It wasn’t healthy, my obsession with her, but it felt amazing. I never wanted to be apart from her. I wanted to live in her. Breathe her into me every second of every day, but reality was real, and that wasn’t something I could do.

She sighed in her sleep, her lips opening with a breath I felt against my chest. I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay in bed with her forever, but my stomach growled loudly, reminding me that if I didn’t eat soon, I’d never be able to pull off round ten with her.

Her eyes popped open and she chuckled, her voice scratchy and sexy. “Was that your stomach?”

Twisting a strand of her hair between my fingers, I nodded with a grin.

“But didn’t I feed you enough last night?”

I laughed like I hadn’t since I was a boy. My stomach rumbled and tightened with my laughter. It felt good.

She traced the smile on my lips with her fingers, and I kissed them. She was perfection.

As she stretched in my grasp, I let her wiggle free.

“Then I supposed we better shower and get some food in your belly.”

She pulled the blanket off, and I admired her naked back. A few freckles dotted her shoulders and I leaned up, kissing them briefly. Her back was flawless, her skin soft and milky. I ran a finger down her spine, and she practically purred.

Stretching her neck from side to side, she stood, and her perky ass moved straight into my eye line. I wanted to nibble on it, but again, my stomach growled, reminding me how hungry I was for something more than Lyla. I watched as she walked across the room totally naked, giving me the perfect view of all my favorite physical attributes. Stopping in the doorway of the bathroom, she motioned for me to follow her.

Like the lovesick puppy I was, I stood on shaking legs and followed behind her. Leaning against the doorway, I watched her body flex as she leaned to turn on the shower water. A heated cloud moved across the room, fogging the bathroom mirror and blocking out our reflections.

She got in, the water running over her body and wetting the tips of her hair, and I followed her in. Her back met my chest, and I kissed the side of her neck before licking the hot water from her shoulder. There was no such thing as enough.

Forgetting about my growling stomach, we had round ten against the shower tile. Her nails dug into my shoulder, mixing pleasure with pain. I exploded for her, shattered into a million pieces, and I was sure that I’d never be able to put myself back together again.

SOMETHING WASN’T RIGHT. One minute, I was in the shower with Lyla, pounding into her sweet body, and the sounds of our lovemaking filled the steamy bathroom with echoes of pleasure. The next, I was standing in her living room, staring at her open front door.

The sound of the clock on the wall was magnified, my senses honed in on everything around me. Chills from the unknown moved up my spine, leaving me feeling cold and unsure. I gripped my fists at my side, realizing then that my hands were wet. Moisture ran down my arms in a ticklish line and dripped to the carpet at my feet.

I should’ve dried off better after our shower.

Lyla’s name was setting on my tongue, but instead of calling out to her, I let my eyes roam around the room, sure that something was definitely off. I could sense him… the murderer. He’d come to kill Lyla. He’d come to get the job done so he could collect his reward, but why couldn’t I remember opening the door and letting him in?

Then again, why would I have opened the door in the first place? I was fugitive on the run. My face was plastered across the TV screens, warning the people of the neighborhood that I was armed and dangerous. It didn’t make sense for me to be seen.

Then I remembered.

I got out of the shower before Lyla, and I’d gone into her kitchen to make us something to eat. She stayed in afterwards to do her womanly stuff—shaving legs and washing hair. Standing at the kitchen counter with a knife in my hand, I tensed when the doorbell chimed out.

There wasn’t much after that.

Shaking my head, I couldn’t believe how foggy and disoriented I was. Reaching up, I ran a wet hand across my cheek, but when I pulled it back, it wasn’t water that was on my hands. It was blood.

So much blood.

Quickly, I checked my naked chest for any cuts, but there were none.

Where had all the blood come from?

Lyla.

Her name rushed through my brain. Slamming the front door, I turned to run toward her bathroom, but when I did, I came face to face with Officer Douglas.

He was lying on the carpet in the middle of Lyla’s living room, his eyes wide open in death, staring accusingly back at me. His mouth was wide as if he’d screamed his final breath. His neck and chest were sliced open, his blood still spilling from the fresh wound.