Page 11 of Taking

And the coat covering her from neck to knees? It appeared second hand, definitely not name brand like the rich snob used to go for.

A dark-haired girl clung to her side, and they huddled together while going from class to class throughout the day.

I sat in a clunker Subaru I’d gotten for a few grand, the heater at least in top notch shape. Fucker kept me warm and toasty while I watched my prey.

The two women stopped at a grocery store after classes, and I braved the cold to get a better look. I needed a few staples anyway. With my own hat and scarf I’d picked up from the discount store the day after my release, I’d be hidden enough that she wouldn’t recognize me.

She let her coat gap open after perusing three aisles, and I allowed myself a good stare across the short distance separating us.

Pale face. Flatlined lips. Baggy shirt…generic brand jeans a size or three too large. Addilyn no longer held her chin up like a prissy bitch, but her neck still made my fingertips itch to squeeze and my teeth to graze and bite. Damn attraction flared even after all I’d been through—and I fucking hated it.

Shoulders hunched beneath the weight of her winter coat, Addilyn ambled beside her friend, their quiet voices occasionally reaching me as I followed along at a distance with my own basket in hand.

She’d changed drastically in five years.

Due to Lloyd’s handling? I doubted it had been her mother’s death that caused the shroud of depression that seemed to hang over her head. They’d never gotten along, and if I had to bet, Addilyn probably hadn’t shed a single tear over Ingrid’s grave.

I crept closer, needing to see her eyes, to read the emotions she’d always worn on her face like an open book.

Too close.

Her spine straightened, and she jerked around as though feeling the energy that had always seemed to tether us together.

I dropped into a crouch, faced the shelves of canned goods, and lifted my shoulder enough so most of my profile would be hidden.

Green beans, low sodium, I noted on the can in my hand.

Fucking gross, but I dropped it in the basket on my other side, keeping my face turned away.

“Addilyn?” her friend called.

“Yeah. Sorry.” She let out a small, shuddered exhale, and I dared another peek her way.

She followed after the dark-haired girl—Ciarra Kelly. Roommate. Best and only friend if her lack of a social life over the ten days I’d been following her indicated the truth.

Addilyn didn’t do spontaneous. She didn’t step out of her daily routine.

Breakfast at the small table in their kitchen beside a bay window.

Off to classes at seven forty-five.

Lunch in the cafeteria.

Straight home at the end of the day—except for groceries twice in those ten days.

Knowing her home life proved just as easy since she lived in a single-floor home with plenty of windows.

A few nights, Ciarra went out or her boyfriend came over, but Addilyn never deviated from her usual small dinner she picked at, TV, movies, or reading with a cup of herbal tea sans sweetener, and bed.

Lamb to the slaughter for an observant fucker like me.

But I held off, enjoying the fuck out of the adrenaline high of stalking. Watching. Riding the edge of excitement to finally have her in my grasp. Soon she’d be beneath me where she belonged, taking the pain I planned on dishing out like an all you can eat buffet.

I’d gotten my fill of real, good food but had yet to taste pussy.

Almost six years I’d gone without since being uprooted from California—and the only warm, wet hole I wanted belonged to Addilyn Jane Reed.

My betrayer.

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