Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse Duet Book 2)

I’ve never seen Zade indecisive before. Not until now, while he picks apart every iota of my expression to determine if he should let me touch him.

Then, like a monster tearing through flesh, his beast takes over. He seizes me by the jaw, bringing my face close to his.

“You think you’re ready for me? Let’s see how far you’re willing to go to please me.”

He lifts me off him, setting me to the side, then stands, pausing to look down at me with an unreadable expression. His face is smoothed into cold marble.

Turning away, he walks to a black chair a few feet in front of me. He sits there some nights if he can’t sleep, waiting and watching for a nightmare to arise—always watching me.

Next to the chair is a little table where a glass and a canter of whiskey sits. He pours himself three fingers and then sits back in the chair, widening his knees with his arm hanging over the side, the glass held by the tips of his fingers.

He eyes me, taking a sip of his whiskey before resuming his position.

“Crawl to me,” he orders, his voice as rough as lava rock, yet as enticing as the spiced whiskey he swallowed. “Show me how pretty you are begging on your knees for my cock.”

My stomach tightens with heat, and I feel my thighs growing slicker.

I make a split-second decision and grab the rose, and place it between my teeth, reveling in the small stings on my lips from the thorns.

Copper blooms on my tongue as I heed his orders, crawling on my hands and knees with his precious rose in my mouth, hips and breasts swaying sensually.

His eyes light up, and his nostrils flare. The cool demeanor slips, and raw desire bleeds through the cracks.

When I reach him, I kneel and set the rose on my lap.

“Was that pretty enough for you?”

He chuckles and finishes off his whiskey, setting the glass down on the table.

“You’re so fucking beautiful; I want to cut the eyes from those who get the privilege to look at you,” he rasps, licking his lips predatorily.

He sits up enough to pull the shirt over his head, baring himself completely. My mouth waters at the sight of him and I feel my skin flush all over again from how sinfully delicious he looks.

Something about tanned skin covered in black tattoos… Jesus Christ, thank you, She-Devil for inventing a man like Zade.

My eyes linger on the scar cutting through his abs, and I decide that I want to be as strong as Zade. A man who has faced death with a smile on his face countless times, only for him to turn around and do it again. Over and over.

Gently, I drift my fingers across the crimson handprint streaked across his stomach, intoxicated by the sight of him twitching beneath me. The tension condenses until it feels like I’m wading through lava.

My jaw is in his hand again within seconds, his thumb smearing the dots of blood along my lips.

“I want to see this blood all over my cock,” he murmurs. “Take off my belt.”

Heeding his command, the metal clings as my fingers deftly undo the buckle, and memories surface of him wrapping this belt around my neck as he fucked my mouth.

I want that again, but I know I’m not quite ready for it yet.

He releases my jaw as I make quick work of his button and zipper, delighting in the sound of metal teeth breaking apart for me. His cock bursts free before I finish unzipping, and this time, my mouth dries.

Somehow, I’ve forgotten how intimidating his size is.

Licking my lips, I grab the rose, spread my knees, and glide the soft petals through my slit again, once more soaking them with my arousal.

He watches me closely as I sit up, and drag the stem across his hip slowly, the sharp thorns biting into his sensitive flesh. He hisses between his teeth, his eyes flashing viciously.

Trapping my bloody lip between my teeth, I trail the petals alongside the ridge of his cock, delighting in the way his stomach clenches. Veins protrude from his length, and I follow them up to the tip with the flower, coating him in my wetness.

“Addie,” he warns when I slide it down to his balls, causing him to tense. My lips curl mischievously as I lean forward and place a soft kiss on his cock, staring up at him beneath my lashes with a sultry look.

He growls, and his patience snaps. He’s fisting my hair and leaning forward, his sharp words rumbling in my ear, “Do you want to trade places and make me beg on my knees? I’ve waited so long to feel your mouth wrapped around my cock, little mouse, and I would do terrible things for you if that’s what it takes.”

“Patience, baby,” I whisper, my pussy throbbing when he groans. He becomes so malleable from a simple endearment, and once more, that sense of power flares.

Flattening my palm on his chest, I push him back, his body strung tight. Keeping our gazes locked, I dart my tongue out and lick around the tip of his cock, watching his lips pull into a snarl and his eyes blaze. He never looks human when he’s inside of me.

I focus on him, blocking out the voices before they can truly enter, and holding on to the sight of Zade melting like ice beneath me. That vision gives me the control I so desperately need, and I realize it’s so much easier to stay in the present when I have something to savor: Zade at my mercy.

I take him deeper into my mouth, sliding my tongue along the ridge and pulling a mixture of a groan and a growl from him.

His fingers drift into my hair, weaving through the strands and holding tight. Moans fall past his lips, spurring me on. I hollow out my cheeks, sucking him deeper until the tip hits the back of my throat. Even then, I don’t let up, holding back a gag until tears leak from my eyes.

For a few moments, I hold on until I can’t anymore, gagging a little and retreating until he pops free, a trail of red-tinted saliva clinging to my bottom lip.

