Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse Duet Book 1)

by H. D. Carlton

  She gapes at me, seemingly speechless for several moments before she gains her wits. “You don’t even know if that’s true,” she whispers. “Or how many lifetimes you’ve stalked me for.”

  I grip her hair and twist until her ass is flush with the metal rail. Her hand grips mine, nails scoring my flesh as she fights against me, but it doesn’t deter me from bending her backward over the railing, the tips of her toes scarcely touching the floor.

  “What the hell, Zade?!” she screeches, her smoky voice breaking from fear. But my little mouse stills, her chest heaving. And it’s then that I nearly break.

  She trusts me.

  “Hush, baby,” I murmur. I keep one hand firmly lodged in her hair while my other hand glides across her stomach. I hover over her and inspect every curve and detail that makes up the face of the woman I’m madly fucking in love with.

  Even with her eyes rounded in panic, she’s the most enthralling creature I’ve ever laid eyes on.

  My fingers trail across her freckled cheekbone, down her jaw, and to her neck. Her breath catches, and her pulse thunders. I can’t help but smile, pleased by the reaction I draw out of her every fucking time I touch her.

  I trail my fingers down to her parted robe, those bite marks on her tits now on full display. A low hum gathers in my chest, building to a growl when I pull apart her robe further until it falls completely to the sides, baring her creamy flesh and those rosebud nipples.

  They tighten in the cool wind, and my mouth waters with the need to bite down on them.

  “My little unsuspecting mouse, living each life without any knowledge of what’s to come. Not knowing that I’m yearning for you, watching in the distance until I make myself known.” I drag my lips across her collarbone, trailing up the column of her throat towards her ear. “For centuries. Both of us wearing different faces, inhabiting different bodies. But the same souls, colliding over and over, until this planet decides to crumble and our souls have nowhere else to go.” I hum in amusement, enjoying the quickening of her breath.

  “Can you imagine it?” I ask softly.

  I pluck a nipple between my fingers, another low groan vibrating my chest. She shivers beneath my touch, her little pants desperate and breathy.

  “Can you imagine what it would feel like to have my love for that long?”

  She swallows, her eyes pinned on the water beyond the cliff as a shaky breath loosens past her lips. “Do you know what it sounds like to drown? That’s what it would feel like,” she says, her voice husky and uneven.

  “Tell me, baby. What does drowning sound like?”

  “Like the first breath of air after being trapped underwater. It's a sound of both pain and relief. Of desperation and desire. When you’ve gone so long without oxygen, that first breath is the only thing that makes sense, and your body takes it in without permission.”

  “Isn’t it the most exquisitely painful thing you’ve ever felt?” I jerk her head closer, wringing another gasp that skitters across my lips. “You’re mine, Adeline,” I growl. “I don’t care if we're reincarnated or not. Here and now, this is fucking real. And in this lifetime, you are mine.”

  I let her go, and she doesn’t waste time scrambling up and plastering herself against the house, her hands gripping the siding as if I had shaken her world, and she’s grasping for something to ground her.

  I can feel the intensity radiating off of me. The buzzing has grown louder, and I’m not sure whether I need to fuck Addie or go shoot someone in the face.

  “Are you okay?” she asks quietly, sensing the turmoil raging inside of me.

  I look over to her, and it seems as if she shrinks beneath my gaze. It’s not until I notice the tremor in her hands that I realize I’m glaring.

  “Fuck,” I say, swiping a hand roughly down my face. The raised scars only serve as a reminder. “I’m sorry, mouse. I got shitty news this morning. I keep getting shitty news.”

  She frowns, a crease forming between her brows.

  She clears her throat, draws the robe closed, and cautiously steps back towards me, fidgeting with the belt again.

  Brave girl.

  Her awkwardness almost makes me smile, but I feel a little too empty to do anything other than stare.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she finally asks, glancing up at me before she reaches for her coffee.

  “Do you want to hear about it?” I counter, cocking a brow. A red flush rises to her cheeks, but she lifts her eyes and holds them steady.

  “Yes.”

  This time, it’s me who looks away.

  “That involves hearing about what I do for a living. Which is kill people.”

  She releases a shaky breath, but instead of retreating as I had expected, she nods her head. “Okay.”

  That single word only made up for four letters, meant more to me than she could ever imagine.

  “You’re not going to like what you hear,” I argue, and for the first time, I think I’m searching for an excuse not to tell her. I’ve always been honest with her, but right now, I don’t think I can handle her vicious rejection.

  “Maybe not,” she concedes. “But you said before you save women and children. Was that not true?”

  I pin her with my stare, conveying just how serious I am. “That is what I do. All of what I told you is one hundred percent the truth. I just didn’t go into detail about what I do once I catch them.”

  “Torture them,” she easily guesses. Those four politicians exposed that truth.

  She pauses, her caramel eyes boring into me. She’s absently chewing her lip, contemplating something, it seems. Whatever she decides, she nods her head slightly to herself.

  I’m very curious to know what’s going on in that head of hers.

  “Tell me,” she says, her tone firm and unyielding. “I want to know everything… about you.” She ends her sentence with a wrinkle of her nose as if she thought she’d never say those words. It brings a small grin to my face.

