Roped

by Saffron A. Kent

Genres: Contemporary Romance; New Adult Romance; Romantic Suspense; Western Romance

Synopsis

God of Malice meets Yellowstone in this stalker romance full of searing spice and featuring a college student being hunted by a cowboy utterly obsessed with her.

I’m Peyton Turner. I’m nineteen years old, and I have . . . a stalker.

No, I don’t have proof—but I know he’s watching me. I feel his stare burning through my bedroom window at night, smell his intoxicating scent when he’s close. Every time I try to catch him, he vanishes into the shadows like he was never there at all.

All I know for certain is that under his black Stetson, he wears a skull mask. It almost hides the wicked scar carved down his face, but it can’t hide his piercing green eyes. Eyes that haunt me.

I should be terrified of his attention. Instead, I find myself drawn to it. I only understand the danger too late, when my best friend goes missing. I’ve decided I won’t run, though. I won’t hide. I’ll set a trap to lure him out of the dark and force him to lead me to her.

But the man I’m hunting is a far more skilled predator than I imagined. And once his rope tightens around me, I’m no longer the one in control. I’m the prey.

Release date: August 25, 2026

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

Three weeks ago

HE’S WATCHING ME like he wants to eat me instead of his dinner.

Which happens to be a medium-rare steak paired with a merlot. While the dinner looks delicious enough, my focus is on that wine of his. I’m paying very careful attention to when he takes a sip, how big of a sip he’s taking, and how long before that glass is almost empty. Because the more he consumes, the faster things will move. If I’m lucky, I may be able to get out of here before we order dessert. As it is, every single minute I have to sit here and watch him watch me with that beady look in his eyes is a test of my patience.

Damn it.

I should’ve doubled his dose. I don’t know why I hesitated. My date is a big guy. His shoulders are broad and he’s at least a foot taller than me. Not to mention, Wyatt is a cowboy. And fucking cowboys are like the fucking animals they work with all day long. Thickheaded with a hard-to-crack constitution. They don’t get knocked out easily. Subtly, I lean forward in my seat and strain my ears, trying to listen for any signs that my plan might be working. If so, I should be able to hear a low rumble coming from his gut. Unfortunately, all I can hear is the tinkling of expensive cutlery, laughter, and a low buzz of music in this dimly lit, smoke-filled steak house.

Oh, and his voice, asking me, “So your father tells me you’re a freshman in college.”

Abandoning all my investigative efforts, I paste a smile on my face. “Yes. Well, I just finished my freshman year. I’ll be a sophomore come fall.”

I watch him take another sip of his wine before he smiles. “Any exciting plans for the summer?”

“You know, the usual,” I say with a breezy tone.

He leans forward a little, his disgusting eyes shining. “And what’s usual for a college girl like you?”

Somehow I manage to gulp down the bile rising in my throat and reply, “Oh, just relaxing, mostly. Going to the mall with friends and stuff. Hanging out by the pool. God, I can’t wait to put on a bikini and get my tan on.”

I can’t remember the last time I just relaxed or hung out by the pool for my tan, especially during the summer. But he doesn’t need to know that. He’s here for the rich party girl that he thinks I am, and I’m giving it to him like it’s my job. Which it very well might be.

“And I can’t wait to see you in one,” he says, looking me up and down like he’s imagining me in a bikini right now.

Oh my God, please kill me now. It’s bad enough that my pervy date thinks I’m juicier than his steak, and now I’ve gone and made it worse by giving him something to jerk off to later.

Before I can respond to his pervy comment, he murmurs, “You know, you keep watching my drink like you want it for yourself.” He slides it toward me, the red liquid sloshing inside the glass. “Why don’t you take a sip?”

What? That would be a fuck no.

Somehow I’m able to keep the disgust off my face as I decline. “Oh, but I can’t. I’m only nineteen.”

He doesn’t need to know that I took my first sip of alcohol when I was ten. It was my father’s Kentucky bourbon that I stole from his liquor cabinet. As a fuck-you to him for making me go to a party with his business associates. As disgusting as it tasted, I drank a ton of it and then threw up in front of his bedroom door. As a fuck-you, part two. Of course, I hadn’t known what the repercussions would be for going against my father. Not then. Once I found out, I never stood up for myself again and always did what I was told.

