immediate, a contrast to the throbbing pleasure between my legs. I gasp as the dual sensations collide in my nervous system. It's neither purely pain nor purely pleasure but something transcendent. This perfect synthesis makes my vision blur at the edges.
“Oh god,” I breathe, my back arching off the platform. The shallow cut tingles, a thin line of fire that somehow intensifies the ache of arousal rather than diminishing it.
A thin rivulet of blood trickles from the shallow cut, carving a crimson path across my hip. The sight of it—my blood on his blade—sends a shock of clarity through the haze of arousal.
This is Vane Blackwood. The boy I ran from fifteen years ago. The man who's been hunting me ever since.
As he lowers his mask and his tongue traces the wound, collecting my blood, the truth crystallizes with startling clarity. This maze isn't made of concrete walls but of years—fifteen of them, each one a carefully laid stone in the architecture of his obsession.
“You taste like surrender,” he murmurs against my skin, and something inside me fractures.
I've spent fifteen years building walls. Creating the perfect life. The prestigious education, the successful career, the carefully maintained independence. All of it was constructed piece by meticulous piece after I fled Ravenwood. After I fled him.
But Vane Blackwood was never going to let me go. He's been patient, calculating, waiting for the perfect moment to pull me back into his orbit. And I walked right into it, not in ignorance but in surrender to the truth I've denied since leaving—that distance never diminished what burns between us.
“Look at me,” he commands, and I obey without hesitation.
His eyes flash triumphantly and possessively. He knows what I've just realized—that my carefully constructed life is nothing but a house of cards that he's been waiting to topple.
The gallery. My reputation. My independence. All of it will crumble in the face of this consuming obsession between us. I came back to Ravenwood thinking I was in control, but he's been three steps ahead this entire time.
“You're going to destroy me,” I whisper, the words tearing from my throat.
His smile is both tender and merciless. “No, wildflower. I'm going to remake you.”
And God help me, as his fingers trace another path for his blade, I'm not sure I want to stop him.