  “You mean besides what it feels like to have my cock in every hole of your body?”

  She scoffs, a pretty blush staining her cheeks.

  “You have not,” she snaps.

  “Yet,” I promise. I haven’t taken her ass yet, but I fully intend to. Soon.

  “Zade, focus,” she hisses. But her clenched thighs and blown eyes don’t go unnoticed.

  I look off to the side and stare out at the Bay, focusing on something mundane, despite how beautiful it is with the water sparkling beneath the sunlight.

  Everything is mundane when Addie is present.

  There’s a small thicket of trees leading up towards the cliff, the crooked branches deprived of leaves and reaching towards the sky as if begging for life again. They’re dying, and it imitates what I feel on the inside right now.

  “I target specific people. Politicians. Celebrities. Businessmen. People in positions of power or who have money. And even people who are the lowest of the totem pole and will do anything to get by. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what their job is or how much money they have because they’re all the same. They’re human sex traffickers.

  “For years, I’ve been targeting pedophile rings and dismantling them. Rescue the girls and children and either send them back to their family or send them to a safe, undisclosed location where they can live the rest of their lives in comfort.

  “But about nine months ago, a video leaked of a sadistic ritual taking place. They were sacrificing a child and drinking his blood. Since then, a few more videos have leaked, including one last night.” I pause, clenching my jaw and trying to regain the composure that is beginning to slip through my fingers.

  Blowing out a deep breath, I continue. “I’ve told you already that Mark was in the first video, which is why I targeted him and the three other men I killed. All four of them were performing the ritual. The night I killed Mark, he disclosed the location to me, so I went there yesterday to insert myself, gain trust, and be invited into the dungeon
. They were drinking out of the same goblets that they use in the ritual.”

  I pause, nearly blind from rage as I admit, "I think this recent video was from last night, and those goblets were full of blood from a sacrifice they performed while I was there."

  The coffee cup clatters against the metal table, nearly toppling over as Addie attempts to set it down. Her hand is badly shaking and it looks like a piece of the ceramic breaks off.

  “What the fuck,” she breathes, her eyes wide with shock and repulsion. Though, they don't stray from me as she says, "Zade you couldn't have known that's what was happening. You can't blame yourself for that."

  I clench my teeth against the snarl threatening to take over my face, the muscle in my jaw threatening to burst. "The fuck I can't," I snap.

  She flinches, her face softening.

  "I didn't build Z and become who I am today to allow for a child to be sacrificed right fucking below me. And watch sick fucks drink their blood like its goddamn water."

  Tears form in her eyes, but she stays silent while I work to calm myself down.

  "I've dedicated almost six years to eradicating human trafficking. Seattle happens to be a prime location for pedophile rings, but in reality, they’re everywhere. And I plan to take them all down. Or as many as I can until this life takes me down first.”

  Addie doesn’t speak. She stares into her nearly depleted coffee as if it’s an 8 Ball that will give her whatever answer she’s looking for. The sound of the furnace kicks on, filling the otherwise static silence.

  After a few moments, she looks up at me, an unreadable expression on her freckled face.

  “Why?” she whispers. “Why did you choose to put your life in danger and hunt down these people and kill them? What made you decide to do this?”

  Her tone isn’t laced with judgment, but the need to understand. But I’m not sure my answer will offer her the understanding she's asking for.

  “Because I want to, baby.”

  Her brows jump in surprise, not expecting my answer. “You’re expecting me to give you a legitimate reason for why I took this path in life. Maybe I had a sister or mother who was kidnapped and sold. Maybe I was myself. But none of those things are the case. When I learned about human trafficking and the depths of its depravity, I was sickened. And I have the skill to do something about it, so I am. I’m saving innocent people because I want to. And I’m torturing and murdering the bad because I want to.”

  Her eyes widen in surprise when I prowl towards her. She doesn’t back away from me, but I see the tension roll into her shoulders like thunderclouds swollen with rain.

  I grab the back of her neck and pull her into me. She stumbles, steadying herself with her hands on my chest. Her breathing has escalated, the short little breaths escaping through her puffy, bruised lips.

  I lean in close, making sure her eyes are locked onto mine as I say, “And the reason I stalk you, little mouse, is because I want to. Everything I do in life is my choice. I choose my morals. I choose the ones that are worth saving and the ones that are worth killing. And I choose you.

  “If you’re expecting a tragic story, you’re not going to get one. My parents were incredible people who loved me and supported me. They died in a car crash when I was seventeen. The roads were terrible, and they hydroplaned off a cliff. I lived with my father’s best friend—my godfather—for a year before going to college for computer science and started my career as a hacker.

  “My parents’ death was heartbreaking but an accident. Aside from losing them, nothing bad has ever really happened to me that would lead me to slaughter evil people for a living. I make my own choices in life, Addie. That’s all there is to it.”

  She swallows, her eyes darting between mine. Slowly, she raises her hand and traces a finger lightly over the scar running down my eye. I clench my jaw, relishing in the fire that her fingers leave in their wake.

