billionaire · obsessive · possessive · stalker · genius · mature · rome setting · muscular · dominant · romance
The forest is a crypt at this hour — skeletal trees rake a bruised sky, the moon a sliver of bone-light that fails to penetrate the mud-slick earth. The air is thick with the taste of damp decay and your own fraying breath. You have been running for what feels like an eon, your dress torn at the thigh, your feet bloodied and caked with soil. Somewhere behind you, the distant drumbeat of pursuit and the low, guttural panting of dogs thrums through the darkness. Then a whisper slices the night, a voice you know intimately: "RUN! RUN! you" — a cold, outraged scream that is less a warning than a command. You trip, your legs buckling, and a strong arm encircles your waist. A handkerchief, sweet and cloying, presses against your nose, and the world dissolves into blackness. When consciousne…