by Lane Parker
Table of Contents
Dearest Stalker
Copyright© 2018 by Lane Parker
Prelude
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
About the Author
Books by Lane Parker
Dearest Stalker
By
Lane Parker
Part 2
Copyright© 2018 by Lane Parker
All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Prelude
Stalker
I never should have fucking touched her.
I hated myself for putting my hands on Kate, but disliking the man I was had pretty much become normal for me, and had been ever since the day I’d killed the person I’d loved more than anybody else in the world.
Every day was painful, but I’d made it worse by fucking a woman I could never have. A female who was way too good for me, and always would be.
I leaned back against the shower tile, letting the water course over my body.
Being with Kate had turned my world upside down. Like it hadn’t already been bad enough?
And Kate? Fuck! She deserved a hell of a lot more than a broken man who had to function like a regular person on the outside while I was everything but normal on the inside.
“Kate,” I said aloud in a voice I hardly recognized. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Of course I couldn’t conjure her image without my cock being painfully hard.
I wrapped my hand around the shaft, getting ready to get myself off in the shower like I’d done every single day since I’d taken her virginity in a goddamn boathouse.
She deserved flowers, romance, understanding and tenderness.
I’d given her a hard screw in a dark, barren place where people stowed away their boat and fishing gear.
What in the hell had I been thinking?
Problem was, I hadn’t really been thinking.
I’d seen her fighting her way out of the reception, and that distraught look on her face had slammed me in the gut so hard that I’d followed her.
Her sobs of grief, fear and confusion had torn out what was left of my heart.
I’d needed to make her see that she was going to be okay. I’d had to comfort her.
Instead, I’d ended up fucking her because I didn’t have any real compassion to give. All I could really do was make her feel good. It was all I knew.
I’d known I was fucked the minute I had her curvy body in my grasp. I wasn’t able to let her go after that. I hadn’t been capable of it. She’d felt too damn good, and I’d experienced nothing like Kate Riley in my entire life, and most certainly not in the last several years.
I knew it wasn’t right.
I knew I should have told her the truth.
Instead, I’d taken what I wanted. And I’d made damn sure she wanted it, too.
Bastard! She’d been completely untouched.
The last thing I’d expected was for Kate to be a virgin. But by the time I knew, it was too late to stop.
Would I have let her go if I’d known? I couldn’t say, but probably not. Because I was just that much of an asshole.
Now, she was confused.
She didn’t understand me, which wasn’t such a stretch because most of the time, I didn’t understand myself.
But I should have just continued to take care of her until she didn’t need me anymore.
Silently.
From a safe distance.
The same way I had for years.
I leaned my head back on the tile as I stroked harder on my cock, hating myself because I needed the release.
Because I touched her.
And now, I couldn’t go a day without getting myself off. I hadn’t needed this for years, and now I was suddenly desperate to find some relief from the relentless gnawing of sexual need eating me alive.
Because I touched her.
I could still hear her lusty moans in my head.
The way her breath hitched when she was aroused.
And for the life of me, I couldn’t fucking forget the way she’d wrapped her arms around me like she trusted me to give her everything she needed.
I’m the last guy she should ever have faith in.
“Fuck!” I said out loud as I finally came, my breathing ragged, not because I’d shot my load into the swirling water in the bottom of the shower, but because I was still thinking about her.
Because I touched her.
And she’d touched me. Maybe that was really the thing that had nearly destroyed me.
If she really knew the man I was, she’d be running the other direction.
That’s why she could never know.
Chapter 1
Kate
Dammit!
I slammed my laptop closed and rose from the kitchen table.
How is it possible that my stalker could mask his identity so well? I’d been investigating for days—even resorting to some minor hacking—and I couldn’t come up with a damn thing about his identity.
Every road I’d followed led to…nothing.
His phone number was untraceable. I couldn’t get a name.
Unless I wanted to cause a major security breach on some well-known websites, there was no way I was going to be able to get my stalker’s name. And I wasn’t about to get arrested and ruin my career before it even started just because my curiosity was killing me.
I opened the refrigerator and grabbed an apple, even though I definitely wanted a huge order of nachos with extra cheese.
“Not happening,” I said to myself right before I took a huge bite out of my fruit.
I was determined to get into shape. I’d gained my freshman fifteen, and then some, during my bachelor’s program, and I was so out of condition from spending most of my time in front of a computer that I couldn’t walk a block or two without being winded. I was entering a new chapter in my life, and I didn’t want to start it by gaining more weight from my stress eating.
