Branded

It started with letters—slow, intimate, addictive. Every word he wrote slipped under my skin, carved itself into places I didn’t know were hollow. I shouldn’t have fallen for him. Beau was part of a prison pen-pal program, and the letters weren’t even meant for me. But desire makes its own rules, and I let his voice haunt me, claim me, consume me.

I told myself it didn’t matter. We would never meet. I would never feel his calloused hands on my skin, never hear that low voice whispering the things he’d only dared to write. But fantasies have teeth.

The day I stand in front of him—alive, dangerous, devastating—I’m pretending to be someone I’m not. And Beau? His lie is sharper, crueler. The man in the letters is gone. In his place stands someone darker. Harder. Beautiful enough to ruin me. And by the time I understand who he really is, escape is no longer an option. Some obsessions you walk into willingly. Some obsessions hunt you down