I also didn’t know that all those parties and functions were his way of grooming me for the future. For dates like this, which, of course, was set up by my father because Wyatt happens to be the son of my father’s business associate. And when he saw my picture during their business meeting at the ranch and showed his interest, my father offered me up on a platter like he always does. He’s a great businessman, my father, always looking out for his partners’ interests. It’s no surprise he owns the second-biggest ranch in Montana, the Wildfire ranch.

“It’s okay. Just one sip,” he cajoles.

“I really can’t. I—”

“Go on,” he insists and then winks, tipping his cowboy hat at me. “I won’t tell your daddy. It’ll be our secret.”

I open my mouth to deny once again, even though what I really want to do is throw the wine in his face. Thankfully, I’m saved from doing anything at all because our server chooses that very moment to check on us, and I’m so thankful to him that I make a mental note to leave him a very generous tip.

When he leaves, I decide to take matters into my own hands. As in, more than I already have, given that I slipped him a very strong laxative as soon as I got an opportunity. Until the drug works its magic, I try to keep all the attention on him. It isn’t hard to do because Wyatt loves to talk about himself, his family’s land, the ranching business he’s going to inherit one day soon, all the money he has, courtesy of his dad, and what he does with it. We also touch upon the deal his father’s got in the works with mine. As always, my father is vying for more land and this time, it belongs to the Palmers. Since I’m here to nudge him in the right direction so he nudges his dad later, I show interest in him and his pursuits. I flirt the hell out of him, touch him, giggle at his lame jokes, widen my eyes when he tells me about a particularly difficult horse he broke that no one else could.

I do everything I can to convince him that if he does business with us Turners, he’ll get me as a bonus. Which isn’t going to happen. But I’m my father’s daughter. I know how to lie and cheat and fool people into thinking things I want them to.

Just as Wyatt asks for the dessert menu, my handy drug finally decides to show up. And as if making up for lost time, it doesn’t fuck around. My date goes from frowning slightly at whatever’s happening in his body to going red-faced and sweaty in only a few minutes. I even hear the loud rumbling of his stomach over the din of the restaurant, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop a smile from breaking out.

Schooling my features to show concern, I ask, “Are you okay? You look a little—”

My words are cut off when in response, he springs up from his seat and he does it so violently, his chair almost tips over and his Stetson gets knocked off his head. As he turns around and rushes to find a bathroom—I’m assuming—I finally let my smile out. Fucking asshole. As soon as he’s out of sight, I stand up. I toss some money on the table for the lovely server and write Wyatt an apology note that clearly implies I was turned off by whatever happened to him, establishing my alibi. And then I get out of there.

As I’m walking down the street, I get out my phone and shoot a text to my father, telling him how the date went and that it was cut short but it was clearly not my fault. His reply is instant.

Dad: What do you mean cut short?

Me: He had stomach issues.

Dad: Stomach issues?

Me: Yes. Maybe it was something he ate. He ran to the bathroom like his ass was on fire.

His reply comes back a couple of minutes later as I’m getting into a cab to go back to my apartment. And when I read it, my heart starts banging in my chest.

Dad: This is the third time something like this has happened.

He’s right. My last date had something similar happen to him because I spiked his drink too. And the one before that had to rush out of the restaurant because his car was getting towed; I’d paid someone to do that. I knew pulling something similar could have consequences, but I couldn’t possibly sit through another pervy date so I took a chance. Clearly, it was a bad move. My hands are shaking as I try to type out a text. But before I can, another one of his shows up right below it.

Dad: You wouldn’t be trying to lie to me, would you? Because that would be very foolish on your part.

If anything, his text makes it even harder for me to think straight, let alone type a response. Still, I somehow manage to send one off.

Me: I know. But I’m not lying to you. I wouldn’t do that.

Dad: Good. I’d hate to see things sour between us after all this time.

By that he means ever since I was ten. When I realized what kind of a monster my father is and what the repercussions of crossing him could be. Not just for me but for people I love.

