Bound By Obsession

Chapter Eight

Later that night, the house was quiet.

Gracie sat cross-legged on her couch, her laptop abandoned on the coffee table.

A single lamp cast a soft glow across the living room, wrapping the walls in gold. She had a book open in her lap, but her eyes hadn’t moved past the same paragraph in over an hour.

Instead, her mind kept circling back to him.

Jeremiah.

She hadn’t meant to tell him her name. It had slipped out, easy as breathing, and that unsettled her.

She was usually better at drawing lines with men—keeping her walls high, her sarcasm sharper than barbed wire. But with him…

There had been something about the way he said her name, low and deliberate, like he was savoring it. Like he already knew it.

Gracie exhaled and tossed the book aside, muttering to herself, “Great. Tall, dark, and probably dangerous, and my brain’s already writing bad poetry about him. Real healthy, Gracie.”

Her phone buzzed on the cushion beside her. A message from Simone.

Simone: So, did you actually leave the house today, or nah?

Gracie smirked, thumbs moving quickly.

Gracie: Went to the café. Some guy sat at my table. Tall. Broody. Smiled like he had secrets.

Simone: And? Was he hot?

Gracie hesitated, then typed back.

Gracie: Like, “might be in the mafia” hot.

Simone: Girl. That’s your type. Don’t lie.

Gracie snorted. “Not even close.” Still, she didn’t text back. She dropped the phone onto the table and leaned against the arm of the couch, her gaze drifting toward the window.

The porch light buzzed faintly outside, throwing shadows across the yard. For just a second, that prickle ran down her spine again—the one she kept ignoring.

pulling the throw blanket tighter around her. she sighed and muttered to herself

“He was just a guy in a coffee shop. A weirdly intense, ridiculously attractive guy, but still. Just a guy.”

Except Jeremiah was more than just "a guy" and she would find out soon enough.

From the shadows across the street, Jeremiah leaned against the Escalade, a cigarette burning low between his fingers. His eyes never left her window.

He’d watched her turn lights on, move from room to room, curl up on the couch with her book. He watched the faint curve of her smile when she texted. The way she tilted her head as she thought, the restless pacing she did when she was lost in her own head.

Oldo stood nearby, hands stuffed in his pockets.

“jefe, I gotta say, most people spend their Friday nights drinking or gambling. Not you. You’re out here watching a woman sip tea in her pajamas.”

Jeremiah didn’t look away

Jeremiah took a slow drag from his cigarette, smoke curling into the night.

Inside, Gracie yawned and switched off the lamp. Darkness swallowed the little house, leaving only the faint glow of her bedroom window upstairs.

Jeremiah stayed where he was, watching. Waiting.