Page 153 of Fixation

My heart threatens to explode. I’m cared for. Taken care of.

Goosebumps rake across my skin.

I obey him. I’m warm all over by watching his approving gaze.

“That’s it.” He nods, then shoves another bite into my mouth.

Once I swallow that one, he releases me. “Ask your questions.”

No one’s ever ordered me around since before high school. My pulse quickens at his authority. “Why did you become a doctor?”

He takes a slow sip of his coffee then says, “It’s the least I can do to atone for the harm I’ve caused.”

I huff. “Are you always this cryptic?”

“Cryptic?” His expression is one of amusement. “I’ve been very forthcoming.”

“More forthcoming than you are with other people, I imagine.” I’m not ridiculing him. I believe him. “Other people, Anderson, who aren’t the woman you kidnapped?—”

He cups my cheek, the touch rough. “The woman I took in. Treated. Healed. Mine.”

“Who you won’t talk to.”

“I do talk to you,” he growls, then pulls me to him for a vicious kiss.

He’s biting harder than ever. Sucking my lip. Mauling my mouth with a brutal heat that leaves me breathless.

“Answer me,” I insist between one ruthless kiss and the other.

One shake of his head is all I get. “Eat, Miss Arlington.”

Do I really have a choice? No.

When I’m done, he calls me hisgood girl.

That praise makes me warm and fuzzy. It makes me forget that he doesn’t feel comfortable enough to share every part of his life with me.

And then he clears the table and does the dishes. His sweet, considerate gesture melts away my worries.

“Oh!” I cry out when he scoops me in his arms.

“Up we go.” In long strides, he carries me to my studio.

Anderson lowers me into the chair by my workbench. He’s at ease, taking care of me like he’s done it his entire life.

I don’t even get to ask him for my sketchpad before he puts it on a low bench at my side.

He disappears without a word. Leaving me speechless. Missing him.

Not for long, though.

Seconds later, he materializes in the doorway again. A dark shadow holding an ice pack in one hand, a stool in the other.

My heart does this little fluttery thing in my chest. My eyes are warm.

“I would’ve put you in bed.” A person who kneels before me shouldn’t look this strong. This almighty. “But I know you. You would’ve climbed out of there and came here on your own. Stubborn.”

“I’m the stubborn one?” I drown in the depths of his eyes that remind me of the pieces scattered around my workbench. In my sketchbook. “You won’t answer a simple question.”