“Didn’t get laid tonight?” Jay croons through the phone, his voice laced with mocking amusement.

I crack my neck again, growling when my muscles don’t pop and give me any relief.

“Jay,” I growl.

I refuse to touch my dick while on the phone with him. As much as I need to lessen the pressure, Jay’s voice would make me feel sick.

“Satan’s Affair is coming to town,” he starts. I open my mouth—gearing up to ask him why the fuck that would matter to me.

“And I got confirmation there’re tickets with four little birdy’s names on them,” he continues. I snap my mouth shut.

“Why would they go there?” I ask, completely confused why four grown-ass men would go to a haunted fair.

“Prime girls for the pickin’, my friend. And now there’s a ticket with your name on it.”

I sigh. “When?”

“Three weeks from now. Plenty of time to go to the clubs a few times and start showing that pretty face of yours.”

Sighing again, I pluck the pack of cigarettes from the console, bring it to my mouth, and slide out a cigarette with my teeth.

I grab my lighter and flick the flame, inhaling deeply as the cherry blares red.

“You’re smoking, aren’t you?” Jay says. I offer a noncommittal confirmation as I roll down my window and blow out smoke.

The raging hard-on is gone, but my dick still hurts.

“You said you were going to quit,” he whines. “Do you know how many chemicals are in that? According to the—”

“Jay,” I snap, cutting off his tangent. If I let it go on, he’d list off the ingredients in a cigarette like he’s listing off all the components in the periodic table.

Nobody. Fucking. Cares.

He sighs like an angry teenager on their period. “Whatever,” he mumbles.

“Update me if anything else comes up,” I say before clicking off the phone.

I drag in another inhale of smoke and turn my attention to my laptop.

The inside of my Mustang is decked out in gadgets. A laptop sits on a platform, a mechanical arm attached to the dash so I can push and pull it towards me for convenience. Dash cams, an alert system for law enforcement, and other illegal shit decorate the interior of my car.

I pull the laptop towards me and fire it on. The bright screen stabs at my sensitive eyes. Squinting against the light, I pull up my programs and get to work.

In pure curiosity, I want to know who is attending this haunted fair.

It comes to town every single year, and I’ve never bothered to go. Haunted houses don’t scare me. Not when I see true horror every day.

There’s nothing a couple of made-up monsters can do to horrify me more than the actual monsters polluting this world.

Humans don’t need to decorate themselves in gory make-up and fake blood to be scary. It’s the insides of us—the darkness that lurks beneath the surface—that’s what’s truly fucking terrifying.

That’s what leads people to commit heinous crimes every single day. That’s what leads innocent little kids to die horrific deaths for no fucking reason at all.

The insides of us—that’s what keeps me alive. It’s the only purpose I have in life, and without it, I’d be nothing.

I scroll through the list of names and stop short when I see one in particular that has my heart pounding.

Adeline Reilly.

I smile. Well, that used to be my only reason for living. But now… now I’ve discovered a new meaning to life.

ME: I can still taste you, little mouse.

I stepped back for all of two days before I could no longer resist.

I’ve beat my dick like it was an opponent in a boxing match, and I’m so fucking tired of the feel of my own hand.

There are zero expectations for her to reply today. I’m sure she’s still nestled comfortably in that corner of her head where she hates herself and is convinced she’ll never give me the time of day again.

But that corner is a farce, and we both know it. The feel of my gun inside her scared her. But the feel of my tongue on her pussy, and how hard she came will fucking haunt her.

She’ll cry about it for a little while, but soon she’ll fall right back into temptation.

ADDIE: Did you know a stalker killed my great-grandmother?

My brows shoot into my hairline at her text.

Not only was I not expecting one at all, but the fact that she replied with real words and not some empty threat. Hers don’t necessarily hold weight like mine do.

ME: Do you have proof of this?

Based on the few journal entries I read, she and her stalker had a passionate relationship. And he was also tossed up with some bad people according to the entry of him visiting her with unknown injuries. It didn’t seem like he showed signs of aggression or violent obsession. But who really knows?

Addie’s great-grandmother could’ve just been seeing what she wanted to see, and he really did kill her.

Or maybe her husband caught her having an affair and flew into a fit of rage.

Both possibilities are equally likely, just as it’s likely that whatever shit her stalker got mixed up in could’ve bitten him in the ass. And bite they did—right where it would’ve hurt him most.

His obsession.

After I poked through the diary, I became curious and looked deeper into her great-grandmother’s story. The pull of history repeating itself was too intriguing.

The crime scene was trampled over, and the detectives handling the case were complete imbeciles.

ADDIE: Not yet. But I’m going to find it. And I’ll be proven right. All stalkers are just fucking psychotic freaks.

I purse my lips, a smile threatening to take over. I’ll let her stew on her response for a few minutes. Let her think she pissed me off or hurt me. Whatever she’s convinced herself my reaction would be.

She thinks she knows me already, but my little mouse couldn’t be further from the truth.

I stalk her because I’m fucking addicted. I’m fascinated with every move she makes, every word that comes from her pretty pink mouth. And now I’m addicted to her scent, her taste, and the way she sounds when she’s scared for her life—just as much as I’m addicted to the way she sounds when she’s begging for more.

It’s not something I can explain. When I saw her, I fucking nearly fell to my knees with need, and I will have her.

But not because I’m psychotic and delusional. I’m not going to make a goddamn shrine of her and convince myself that we were destined to be together by the gods or whatever weird shit people believe in these days.

I’ll have her because she’s the first thing that made me feel something good in so long, and I’ve become obsessed with keeping it.

I don’t have very many something goods in my life, and I don’t care if it makes me selfish for wanting to hold on to it.

The only way I’ll be able to truly keep her is if she sees me at my worst.

I would rather just off myself than trick Addie into loving me as a good man, just to break both of our hearts when she realizes I’m not a good man at all.

So, my obsession with her is just… is what it is.

ME: Well, that’s pretty judgy, don’t ya think? Your great-grandmother loved her stalker last time I checked.

She’s going to be pissed when she sees that I snooped through her great-grandmother’s diaries.

Smiling, I pull up the camera feed of her house on my phone and click through until I find Addie sitting on her bed, staring at her phone. I was alerted when she took out the camera in her bedroom, and it wasn’t hard to sneak in while she was out and set up my own. Though I can’t see her face very well, it doesn’t take a telescope to see she’s glaring holes into the screen.

She’s pretty fun when she’s angry.

Her thumbs start moving a mile a minute, and I can’t help but laugh when she slam dunks the phone on her pillow after she hits send.