Just like he wanted, the blood from my mouth is smeared down his length, and a sick thought flashes in my mind.

I understand why Xavier liked it so much.

“Keep sucking,” he hisses, pulling me out of my head. Breathing in deep, I hold my breath as I swallow him once more, tears welling in my eyes from the sheer size of him.

His hand grabs the nape of my neck to keep me still while he pumps his hips, a growl rumbling from deep in his chest.

My pussy throbs in response, and embarrassingly enough, I almost want to cry. I was convinced I’d always be broken, never being able to touch or be touched. But giving Zade pleasure doesn’t make me feel weak and helpless like I thought it would. To see him lose himself in my mouth makes me feel like a queen sitting upon her throne.

He needs me so fucking bad in this moment and knowing I can take it away… my thighs clench to abate the ache growing between them.

He fucks my mouth savagely, saliva spilling past my lips in which I use my hand to spread up and down his length, his teeth gnashing in response.

I come up for air, trails of spit connecting his dick to my mouth.

“Stick out that tongue for me, baby.”

I do as he says without regard, peering at him through my wet lashes.

“Such a good fucking girl,” he rasps. He grabs the base of his cock and slaps it on my tongue a few times, his brows pinched, and mouth parted.

A beast and a god twisted together, forming something wholly unnatural.

And I realize, I never needed to be afraid of his touch. It was men that defiled me, and Zade was never a man.

I tug against his hold in my hair, but he resists, fisting the strands tighter. He lifts his other hand and drags his thumbs roughly over the underside of my eyes, smearing mascara down my cheeks.

His chest rumbles, and his voice is guttural when he says, “You look like such a pretty whore for me.”

A flash of anger ignites inside of me, and he only smiles in response. He jerks my head closer to him. The tip of his cock brushes against my breasts, and his eyes fall, a spark flaring in his gaze. By the time he drags his eyes up to me, I know exactly what he’s thinking.

“You were never a whore for those men, little mouse. You know why?”

“Why?” I whisper.

“Because they never owned any part of you. They took what they did not possess. That doesn’t make you a whore; that makes you a survivor.”

A sheen of tears wells over my eyes. I drop them to conceal the weakness, but he jerks my head up, refusing to let me hide.

A devilish grin quirks his lips up. “But you are my whore. You’re my everything, and you become so much more with each passing day. I possess every fucking part of you, Adeline. Even when you screamed and cried that you didn’t want me, you could never let me go. All those nights you stood at your window, letting me watch you. Confronting me instead of running and instigating me knowing what would happen. And when you did run, you only ever used your mouth to try and get away. You gravitated towards me, just as I did you. And that is something no other man will ever have.”

He’s right. I never did act appropriately to him stalking me.

There’s no denying how contradicting it is to assault and stalk a woman when you’re trying to save others from the same thing. Nor is there denying how despite these things, there’s a twisted part of me that has always liked it. It was never about my body succumbing to him, but my soul, too.

Xavier wanted from me what only Zade could accomplish. He wanted my body to reveal a hidden truth and show him that our connection ran deeper than flesh on flesh. And when the only truth he found was that I would never want him, he grew angry and desperate.

That was a truth only Zade could uncover.

Like attracted to like—his darkness to mine. I was running from it while he was forcing me to see who I really am.

Zade and I—we don’t make sense to the outside world. Barely even in my own head. Yet I’m finding it hard to care anymore. I won’t ever justify what Zade has done to me, but I do forgive him. Not only that, but I accept him.

He told me before that he wanted me to fall in love with the darkest parts of him, and I have.

Every fucked-up piece of him.

Sensing the resolve, he jerks my head again. “Spit on my cock, baby. Get it nice and wet for me.”

Keeping my eyes locked on his, I stick out my tongue, letting the saliva pool before dripping off the tip and right onto his cock.

“Can never be too wet, can you, kitty cat?” I say coyly, echoing his words back to him from our first encounter.

He grins, the act damning to my soul. Lifting his hand, he thumbs my bottom lip harshly.

“Keep it up, little mouse. This sharp tongue isn’t the only thing capable of getting me wet. I could come just thinking about my cock covered in your blood.”

I bite my lip, a shot of fear pulsing through my system from his dangerous tone. A shiver rolls down my spine, hitting each vertebra on the way down.

It feels fucking glorious.

I rub my spit up and down his length, the noises crude. His eyes droop, his mouth opens as he stares at me like he’s praying I defy him.

“Good girl,” he drawls. “Now lean forward and put my dick between those beautiful tits of yours.”

Biting my lip, I do as he asks, looking up at him seductively. He may be spitting his demands, but he’s still under my mercy. Proven by the way his head tips back, a groan working through his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

He succumbs to me like the Titanic did the ocean. Indestructible—unsinkable—to everyone but me. I’m the raging sea that conquered him and sunk him to his very knees, and he was helpless to stop me.

He pistons his hips upward, and I squeeze him tighter between my breasts, tipping my chin down to let another trail of spit fall from my tongue.

The sight of his cock driving up between them has my pussy clenching, arousal spreading down my thighs. A moan of my own slips out, pulling his eyes back down to me.

