Page 29 of Driving My Obsession

Ice fills my veins, turning my blood to sleet. I can’t breathe. My heart is the only functioning organ in my body, and it pounds a rapid beat in my chest. My eyes register what I knocked out of his bag, and my brain finally processes the chilling truth.

Ambrose is my stalker.

ChapterEighteen

Ambrose

My plan didn’t go as I expected. Well, it did, but I’m still struggling with doubt. She wanted me, but I wanted her too. I can’t deny the way my body reacts to her. I stop at the bottom of the stairs and grip the railing. A crossroads waits before me, and I still don’t know which way I should turn.

The risers creak beneath my feet as I climb toward the awaiting juncture. If I go in that room and fuck her the way my body begs me to—the wayherbody begs me to—I don’t know if I can live with myself. It goes against everything inside me. She didn’t want the man at the club or the dirty vagrant outside the gas station, but she would allow a scarred street fighter to get between her legs. A man other women look at with a disgust they can’t hide. She might be a choosy whore, but she’s still a whore. She’s still too much like my mother.

I reach the top of the stairs and pause. Something thuds inside the bedroom, and the sound of a whimper follows. What is she doing? I rush to the door and open it in time to see her wide green eyes outside the window, her fingers gripping the sill as she dangles above the sloping half roof. Then she drops. I rush toward her, and my foot slams down on something hard. Cursing beneath my breath, I lift my foot and watch as a single acorn rolls beneath the bed.

God. Fucking. Damnit. She knows.

She won’t get far in bare feet and on a busted ankle, so I grab my shoes and slip them on, then throw on a sleeveless t-shirt before I follow her. The knife I gave her lies on the small table beside the bed, forgotten. How unfortunate. I tuck it into my pocket so it can’t be used against me later. I look out the window and see her running toward the woods. By the time I catch her, I’ll be so amped up I won’t be able to control myself. But that might be a good thing. I feel for my knife and lean through the open window as her pale skin disappears into the trees. “There’s no need to run, Oaklyn!” I yell, but she doesn’t even spare a glance behind her.

I drop from the window and land on the half roof with a thud, and I almost worry I’ll sink through the shingles and land on the hardwoods covering the floor on the lower level. Instead, my sneakers grip the roof and guide me to the edge. My second descent is a bit more graceful. I sink into the soft ground and turn to face the trees.

“Oaklyn!” I scream into the darkness. “Stop running and face your tormenter. You’re braver than this.” The sound of bare feet tromping through dry leaves greets my ears, but it’s growing more distant. I race into the forest to catch up with her.

Thorny vines scrape my skin, but the marks they leave behind only blend with my scars. These shallow wounds will fade, unlike the deep cuts my mother drove into my skin.

My eyes adjust to the darkness as much as they can. It helps me see the disturbed brush a little better, but not much. The leafy canopy diffuses most of the moonlight. I’m mostly guided by adrenaline and the scent of her fear, but this internal bloodhound serves me well. I rush forward until I spot her ahead, her body puncturing the forest, twisting and contorting through the trees in ways I can’t. I’m too big for that. I expected her to be piss-poor prey, but my tragedy has surprised me again. At this rate, there’s no way I’ll catch up to her, and I desperately need to catch her. If she escapes me, she’s sure to turn my ass in to the police. She knows too much now.

My heart races against my chest as I close the gap between us. She’s slowing, a limp growing more obvious on her right side. Her injury rears its glorious head to cripple her and give me the advantage. It ruined her life once, and it’s fully prepared to do it again. This time more permanently.

“Your ankle is giving you trouble, isn’t it?” I shout toward her.

She curses and stumbles against a thin trunk that nearly cracks beneath her insignificant weight. Her gait grows more ragged. The pain coursing through her leg and foot must be terrible, because she’s struggling to keep herself between the trees now. She stumbles into them like a pinball thrust into a rectangular box filled with branches and bushes. I slow down a little, enjoying her desperate attempt to escape. The ghosts of her past have wounded her as much as mine have wounded me. Unfortunately for her, my wounds spur me on while hers slow her down.

Even though I’m no longer running, I’m drawing closer because she’s fully limping at this point. I’m near enough to hear her strangled whimpers and each gulp of air she fights to take in. As the trees grow thinner and we near the edge of a meadow, I see my opening and rush forward. My shoulder collides with her back, and I wrap my arms around her as I spear her toward the ground. The soft earth spreads beneath us, and her scream punctuates the silent woods.

“Please, don’t,” she gasps, pleading to any light inside me, but it’s too late. This all-consuming darkness has overtaken my eyes, and I see nothing else.

I flip her onto her back, raise my hand to her throat, and enjoy the desperate movement of her skin beneath my palm as she tries to swallow. Her hands wrap around my wrist. Nails claw at my skin, tearing and biting, but I won’t be deterred.

“Why did you run from me?” I ask, putting weight into my hand.

“You know why,” she chokes out. She kicks her legs, flailing the way I longed for in her bedroom.

“Because I fucked you?” My cock hardens in an instant at the memory of defiling her as she slept.

She squirms beneath me again, gripping my wrist with renewed strength, but she doesn’t answer the question.

“You ran because you didn’t like what I did to your whore cunt.”

She stalls beneath me. “I’m not a whore.” That single word weighs her down more than I do. Rage replaces the panic in her eyes, laying a speed bump of doubt beneath the fiery chariot racing toward her.

Some women don’t like to be called a whore, even when the ugly shoe fits, but her disdain for the word is...different. I still can’t decide if she’s delusional and wants me to use more politically correct terminology or if she really doesn’t believe she’s exactly what I say she is. Maybe she needs a refresher.

“Do I need to show you the video, Oaklyn? Show you how much of a whore you are?”

She grits her teeth and stares into my eyes. “Do I need to show you a dictionary? I’m not a fucking whore.”

That’s enough of that. I adjust my grip on her body and flip her onto her belly, pinning her down with my crotch against her ass. Pulling my knife from my hip, I bring it to her throat and press the flat side against her skin so she can fully grasp what she’s up against. Her fingers grip the sparse meadow grass and sink into the earth. It’s the only movement she can make with a blade so close to such a vulnerable part of her body. I brush tendrils of sweat-soaked hair from her cheek, and my fingers slide through a river of tears. I absorb the liquid hurt into my skin, letting it live there. With my free hand, I yank down her shorts and rub her tears between her legs.

So soft.

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