Thirty minutes later, I’m opening the door to my apartment that I share with my best friend, Reverie. The churning in my belly due to my father’s threats gets thrust aside as soon as I see her sitting on our plush gray couch. Something is wrong. I can sense it. She has her textbooks open on the glass coffee table in front of her, but her eyes seem unfocused. As if whatever she’s thinking about is taking up all her attention. And that never happens. Nothing is more important to my best friend than her books. Nothing holds precedence over homework and classwork and assignments. She’s smart. She’s studious. She’s the most hardworking and dedicated person I know.

Carefully closing the front door behind me, I greet, “Hey.”

She flinches, as if waking up from sleep, and darts a glance over at me. “Hey.”

I walk in farther and toss my clutch on the armchair on the way over to her on the couch. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she answers, her tone breezy but fake. “How was your date? You’re back early.”

Ignoring her change of subject, I take a seat beside her and say, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“There’s nothing—”

“There’s something wrong.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m totally fine. Everything’s—”

I hold up my hand to stop her. “Look, we can either go back and forth like this, where you tell me nothing’s wrong and I don’t believe you because you’re clearly lying. Or we can skip over all this and you just tell me. Because we both know I’m not going to give up, and you have an early class tomorrow that I don’t think you want to miss.”

She watches me for a few seconds before stating in her most authoritative voice, “You know, you should try that sometime too. Going to the morning classes.”

“If I did, then I wouldn’t have my eight-hour beauty sleep,” I quip. “And you know how much I hate dark circles.”

“You should also try going to sleep at a decent hour.”

“I will. When I’m forty or something.”

“You—”

“I know you’re trying to turn this around on me right now,” I speak over her. “But I hate to tell you, Riri, I invented that shit, okay? I’m the queen of distractions. You can’t fool me. So why don’t you just tell me why you look all freaked out like you got a B on your test?”

Still, she tries to dodge my question. “I’d never get a B on a test.” Then, “Well, except for stupid sociology. But I still think the professor has it out for me, and—”

“Riri. Talk. Right now.”

She throws me a look before sighing in defeat. “It’s Friday.”

It takes me a second, but then I go on alert. I was so busy focusing on my date tonight and how to get out of it in a way that wouldn’t cause any blowback—which didn’t really work out—that it completely slipped my mind. Fridays are important for my best friend, which means I make sure to be there for her every week. Well, except tonight. I fucking hate my father.

“You got a letter,” I murmur.

She jerks out a nod because the reason why Fridays are so very crucial for Reverie is because, like clockwork, she gets a letter that we both know she eagerly waits for. “I did.”

“And? What does it say?”

She swallows and I slide down to the edge of my seat, my heart banging in my chest. Not a lot of things can do that to me. I’m not easily scared or distressed. Well, except when it comes to my father, but I have a very good reason to be. Other than that, though, I’m strong. I’m brave and resourceful. Mostly because I have to be, but still.

When Reverie doesn’t immediately reply, I go even more tense. I fist my hands in my lap as I ask, “Was he mean to you? Did he say something mean to you today? Because if he did, Riri, I swear to God—”

“He’s getting out,” she says, cutting me off.

“Out.”

She swallows again. “In two weeks.”

I frown. “But I thought he said—”

“He wasn’t expecting it,” she says, wringing her hands in her lap. “It came as a surprise. His parole. And he…”

“He what?” I prod when she leaves her sentence hanging.

“He wants to meet me.”

Fuck.

I’ve already established that nothing fazes me. As much as my father scares me, I’m kind of also used to being his bait for business and financial gain. I know a day will come when he’ll up the game of these occasional dates and force me to marry a man of his choosing, all so he can get more land. And I’ll be prepared for that, too, for tying my life to someone I’ll hate with every breath I take, just like I hate my father. I’ve had years of practice to come to terms with my fate. But I wasn’t prepared for this. I wasn’t prepared for my best friend to be in a situation like this: meeting a convicted criminal for the first time after only talking to him via letters for the last six months.

“Of course, I’m not going to,” she hastily adds, snapping her notebook closed and thrusting it away.

“You—”

“I mean,” she cuts me off in agitation. “I’m not going to a café to meet some criminal that I’ve only talked to in letters. I wouldn’t even meet a… I don’t know, a priest that way. Because it’s insane. It’s crazy. It’s the height of recklessness. And I’m not reckless. I’m so far from reckless, it’s not funny.”

She’s right; my best friend is not reckless. She’s the opposite of that: careful, responsible, a rule-follower. Writing to a convicted felon in prison is probably the only thing she’s done that can be called risky.