“Is this making your pussy wet?” he grinds out past his teeth, punctuating it with a harsh thrust. “Moaning like a whore while watching me fuck your tits. Does it make you wish it was your pussy instead?”

“Yes,” I confess, riveted by the fierce look on his face. My heart ramps up, but I trust Zade. I trust that he knows how far to push me.

“Rub your clit, I want you to come when I do,” he orders, knocking away my hands from my breasts and replacing them with his own, squeezing them tightly around his length.

Reaching down, I swirl my finger across my clit, shuddering and grinding my hips against my hand harder.

My head begins to tip back, eyes rolling as I circle faster. Zade’s hand sharply slaps the side of my breast, and I snap my head back down in response with a yelp.

“Eyes on me, little mouse.”

He thrusts his hips in quick, short thrusts, and I can only stare, intoxicated by the sight of a god coming undone.

“Fuck, Addie. These tits are going to be covered in my cum. You ready for me, baby?”

I nod my head frantically, my voice trapped beneath the moans spilling from my mouth.

His grip becomes bruising, but it’s hardly noticeable when my stomach is tightening, and I’m so close to falling over the edge for the second time tonight.

His hips stutter and then he’s shouting, cursing my name as streams of his seed paint my skin. I erupt in the same moment, shuddering violently and rocking against my hand riotously.

Deeper and deeper, I fall into the depths of his depravity, and I find that I never want to come out.

It takes several moments for my vision to focus and the bliss to recede. I’m breathless and flushed by the time I come down. He reaches forward, grabbing me beneath my arms and lifting me up on his lap.

Then, he reaches over and grabs his shirt from the floor and cleans me up.

A satisfied look relaxes his face, drawing out a small smile. Until I glance down at his chest, seeing something I hadn’t noticed before.

“What is that?” I ask, my voice strangled with shock. He balls up the shirt and tosses it to the side, then locks his gaze onto mine.

“A reminder,” he answers simply.

I try to swallow, words getting stuck in my throat like dry bread.

“What did you do?” I croak. It burns my fingertips as I brush them across his most recent scar, as if he branded himself and the flesh is still sizzling.

Glaring at me is a macabre rose marring the skin directly over his heart, cutting into the old scar. A fucking rose. He carved a symbol of his love for me into his chest.

“Why?”

His gaze sears into me with so many different emotions swirling in the mismatched pools. Regret. Shame. Guilt. Fury. All prevalent as he stares up at me like I’m a fading mirage, and he doesn’t know how to let me go.

“I told you I don’t hide from my failures,” he says softly. “What happened to you was my failure. And this serves as a reminder every day.”

I shake my head, at a loss for words. Several times, I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

“Zade,” I finally choke out. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Maybe not directly, but that doesn’t exempt me from blame. Max sold you out because of the bad blood between us and I should’ve killed him when he first started giving you trouble. That was my first mistake, and because of that, you were kidnapped.”

His fists clench and the muscle in his jaw thrums against his skin. Any second now, it just might burst.

“And that was my second mistake,” he rasps. “My protection wasn’t good enough. I can’t always be by your side, we both know that, but it was too easy for them to take you. I won’t make that mistake again.”

His hand drifts through the tendrils of my hair before brushing softly against the back of my neck.

“I don’t care if I need to set this world on fire until there’s no one left but you and me. The world will burn around us, and I’ll gladly live in chaos with you as long as the only person that is a danger to you is me.”

Clenching my teeth, I dig my nail into the rose. He hisses but doesn’t stop me.

“Stop taking the blame for other people being fucked in the head. You didn’t put a target on my head. You didn’t sell me out in the name of revenge and money. And you didn’t kidnap me and sell me off into the sex trade. What you did was find me and save me.”

I dig my nail in harder, a bloody crescent moon forming over the rose.

“You rescued me, and I will never forget that. And the only way I can repay you is by saving myself. Getting stronger and not letting what those sick fucks did to me control my life. I may have cracked, but they did not shatter me. My rose still has fucking thorns, Zade. Do you understand me?”

Before he can respond, I lean forward and collect the beads of blood on my tongue. Then, I slowly lick my lips, smearing the crimson around my mouth like lipstick.

His eyes zero in on the movement, his chest heaving.

“I wanted to know what it tasted like when someone else bleeds for me,” I whisper.

He works his jaw. “I’ll always bleed for you,” he whispers before gripping my jaw in his hand and connecting his lips softly with mine, licking his blood from my lips.

“You’re still my helpless little mouse, but only when it comes to my irresistible prowess,” he says when he pulls away, gracing me with a shit-eating grin.

I close my eyes, a laugh bursting from my mouth. A single tear slips out, emotions rising up my throat. The happy vapors are back, and I hope to God they stick around for a little while this time.

“You’re such a prick.”

“No, baby, I’m just the masochist that can’t get enough of your beauty, even when you draw blood.” He glances down at the tiny droplets sprouting from where I dug my nail into his skin.

I purse my lips. “I guess I’m the prick then.”