Stalking Emily Saving Emily

Rules & Rebellion

EMILY

Leo stood at the head of the long marble dining table like he owned the world and was about to remind me I was part of it. His black shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up, dark eyes tracking every step I took. The same eyes that had watched me fall apart in the shower an hour ago.

“Sit,” he said.

I stayed standing. The quiet command still wrapped around my throat like a hand.

“New rules, Emily. You don’t leave this house without me or Jax. You don’t answer unknown numbers. You don’t go near any audition, set, or camera until I say it’s safe. Victor Lang’s studio is off-limits until I run a full background on every single person who works there.”

I laughed. It came out sharp and ugly.

“You just told me you stalked me for three weeks, and now you want to play prison warden?”

His jaw flexed. “I want you alive.”

“I want my life back.” I crossed my arms, still wearing nothing but his T-shirt. “Chloe was waiting at the gate with the audition sides. I’m going.”

For a second I thought he might actually tie me to a chair. Instead, he stepped around the table, and walked towards me until I could smell myself on his skin.

“You’re not leaving this house today.”

“Okay.”

I said as my heel turned to the door. I expected him to chase me, but he didn't, so maybe I was convincing enough. Back in the room, I changed into one of the dresses Leo had ordered for me. I grabbed my phone and slipped out the side door Jax had left unlocked for “maintenance.” Twenty minutes later, I was in the back of Chloe’s beat-up Civic, reading sides for a supporting role in an indie thriller titled, Shadowed.

The character was a waitress whose ex won’t let her go.

Irony tasted like blood in my mouth.

The audition was in a warehouse in Queens. Victor Lang himself was there, and he shook my hand a second too long.

“You’re even more compelling in person,” he said. “The internet doesn’t do you justice.”

I nailed the read. Every line felt like it had been written for me. When I screamed “I’m not yours anymore!” at the imaginary stalker, the whole room went quiet.

Victor leaned back in his director’s chair. “You’re hired. Supporting role, three weeks of shooting. We start Monday.”

I walked out of that warehouse floating and terrified at the same time.

Chloe hugged me so hard my ribs creaked. “My girl is about to be famous. You have been wasting your talents. Are you sure you want to go back to that prison?”

“You know he let me go, right?” I chuckled at her wide eyes. “With the amount of hidden cameras in that mansion, there’s no way he didn’t know. I won't be surprised if he’s tailing us.”

Chloe whipped her head around, looking for Leo and I laughed harder.

“Come on, I’m just messing with you.”

“Stop it. You know I scare easily.” She said with a smile. “But seriously Emily, you have been through a lot this past month. I don't think Leo is safe for you.”

“I know. But I’ll be fine, I promise.”

By the time I got back to the mansion the sun was setting. I slipped through the side door again, my mind already planning the fight I knew was coming.

I never made it past the dining room.

Leo cleared the table. Completely. Plates and candles littered the floor. He stood at the head of it like a king who’d been keeping score.

“You went anyway.”

I lifted my chin. “Shouldn’t you be asking if I got the role?”

He moved so fast I didn’t have time to brace before my stomach hit the edge of the table and he bent me over it with his chest pressed to my back and fisted his hand in my hair.

“You disobeyed me.”

His voice was pure gravel.

I should have been scared. Instead, heat flooded between my legs and I smiled.

“f**k your rules,” I gasped.

He shoved the dress to my waist and met no resistance. I had already removed my panties and shoved them in my purse before stepping through the door. He spread my legs with his knee and dragged two fingers through my already soaked folds.

“Look at you. Wet for me after you spent the whole day defying me.” He pushed inside me without warning. “Say you’re sorry,” he growled, yanking my head back by my hair.

“Make me.”

And he did. He thrust in me like a punishment and a reward at the same time. I cried out, my fingers scrabbling against the marble. His continuous strokes made the table legs scrape against the floor and drove the edge of the marble into my hips. Each slap of skin echoed in the huge empty room.

He pulled out, spun me around, and lifted me onto the table. My back hit the cold marble. He hooked my legs over his shoulders and drove back in so deep I let out a groan.

“You belong here,” he snarled, his thumb finding my c**t and rubbing tight circles. “In my house. In my bed. Under me. Do you hear me?”

My walls clamped down around him and I came so hard my vision blurred, screaming his name like I hated him and needed him in the same breath.

Leo followed with a guttural groan, burying himself to the hilt and filling me again. His forehead pressed to mine and our breath mingled.

“You got the role?” he asked quietly.

I nodded, my chest still heaving.

His thumb brushed my swollen bottom lip almost tenderly.

“Then we do this my way.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but then I looked up at Leo and stared into his eyes. For the first time, I realized the truth. I wasn’t fighting him anymore. I was fighting the part of me that is scared I am making the wrong choice, once again.