“How dare he, by the way?” she continues as she gathers her books, straightening the mess. “How dare he ask me that? We had agreed. No, we’d more than agreed; we’d promised. He told me that this would be nothing more than a fantasy. That I was safe with him. Safe to imagine things; tell him things I’ve never told anyone in my life, and I…” She hiccups, gripping the edge of her textbook. “I believed him. I thought he was telling the truth, and now, he’s… I’m not… I don’t…”

I hug her then. I wrap my arms around her tightly and try to calm her down. Which makes me feel utterly useless because what good is a hug when I can’t do more. When I’ve actually done worse. Because I’m the one responsible for this, aren’t I? It’s my fault that Reverie is in this situation. My fault that she started writing letters to a prison inmate in the first place. Because she did that for me. Because I was failing sociology and asked her to help me with my extra-credit grade—which was to interview a prison inmate—and like the most generous friend she is, she agreed. So if it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t even be in this position.

“How was your date?” she asks, still hugging me.

“I think we should talk more about you,” I say.

“I don’t want to talk about myself. I’m boring.”

“Boring is good,” I retort softly and more truthfully than she’ll ever know.

“Boring is boring,” she retorts back. “I like your stories better. They’re more fun than mine.”

My heart clenches in my chest and I smile sadly. Then I give her what she asked for, a story. “Well, as soon as he opened his mouth, I realized what a huge mistake I made.”

She chuckles. “That bad, huh?”

“Worse.”

She squeezes her arms around mine. “Why do you go out with these guys?”

My heart twists again and I swallow before I lie, “Because they’re hot. And I still haven’t learned the lesson that hot does not equal interesting. I should just make a pact that I won’t go out with any guy that I meet at the gym.”

She chuckles again. “How’d you get out this time?”

“He went to the restroom and I cut.”

Finally, she laughs and breaks our hug. “You did not.”

I carefully school my expression to appear amused. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I was falling asleep on my dinner.”

She watches me a beat, concern etched on her features. “You need to be careful, Pey. Not all men are… good.”

She’s right. She doesn’t even know how right she is.

Actually, scratch that. She does know. She grew up with a man like that, her father. Or rather, her drunk, abusive father. And a mother who was just as terrible. Together, they were a toxic combination, and growing up, all Reverie saw at her house was violence and abuse. It’s no wonder that she grew up to be cautious and careful, the opposite of her parents, wary of men and this world in general.

Much like me.

Although my story is different. One that I’m not going to share with her. It does make me feel shitty, though, lying to my best friend. The only person in this whole world who gives a crap about me, who’s been with me through everything.

She and I, we grew up together. Her parents worked for my family. Her mom was my nanny and her dad was one of the ranch hands. They had a cabin on our ranch, but Reverie spent all her time with me at my house and we were inseparable. In fact, despite having no familial connection, we even look the same. With the same shade of blue eyes and golden-blond hair, we look almost identical to each other. So much so that growing up, we’d take each other’s place and fool people. She’d go to my cello lessons for me because I hated cello, and I’d kick boys’ asses at our private school who were mean to her just because her parents worked for my parents and she didn’t come from a rich and pretentious background. Sometimes I wish we really were sisters. Not only because that would explain this uncanny resemblance between us but also because she’s my family in every other sense, so why not in the traditional sense too.

In any case, she’s the sister I never had, and that’s the very reason I can’t share my ugly secrets with her. I can’t burden her with my truth. That’s why I lie and tell her stories. I pretend to be happy and carefree. I pretend that I’m a normal nineteen-year-old, going to college, flirting with boys, going on dates and living my life. I pretend that my father isn’t a monster, and that my mother is like any other rich, flighty mom, too self-absorbed in herself to bother with me and instead traveling the world. Oh, and my brother—I’ve got an older brother—isn’t just like my father.

Back in the moment, I throw my best friend a fake smile and say, “I know, but I can take care of myself.”

She takes a few seconds to reply. “I just worry about you.”

“I don’t want you to. And you don’t have to. I’ll be fine.”