I was going through comfort food withdrawals, but I’d made it through the first week of healthy eating and power walks. Maybe it would get easier, but it seemed like I was fighting the desire to eat every hour of every day.
My job search wasn’t producing interviews yet, even though I’d applied for almost any position available. But to be a programmer, companies wanted some kind of experience.
And I had none.
So I’d also applied to every open cocktail waitress job in the area since my only real experience was bagging groceries or waiting tables in a bar.
I had to get some kind of employment. My funds were dwindling, and I wasn’t even paying rent yet.
I sighed as I tossed the core of my apple in the trash.
I’d never be able to afford to pay a fair rent on the guest house I was using. And even though Ben kept reminding me that I was family, I wasn’t,
and I felt like I was taking advantage of the Blackwood generosity.
I’ll get out on my own soon. I just need a job.
Ben had been amazing about helping me over the last week since my dad’s funeral. I talked to him almost every day, and he’d dropped over for dinner twice in the last seven days.
By process of elimination, Ben was my only suspect for men who could be my stalker.
I’d crossed everyone off the list except him.
There were a few men who had known and respected my mother, but one of them had passed away soon after my mother had, and the others were either bald, overweight, or way too short to be the man who had taken my virginity.
My mystery man had an incredibly powerful body, and I’d felt tiny in comparison. He’d lifted me like my extra pounds were nothing. I was average height for a woman, but my body was anything but delicate.
Ben’s body was perfect, and it fit the description of my mystery man. But it didn’t make sense. He wasn’t married or involved. So why would he need to hide the fact that he’d been checking on me for years, and that he still cared what happened to me? Why would he not say that he’d been the man who had overwhelmed my good sense, and provided the fuel for every sexual fantasy I’d had since that night in the boathouse?
I shuddered as I went to my bedroom to put on a pair of stretchy leggings and an oversized shirt so I could do my power walk for the day. I couldn’t think about the night I’d lost my virginity without wanting to repeat the experience again.
Maybe what we’d done had been all wrong, but why had it felt so damn right?
I craved him like an addictive drug. Now that I knew what it felt like to let go and allow a man to get close to me, I wanted more.
Problem was, I couldn’t put a name or a face to the guy who had turned my world upside down. That was one of the creepy things about my whole obsession with the guy who had taken my V-card.
I could text him.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about it. But Stalker hadn’t texted another word since he’d typed that single yes answer to my question about whether or not he’d been the man in the boathouse.
And I hadn’t worked up the courage to ask any more questions.
I’d desperately wanted to be armed with more information before I confronted him. But my searches had amounted to nothing.
I locked the door of the guest house, and then pocketed the key as I made my way to the beach.
The view that confronted me took my breath away. I’d headed down to the water’s edge almost every day, but I never got used to the vastness of the Gulf that I saw whenever I came out the door of the guest house.
There was a natural seawall of at least twenty or thirty feet that necessitated the use of the wooden stairs to get down to the beach.
Once my bare feet hit the beautiful white sand, something magical happened: Every single thing I’d been worried about drifted away like it didn’t exist.
There was something about me and the ocean. Maybe it was all the good memories I had of hunting shells with my mom on Sanibel beaches that dissolved all the troubles I had—at least temporarily. And I was grateful for the reprieve.
I dropped the sneakers I was holding, and plopped my butt on the sand. The sound of the waves calmed me, and it was water as far as my eyes could see.
God, I loved it here, but I knew it wouldn’t last forever.
“Katie?”
I startled at the sound of a male voice saying my name. I’d been so captivated by the serenity of the beach that I hadn’t noticed anyone approaching. Since there was no public beach access, I was surprised that there was anyone else on the beach at all. I hadn’t met up with a single person on my daily walks, and I’d had the sand all to myself.
I scrambled to my feet and stared at the big male in front of me. “Yes?”
I took his measure as I tried to get used to the fact that I wasn’t alone on the beach. I shaded my eyes because I hadn’t brought a pair of sunglasses.
He was tall.
He was muscular.
And the gorgeous dark-haired man was grinning at me like he knew me.
Honestly, he looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place the face.
“You don’t remember me,” he said.
The man appeared to be about my age, but I shook my head.
“Doug Ryker,” he prompted. “We worked together at the grocery store.”
It was the Doug that Ariel said had a crush on me in high school.
The lightbulb went off, and I remembered the time I’d spent with him in what seemed like eons ago.
I couldn’t say we’d actually been friends, but we weren’t strangers, either.
I put my hand out. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry,” I said remorsefully. “I’m a little distracted. It’s nice to see you again.”
