Falling for Sarah by Cate Beauman

open invitation as far as he was concerned. The lovely ladies of the Palisades needed to be more careful with a rapist on the loose. He covered his mouth, suppressing a snort of laughter as he circled back down a block to where he left his car.
    This one didn’t even bother to play hard to get, which had been a disappointment, but it wasn’t a complete waste. After all, part of the fun was getting into the house without waking them first. Most of the pleasure came from watching them open their eyes. The fear alone was enough to make him cum. He was getting hard again just thinking of it.
    And this one had been afraid, all right—fucking terrified. He’d watched her eyes blink open and grow huge when she saw him standing over her. Her gasp had been priceless.
    But then she just laid there—whimpering and crying like the big fucking pussy she was. She didn’t bother to try and fight, which pissed him off. Even when he raised the stakes by tying her up and telling her he was going to kill her, she still only lay there.
    He’d punched her and finished himself off with a little extra mean. She deserved it. She’d been desert dry. How could he practice with a dud like that?
    He worked hard to find her too. He’d gone to the gym for this one, sitting across the street at the bus stop for hours, waiting for just the right one to walk past the big windows of Robertson’s Racquetball and Fitness Club. When the blonde stepped on the elliptical and began to move, he knew she would be the one. She was pretty enough, but she was no Sarah Johnson.
    Zeke got in his car, drove past his latest bitch’s house, blew a kiss as he sneered. He made his way down three blocks to Sarah’s, took the blue rose from a container.
    He’d worked for years, hybridizing his roses, perfecting this very color. The soft blue, a shade hinting with touches of cornflower and periwinkle, matched Sarah’s eyes perfectly. He’d stared at the picture he found of her on Google Images and knew it was fate. She’d stood next to a dumbass movie star at some red carpet deal, but who cared about that?
    He eased up to the curb, just feet from the whore’s house he nailed the night before, got out. The upscale neighborhood was dark and quiet, but he pulled the black hood over his hair, just in case.
    Zeke walked to Sarah’s front yard, looking behind him once, before he made his way to her door. He kissed the delicate flower petals with relish, laid the blossom against wood. “For you, my beautiful Sarah.” He stared at the house for several seconds, fantasizing about how he would enter it when he was ready. Then he strolled back to his car and drove off.

    Ethan pulled into Sarah’s drive, shut off the engine. The light she left on in the entryway cast shadows around the front. He stared at the darkened living room window, wondered why he came.
    Ethan rubbed his fingers over his forehead, blowing out a long breath. Because he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
    During dinner with Nicolette, he’d been consumed by Sarah, by moments they’d shared over the past six years—their hug before she walked down the aisle to Jake; laughing together while they strolled along the beach; Sarah running into his office, throwing herself into his arms, glowing with the news of her pregnancy; him resting a cool cloth on her neck while she sat pale and sick in her bathroom during the rough first trimester; her eyes full of shocked wonder when she took his hand, holding his palm against her belly as the life inside her womb kicked for the first time.
    Their lives were so wrapped up in each other’s. How were they going to get things back to the way they were? What if they couldn’t? His stomach jittered with the thought.
    While he toyed with the two-potato crusted salmon on his plate, Nicolette had gone on about her newest fragrance campaign. He’d lost the thread of their conversation as he remembered pressing his mouth to Sarah’s, the yield of her soft lips