Particles of Obsession (A Shadow of Death Romantic Suspense Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

they’re always surprised that I know why he was arrested—they think someone would have invented some lie for me to believe, but that wouldn’t have worked because I was with him when he assaulted this woman. The judge refused to give my mother custody because my mother was rambling about how the government was trying to frame my father during the sentencing. This essentially defines my parents: one was morally corrupt and reckless, and the other was crazy and willing to believe anything my father told her. I was never close to any of my relatives—likely because they avoided my parents—so I landed in the fucked-up arms of the foster care system.
    Still, there are times that I can’t tell when something is moral or immoral. I have been basing my stories on my students for the last four or five years, and it was recently pointed out to me that this isn’t the most moral action to take. It hadn’t really crossed my mind that it was wrong—I was just fascinated by all these different personalities and stories I was told and I wanted to spin my stories around them. Usually, I would dismiss someone criticizing my writing like that—it is art, after all—but I was told this by a person I respect a lot. So now I’m stuck. I don’t want to be morally corrupt.
    But, damn, do I want to write about this person now.
    I shuffle that piece of paper to the back of the stack. At first I’d thought he was writing in character or something, but the part about being told he shouldn’t write about his students…that sounds like a conversation we had. That can’t be right, though, can it? Does he respect me? I feel like a narcissist for thinking he’d be writing about me like this. Shaking off the thoughts, I look at the next page.
    “Be a man.”
    “Man up.”
    “Act like a man.”
    I was told this multiple times—in a derogatory way when I was in foster care, but also when I had to act as a witness at my father’s trial and my father’s defense lawyer didn’t want me to cry too much because it annoyed my father. I grew up with these ideas of masculinity: aggressive, strength, never emotional, never soft.
    But as she touches me, I can feel my skin and everything underneath it softening, turning into something malleable for her to change me into something better. I don’t feel less masculine—I feel like every nerve in my body has become tender, but harder than steel.
    If there is such a thing as masculinity, can’t it only be strengthened when it comes into contact with femininity?
    When I reach for her, I feel more than a woman in my hands. I feel a person I could entwine myself in and be engulfed by without any complaints. She has all of the soft flesh and beauty of a woman, but I can feel a raw power in her that could have belonged to either sex.
    So, I dive in and let her tide overcome me.
    I stuff the papers back into his desk and close the drawer. I want to deny that this last piece of paper is about me, but I remember him touching me, I remember that look in his eyes as if he had figured out everything he wanted to figure out. He had seen me as his other half, but I hadn’t wanted to divide myself to complete him.
    But there’s something here, between us, and I don’t think I can ignore it anymore. I don’t think I can shove it aside until a convenient moment. It’s here, and it’s big.
    His door opens. I stand up, walking over toward his couch and trying to make it look like I had just stood up after sitting all day. I stretch as he walks into the room.
    “You doing okay?” he asks.
    I nod, but my mind is still on the papers in his desk. That confession of…love? Something stronger?
    He continues, “I would have thought someone like you would have been bored out of their mind by now.”
    “Well, you know…once you lose your mind, things become a lot more interesting,” I say. “What’s going on?”
    “I talked to the frat boys,” he says. “I didn’t find out anything interesting. It was