And really, it was nice to see him. Maybe it was the way he was smiling at me right now, or how nicely he’d matured, but it felt good to see anybody who actually remembered me.
He took my hand and shook it, holding it just a little bit longer than necessary as he said, “Your dad died. If that happened to me, I’d be braindead, too.”
I looked at him in surprise as I took my hand back. “You know about that?”
“Of course. I saw it in the local paper. I even came to the reception at the Blackwoods, but you were already gone. I’m so sorry, Katie.”
I nodded, trying to remain composed. “You came to the reception?”
“I wanted to see you and pay my respects. It’s been a while.”
I smiled back at him hesitantly. “Thanks.”
It was kind of touching that Doug had bothered. It wasn’t like we’d been great friends in high school. We’d had a few of the same classes, and I’d seen him at the market because we’d usually worked the same shift. But outside of that, we hadn’t had any interaction.
Doug had been one of the cool football players in school. I’d been one of the geeks. Our two circles hadn’t mingled.
“How are you doing?” he asked, his voice sincere.
I put my hands in the pockets of my leggings. “Okay,” I answered. “What are you doing here? I thought you went off to play college football.”
“I did,” he confirmed. “But I got injured in my sophomore year. Badly enough that I’d never play ball again. So I dropped out of college and came back to work with my dad.”
I looked at him curiously. “What does he do?”
He chuckled. “He owns the national chain of supermarkets that you worked in during high school. I thought everybody knew. I was the rich kid who was working as a bagger to get some experience in the grocery business. My father was pretty adamant that I start at the bottom.”
“I didn’t know,” I confessed. I’d actually known very little about Doug except for the fact that he was pleasant enough to work with, and that he wasn’t very good at chemistry because I’d had to carry him through the labs.
I’d been too busy trying to survive to get into anybody else’s business.
He shrugged. “That’s okay. I didn’t exactly broadcast the fact that I was the owner’s son.”
Now that I knew the truth, I respected him for that. He’d always pulled his weight, and worked as hard as anyone else at the store. “So what are you doing on Sanibel?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” he joked. “I saw you heading down from Ian Blackwell’s estate. My grandparents own the place next door. It’s definitely not as grand as Ian’s place, but I come down here to jog as often as I can. It’s quiet since Grandma and Grandpa moved into an assisted living facility. The place is up for sale, but I doubt it will sell anytime soon. I’m pretty much housesitting.”
“Are they okay?” I asked, my heart aching at the fact that his grandparents were declining.
Now that I was taking a closer look at Doug, it was pretty evident that he’d been jogging. He was dressed in a pair of sweatpants, a T-shirt with moisture stains, and a pair of running shoes.
The mussed up appearance looked good on him.
“They’re good,” he answered. “But Grandpa is slowing down. It was probably a good move. What are you doing here?”
I shrugged, feeling embarrassed. “I’m moving back to Florida. I have a bachelor’s in computer science, so I’m hoping to get a position as a programmer. I’m staying in Ian’s guest house until I can find something.”
“Your stepbrother, right?”
I nodded. “Ben and Ian have been great.”
“I don’t know either one of them well, but my parents hang out with Mrs. Blackwood, your stepmother.”
It made sense that Doug’s parents and my stepmother hung out in the same circles. If his father owned the national chain of one of the most popular supermarkets in the country, then they were all incredibly wealthy.
I wasn’t quite sure what to say to him since I barely knew my stepfamily.
He saved me from the awkwardness as he asked, “Were you going to swim?”
“Are you kidding?” I joked. “The Gulf is way too cold for a native. I just came down to look for shells, and to take a walk.”
He smiled. “Want to walk with me?”
My heart skittered. Even though our high school years had been over years ago, it was kind of exciting for a geek to finally get the attention of a guy who had been the hottest jock in school.
“Sure,” I said, and then sat down to put on my sneakers.
He took my hand to help me up when I was done, and he never let it go as we walked down the beach like neither one of us had a care in the world.
Chapter 2
Kate
“I told you that he had a thing for you,” Ariel said in the I-told-you-so voice that I’d heard since we were kids. Luckily, she’d outgrown sticking her tongue out at me a long time ago.
I’d just gotten back from my walk with Doug an hour ago, and when Ariel had arrived, I’d filled her in on what had happened.
“He’s nice, and he’s definitely hot, but I still have a hard time believing that somebody that ripped and gorgeous has a thing for me. But I think he could be Stalker. He told me that he’d always liked me, but could never get me to notice him. I guess I wrote him off because he was so popular in high school. Not to mention the fact that all I did was study and work. I was too busy to pay attention to much else.”