At least that isn’t a lie. I don’t want her to worry about me. I am worried about her, though. Which brings me back to the situation at hand. Her prison pen pal wanting to meet her in real life. So for the next hour, I keep our focus on her situation. We even make a pros and cons list—her favorite and, secretly, my favorite too—about her going to see him. She tells me this is how girls get kidnapped or worse, and I agree with her. This is a bad idea, through and through. But somewhere along the way, it becomes clear, to me at least, that she’s going to go see him anyway. And God, that terrifies me. The last thing I remember before going to sleep in the living room beside my best friend is that Bo Porter better not kidnap my best friend.

Or I’ll hunt him and all his friends down and make them pay.

Something wakes me up after a while.

Something familiar. Something that gets my heart racing. Banging in my chest. It steals all my sleep and leaves me alert. Wide awake, restless. Alive. I don’t know how much time has passed, but I see Reverie stretched out on the couch while I’ve been curled up in the armchair adjacent to it.

The armchair directly in front of the big window.

It’s the middle of the night and the street beyond is pitch-black. Not even a streetlamp. We used to have one but now it’s broken, has been for months now. The drapes are open and the living room is brightly lit. Carefully, I climb to my feet as if I’m on a stage, on display. With trembling hands, I pick up a throw off the back of the armchair and drape it over Reverie, who doesn’t even twitch. My legs shake as I move around the room, switching off lights, checking the air-conditioning setting. The back of my neck prickles as I check the front door and make sure it’s locked even though I know I don’t need to. I know I locked it when I came home earlier. I only do these things to pace myself. To check the rush of blood in my veins, the heat swirling in my belly. The first signs of life I’ve felt all day. I also do it to tease.

For the anticipation before my big performance.

Once I’m done making the rounds of our tiny apartment, all in the full view of the window, with a sway in my hips and that constant prickling that has spread from the back of my neck to the rest of my body, I head to the hallway, leading to our bedrooms. By the time I let myself into my room, my entire body is shaking. My belly is trembling and the place between my thighs is swollen. And wet.

So wet that as I pad across the room to my glass window, in the full view of the street below, I can feel my thighs slipping against each other. I should be embarrassed about it, about how turned on I am. If not embarrassed, then I should be scared of it, and if not that either, then at the very least, I should try to fight it. Try to fight the intensity, the heat. This pull. Like a rope being tugged around my center.

By him. The man who’s watching me through the window. For whom I’m putting on this show.

So there’s a man, see. A man who watches me. Who watches my every move, follows me to places. Stalks me from afar. At night, he stands across the street and watches me. He watches me moving around in my bedroom, doing homework in my living room. He watches me getting ready for bed, sliding under the covers. I think sometimes he also watches me while I’m sleeping, but of course I can’t be sure. I wonder if he watched me on my date tonight too. We weren’t seated by the window, but that shouldn’t have stopped him. It hasn’t stopped him before because I know he has watched me on my dates.

He’s resourceful, my stalker.

Also hungry.

I can feel it. Or maybe it’s me who’s hungry because I can’t wait any longer. So standing at the window and looking outside as if locking my eyes with his, I reach up and undo my hair. I remove the pins and let the mass of my blond curls loose down my back. Then I reach back and unzip my dress. One by one, I slide the tiny straps down my arms before pushing the red dress I wore down my body. I will admit that while I went on a date with another man, I wore this dress for him. Short and tight, my dress showed off every little curve in my body. From my perky breasts to my rounded ass. He likes to watch, doesn’t he, so I made it easy for him. I made it easy for him to see the shape of my body. I also wore my underwear for him, black and lacy. I hope he appreciates how sheer the fabric is and how if he wanted to, he could see my pink and hard nipples through it.

Once I’ve shed my clothes, I turn around and sashay my way over to the bed. Again, in the clear view of the window. I climb on and lie down, my head on my soft pillow and my nearly naked body sliding onto the covers. I start by running my fingers lightly over my collarbone, brushing my throat lightly. Before I move down and caress the valley between my breasts. I moan at the sensation, my nipples puckering up even more, my tits feeling all heavy and swollen. I always wanted bigger tits, but the way he makes me feel, how much he turns me on, causing them to swell up and ride high with lust, I don’t care about the size of my breasts anymore. All I care about is playing with them, flicking my nipples and plumping my achy tits.

All the while squeezing my thighs and writhing my hips.

