Queen of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #4) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,60

to force her tongue into my mouth.

"Oh, holy fuck, we're dead," Bait whined and I was glad that at least one of them was getting it.

Deepthroat pulled back with a satisfied sigh like that one-sided kiss while I death glared at her had been the answer to all of her dreams.

"Sorry about the knockout gas, big boy," she murmured, her hands roaming over my chest again and making me want to punch her plastic face in. "It was the only way to rescue you from those assholes who were keeping us apart."

"What... the fuck?" I choked out, my tongue sluggish and my words thick.

"You must have been so lonely, waiting for me for so long," she breathed. "Did you get my letters? Did they help to keep you warm at night?"

I just frowned at her, not knowing what the fuck she was talking about and she began tugging on the knotted drawstring at the waist of my sweats as she went on. I hoped to fuck I’d knotted it too tightly for her to undo, but then I thought of the knife she’d used to cut my shirt away and shuddered all over again.

"What?" I hissed.

"I told you in my last one that I'd come for you. That I was done waiting for that whore to take her claws out of you. And now that she's gone, I knew it was time."

My brain was still sluggish and it took me a moment to figure out her ramblings. "You're the stalker?” I asked, realising the truth of it. “What do you want with Tatum? Why were you giving her those letters?"

Deepthroat's nails dug into my flesh, cutting crescents into my skin as she snarled at me. "They weren't for her. They were for you. I was warning her off, giving her a chance."

"A chance?" I asked, frowning at her newly blonde hair and wondering why the fuck she'd dyed it that colour. Was it something to do with my girl? My gaze caught on a bit of red bra poking out from beneath her shirt and I was almost certain I recognised it. Had she been stealing Tatum's underwear and...wearing it?

Deepthroat eyed me for a long moment then giggled suddenly, slapping my chest and smearing my own blood against my skin from her fingernails. "You didn't seriously think someone was sending her all of those love notes, did you? No wonder you never came to me!"

I looked into her psycho eyes then slid my gaze beyond her to where Bait was driving the car, his nervous gaze darting to us repeatedly in the rear view mirror while he drove.

"Roses are red and violets are blue," Deepthroat breathed, reciting the last letter the stalker had given Tatum. "You need to realise who really owns you, I dressed you in flames and I kissed you goodnight. When will you see what's here in the light? I gave you a chance and you took too much time. Now I'll have to show you that you're really mine."

She licked her lips and looked into my eyes and it all clicked together then. The stalker had never been Toby or Bait, or some dude obsessed with my girl. It had been Deepthroat all along. The attacks on Tatum had been designed to scare her away from me. The photographs that had been taken had been almost entirely of Tatum, but the one guy who had been in them with her repeatedly was me. Blake had featured in the ones when we were both working together to get her off, but aside from that there hadn't been any individual photos of her with any of the other guys. We'd even wondered why the stalker hadn't ever snapped a photo of her heading into Monroe's house or even managed to catch them together, and now the answer was so fucking obvious.

Because this bitch had been stalking me. And she only went after Tatum to get her away from me. When Tatum wasn't with me, Deepthroat hadn't been anywhere near as interested in her. Fuck, why hadn't we figured this out before?

Blake had even warned me that he thought this rapist whore was still obsessed with me and Saint had urged me to let him send her away for good. But I'd wanted to watch her suffer and had unwittingly put my family in danger because of it.

"I'm going to fucking destroy you," I snarled, my fingers flexing more as I could feel some small measure of strength returning