Page 160 of Fixation

She’s the home I’ve never had.

“The debt I owe?” We’re on her couch, me sitting down. Her straddling me.

It’s the most and least sexual position I could’ve put her in. Every part of me demands I fuck her. My hands end up resting on her cheeks.

She was right. I need to talk to her.

“It was passed on to me by my father when he died. He was a mad, violent scientist. He created untraceable poisonous serums for one particular man in the Russian mafia. The one the detective mentioned.” My teeth gnash, remembering how he shouted at Harper.

“He used them on people?” Her eyebrows furl, as if Jerry doesn’t matter. As if I’m the only one who does.

“Since we’re being honest, I won’t sugarcoat this.” Tucking her hair behind her ear will never get old. Nor will her hot pussy on my lap. She flinches when she puts all her weight on me reminds me that I railed her ass earlier. I made her sore. Me. “He murdered people.”

“How did he die?” Her gaze dances between me and the windows. The outside world terrifies her now that she knows what monsters lurk right outside her home. She won’t ever have to face them or fear them. I’ve got her. “They killed him?”

“In a way.” Disgust washes over me. Bile rises in my throat. Dad fucked us over. Even in his death, he failed to undo his damage. “I found his journal when I was moving out of our old house. He’d hoped I would, his notes said. They explained everything, including the formulas for his deadly serums. Those weren’t meant for me. I needed them, anyway.”

Her cheeks pale and her eyes widen. I trace my fingertips over her freckles, my breath catching from that simple touch.

From her.

Fear has never and will never look this good on another person.

“I never used the fatal serums on you,” I answer the question I know she’s curious about. Her mouth gapes, and I beat her to it. “Only the safe one.”

“So you won’t kill me?”

“I won’t. Not me or anyone else.”

She nods. Breathes. In, out. In, out. Slower. Better.

And I keep talking.

“Dad botched his last hit.” I curse under my breath. “Miscalculated the portions for a person as big as his target was. The three-hundred-pound man attacked my dad. Then he came for Sergey, and it was a near miss. Sergey barely got out of it alive. He did, eventually. Shot the man before he managed to tell anyone that he had a personal hitman. Dad heard about it from Stas. That was when he realized his fate was sealed.”

Harper is gorgeous when she’s speechless. I thought she’d pity me. That she’d console me. No, she’s just quiet.

“Back then, Sergey wasn’t as powerful. He wasn’t the boss. He was a violent and volatile piece of shit, regardless. My guess is that Sergey thought my dad lost his touch. That’s why he coerced my dad to choose between death and fighting him. My father, according to his notes, believed that when he died, we’d be spared. He should’ve known Sergey wouldn’t give up on his secret weapon.”

“Your dad tried to save you?” My girl stares at me, jaw slack. “When he was the one who risked your lives in the first place by working for the mafia?”

She’s good. Kind. Grew up sheltered.

Months of stalking her revealed that her parents and brother love her. What they have is a healthy kind of love.

I wouldn’t know what that was if it hit me in the face.

So I accept her confusion. The questions.

I do my best to answer them.

“My dad was wrong.” I bare myself to her, feeling more emotionally vulnerable than I’ve ever been. “Sixteen years ago, when I was eighteen, he took his own life. Sometime after, my mother disappeared. Said she’d gone out. Left me alone.”

As my story unfolds, tears run down Harper’s cheeks. I hate it. I love it. No one’s ever heard my story. No one’s ever gotten close.

No one’s ever cared.

I absorb her affection, then let it go.