When I’ve tortured myself enough, I leave one hand playing at my tits and creep the other down, grazing my trembling and sweaty belly, and slip it inside my panties. Gosh, I can smell myself, my pussy, the lust leaking out of it. I touch the spot, my swollen, aching clit, that came alive as soon as I woke up in the living room and felt him watching me, and I moan. I do it so loudly that for a second I think my sleeping friend will hear me out in the living room. The entire street will hear me.

He will hear me.

And if he does, will he come closer? Will he abandon his shadows and come to me? Stand on the other side of my window and press his hand to the glass so he can see better. Maybe even open the window and climb inside. Oh my God, if he climbed inside and stood beside the bed, I’d come all over my moving hand. And if he bent over me, reached his hand out and touched me, I know I’d moan so loud the whole city would hear me.

I know that.

But I also know that will never happen. That’s the appeal of all of this. He’ll never get closer or climb through that window. He’ll never touch me because that isn’t what this is about. He only wants to watch, and I only want to feel alive for a few moments. I only want to feel like something in my life is safe, is still mine and doesn’t belong to my father.

So I let myself imagine. I let myself create a fantasy in which he does touch me. He replaces my fingers with his, calloused and big. Thick and long. So thick and long that if he slides his digit in, he’ll stretch me out. He’ll stretch my hole out and it’ll hurt so good. He may even bust through that barrier, my virginity, with just his finger and make me bleed and come, all in one breath. And when I’m all soft and sleepy after my orgasm, he’ll bend over my body and tell me how much he hated seeing me with another man. He’ll tell me he was this close to beating the shit out of him and taking me away.

Because I’m his and he’s mine. This is when I come, when he calls me his in my dreams. My Phantom.

One day ago

GIVEN THE FAMILY I come from with its bloody and violent history, it’s a surprise that this week marks my first encounter with cops. Or that this is only the third time I’ve seen the inside of a police station. It looks exactly like they show you on TV—with a desk in the front that serves both as a reception and for booking arrests; rows of desks beyond it; a hallway beyond that where they have private offices, their interrogation rooms, and presumably holding cells—except much scarier and colder because it’s real.

So real that the cop at the front desk, an officer named Grant not much older than me I suppose, knows everything about me. He knows my name is Peyton Turner and that I go to Montana State University. He knows who my father and my brother are and all the things they can do to him and his fellow officers if I just say the word, so they better do what I want them to do. He also knows I live with a roommate and as of five days ago, she went missing.

Missing.

My best friend, the only person I have in this whole wide world, has gone missing and no one will do a thing about it.

First, it was the fact that it hadn’t been seventy-two hours since I last saw her. So they wouldn’t consider it a missing person’s case. Because God forbid they do their fucking jobs. And then, it was about her writing letters to a prison inmate for the last six months. It doesn’t matter to them that, on his insistence, she went to see him after he was released on parole. Or that a day after seeing him, she never came home. I mean, it’s all there, isn’t it? It’s obvious what happened here. An innocent college girl goes to meet a parolee, a goddamn convicted criminal, and never comes home. It means that said criminal is responsible for her disappearance. It means that he’d been lying to her all along, scamming her, and now he’s taken her away. It means that my best friend has been kidnapped, and no one will believe me.

Because according to the cops, she might have decided to leave with him of her own volition. It’s not unheard of, they say. Girls do this all the time. They often disappear with men they’re in love with. They go away, leave everything behind for one reason or another. It’s crazy, they admit. Why leave without telling anyone; why make your loved ones worry? But apparently, not everyone thinks of these things, and from the looks of it, Reverie is one of those people. Never mind that she’s the most responsible girl to ever exist; she never misses a single class without first emailing the professor to give them a heads-up about it; she texts me even if she pops over to the deli down the street. She’s the most careful, the most cautious, the most responsible person in this entire city, and everyone here is trying to convince me otherwise. They want me to accept the fact that she may never be found because she doesn’t want to be found. Because she’s not missing; she ran away.

Which is why I’m here—third time in five days—waiting for the detective in charge of Reverie’s case to show up. Officer Grant at the front desk tried to send me away, said Detective Pearson is out on another case and that if they get any updates, they’ll give me a call. But I’m not leaving this hellhole until I talk to him and demand he take me seriously