Page 72 of Problematic

My gaze snapped toward the paperback on the coffee table so fast my neck twinged. It sat there face down, spine cracked, page corners abused, looking far too innocent for something that had just betrayed me on a fucking spiritual level. Page 243. I knew exactly what happened on page 243.

My entire body went hot. “Oh my god,” I whispered. I grabbed the book like it had committed a crime and flipped through it with frantic, shaking fingers, even though I knew. Of course I knew.

The book fell open. There it was.

The heroine pinned between the desk and her stalker’s body, his hand wrapped around her throat, not squeezing, not hurting, just holding her there while he told her to stop pretending she didn’t want him to ruin every safe thing she had left while she held a knife to his throat. My eyes snagged on the first line on the page.

“Stop pretending you didn’t want my hands around your throat when you practically begged for this.” Fuck.

I stared at the sentence until the words stopped being ink and became a hand around my neck. Did I want that? I side-eyed the book. Yes, yes the fuck I did . . . But from a stalker . . . ?

Maybe not.

My face burned so hot I thought about pressing it against the freezer door and leaving it there until my soul returned to my body.

Then I saw the ink beneath the line. His precise, elegant, criminal fucking ink.

If I ever put my hand on your throat, Little Flower, you won’t have to pretend. You’ll have already asked me for it, even if you used every other word except please.

He’d read that line.

He’d read THAT line, and I was antagonizing him.

He had gone through my book, found the page I’d folded, read the filthiest scene in the entire thing, and then, because he was apparently a criminal with literary analysis skills, he’d decided to use it against me.

In perfect handwriting.

Like Satan’s fucking paralegal.

I dropped the book onto the coffee table and backed away from it. “No,” I said, pointing at it. “You and I are no longer friends.” The book sat there, smug and slutty.

My gaze crawled back to the note on the counter where I’d first seen him.

Tonight . . . tonight meant contact. Tonight meant the shadows would finally answer. Tonight meant I had challenged a monster with fancy stationery, and he had RSVP’d.

My pulse stumbled into something fast and messy.

I grabbed my pen and wrote on the bottom of his note before fear talked me out of having a personality.

PAGE 243 IS A PRIVATE MATTER.

I paused.

Then I added:

ALSO THE KNIFE WAS IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT.

My pen hovered.

My brain screamed at me to stop.

Naturally, my hand kept moving.

FOR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.

I stared at the sentence.

“I need supervision,” I whispered.