  Despite the severity of the conversation, my cock hardens to steel in my jeans. I’m tempted to unzip, bend her over the railing, and take her right here.

  But I know we’re both incredibly sore by now, and I would crash right back into the dark headspace the second I slip out of her.

  Addie doesn’t deserve that. She doesn’t deserve to have her body used so I can escape my demons.

  “And your scars?”

  “The first time I infiltrated a ring. One of the ring leaders was a brute and knew his way around a knife fight. He cut me up good. And it was the lesson I needed in order for me to learn how to defend myself and fight properly. No man has ever come close since. I wear these scars proudly because in the end, I won and every innocent in that building went home safe.”

  “But they still haunt you.”

  I nod once. “They do.”

  It was the first time I was confronted with the possibility of failure. And that feeling has never quite let me go from its clutches. It’s the feeling that imprints on me like a bad tattoo each and every time I invade a ring.

  Her hand drops to the side, dangling loosely as she stares at me. I stare back, each of us trying to read the other. Figure out what the other is thinking. Feeling.

  “One last question,” she barters.

  “Ask me as many as you want.”

  “The roses. Why the roses?”

  I smile. I was waiting for her to ask me about those.

  “My mother. Her favorite flowers were roses. She always had them all over the house with the thorns clipped so I wouldn’t hurt myself. One year, I told her that I would be sad when she died because all the roses would die with her. So, she gave me a plastic rose and said that as long as I have that rose, she would never be truly gone.”

  I shrug. “I guess I wanted to see roses all over your house, too. Maybe because you feel like home.”

  She inhales sharply, seemingly taken aback by my words. Those beautiful eyes are fixated on mine, both shock and raw hunger reflecting in her caramel pools.

  Licking her lips, she admits softly, “It’s going to take me some time to fully accept some things, Zade. I can’t tell you how long it’ll take me, but I can tell you that I will try. But what I can definitively accept is you saving the children and girls.”

  Her lip wobbles. Before I can reach down and snatch it between my teeth, she sucks it between her own.

  After a few seconds, she continues. “I admire you more than I can say for being one of far too few people willing actually to do something to save them. The world needs more people like you, Zade.”

  “Maybe,” I murmur, giving in and placing a soft kiss on the corner of her lips. “But all I need is you.”

  Her eyes close, and she nods to herself. I don’t know what conclusion she comes to in that pretty little head of hers, but when she opens her eyes and gazes up at me, it looks a little like she needs me, too.

  My hand slides into her hair, and just as I’m closing the distance, a voice filters in through Addie’s bedroom door.

  “Who's ready for a murder inves—” the loud voice trails off, replaced by a loud gasp.

  Mine and Addie's heads both turn at the same time. Standing in her bedroom staring at us with a mixture of disbelief and anger is Addie's best friend.

  “Hello, Daya,” I greet, my mask falling into place as I smirk and step away from Addie.

  My little mouse is embarrassed. I note the hint of shame, but it was expected. It’s going to take time for Addie to truly accept within herself that she has given in to her stalker.

  “What the hell? Is this him?”

  My smirk widens, and I turn to look at Addie. “Have you been gossiping about me, little mouse? Did you tell her how big my cock is?”

  Addie’s eyes pop comically. Her hand curls and swings it right into my chest. It feels like she just threw a slice of bread at me.

  “Asshole! No!”

  If it wasn’t for the small figure charging towards me, the loud stomping would be a clear indicator to the storm coming my way. I turn and swoop out of the way
of another flying fist. This one packing a lot more punch.

  That one might have felt like a whole loaf of bread.

  I can tell the girl can hit, but fists don’t affect me these days. I’ve grown too accustomed to the bite of a bullet instead.

  I laugh, catching Daya by her arm before she flies ass over teacup over the balcony.

  She wouldn’t look so pretty with her face bashed in and her skull cracked open.

  “Damn, you both woke up and chose violence today, huh?”

  Daya rips her arm from my hand and glares at me, her pretty green eyes full of ire. And then she turns to Addie. “I thought we hated him.”

  I cock a brow, also staring at Addie and waiting for her answer. At this point, she can lie and say she still does. I know the truth, and that’s what matters. I have a single feeling in my body, and it’s attached to the freckled-face girl who looks like she’s having a stroke. It’s going to take a lot more than her lying to her best friend to hurt it.

  Addie's face is red and her mouth flops, but no words come out. She might even be going into cardiac arrest.

  Daya trains her glare on me and opens her mouth, but I cut in, “I’d be very careful about your words and any swinging limbs. I do sign your paychecks.”

  Her eyes widen, taken aback. “So it is you. You are Z?” she demands.

  “What, does my face not meet your expectations?”

  The look that comes over Daya's face is pure entertainment. I swear you can’t find this shit on T.V. anymore.

  She flounders for an answer but comes up short. All she really can do is just stare.

  “I hope you understand that Addie never really stood a chance. Don’t blame her.”

  Addie crosses her arms, huffing at me and finally finding her voice. All I had to do was piss her off. “I make my own decisions, Zade. Quit acting like I didn’t have a choice.”