Hale: Love Me Harder - Alien Paranormal Romance by Serena Simpson Read Free Book Online

to Hale while Dante drove off after one last long look at her.
    She opened her mouth to speak, but Hale shook his head and led her to the jeep. Silently she climbed into it knowing her life would never be the same.
    They rode in silence long after they left her neighborhood. It wasn’t until he hit the parkway that he spoke.
    “Tori, who is after you?”
    She shivered and tried to keep her teeth from chattering. Thoughts ran through her mind like ants at a picnic. The first time she met John, the flash of his pearly white teeth made a part of her want to smile. She would have too, but her internal alarm was ringing. She gave him a polite smile back with a pleasant hello attached.
    That should have been the end of it except he seemed to fixate on her. He was there every time she turned around even though she did her best to discourage him. The more he was around, the louder her internal alarm went off. Finally she told him in no uncertain terms she wasn’t interested.
    “No one should be after me. I haven’t done anything to anyone.”
    “That may be true Tori, but someone is after you. You don’t have to do anything to be targeted. Who is after you, Tori?”
    “There is this guy… his name is John, but I can’t prove it’s him.”
    “What makes you think it may be him?”
    “I met him one day at a wedding I was doing. He was one of the groomsmen. He seemed to take a liking to me, every time I turned around he was there. He wanted to know if I was single and would I go out with him. He was a nice looking guy, but every time I looked at him my gut got tight. He made me nervous. I felt like he was a shark, and I was the unsuspecting person on the surf board.”
    John was tall with cold blue eyes and beautiful blonde hair. He was lean and clean shaven with charm that should have had most women melting at his feet. He looked like the all American boy.
    She didn’t trust the act he was showing the world.
    “I was beginning to think he was stalking me. He turned up everywhere I was. He kept telling me how beautiful I was. He’d call me an exotic doll that any man would love to date, touch and kiss.” She shivered again and took deep breaths trying to control her stomach.
    “What happened, Tori?”
    “I was working late one Friday, the floor my office was on was deserted when he came. He said he couldn’t wait to see me and invited me to dinner. I politely turned him down. He told me it was a company function there would be lots of big wigs there, I could network with them. New clients did sound appealing, but my internal alarm was shouting danger. I told him I was tired and wanted to go home. That’s when the real John came out.”
    One silent tear escaped and ran down her face. The big breaths she took did nothing to calm her rolling stomach or hammering heart. Fear became the lover she woke up to and went to bed with. Soon she would escape, become the woman she used to be.
    “His way—to—sweet smile became deadly and his eyes darkened with a flash of evil that caught me by surprise. He locked the door to my office and came at me. I tried to go for my cell phone but he grabbed it off the desk, threw it to the floor, and stomped on it. Bye-bye cell phone. Then he told me what he wanted.” Her hand raised to rub the space over her heart.
    “He had a buyer for me. The man was willing to pay a small fortune to have me tied to his bed for the rest of my life. That is until the man decided to end my life. I shouldn’t worry though because John would take me several times before he sold me.”
    A slightly hysterical laugh emerged from her.
    “He attacked me. I screamed and fought, and he laughed. I guess the floor wasn’t as deserted as I thought. The night guard was making rounds, he heard me and opened the door. He had keys to all the offices. John hit him as he came in the door and left. I tried to press charges, but the guard never got a look at his face.”
    Hale pulled into a large driveway stopping