Page 18 of Fixation

HARPER

N o man has ever touched me the way Anderson is does. Brutally rough and obsessively careful. Harsh in a commanding way, but also so smooth.

He’s lathering soap over my arm, then my fingers. Moves on to my chest, leaning over to reach my other arm.

We aren’t talking.

My body tells him a million stories, regardless.

My taut nipples say, Please, yes, grab my right breast like that. Touch my left one like this.

My soaked pussy begs him, Open my legs—oh God, yes. I love the way you’re rubbing me.

My labored breaths scream at him that, If you ever let go of my thighs and calves and feet, I’ll go insane.

This is the most nurtured and most aroused and most debased I’ve ever been.

“Do you believe me now? Do you see how much I care? How much I need you to get better?” He strokes my arm, lathering soap over it.

When he moves to clean my armpit, it doesn’t tickle.

How is that even possible? “Yes, you do. Your pupils are huge. Those full lips are parted. You get off on humiliation, but you wouldn’t be this hot if you thought I wanted to kill you.

To lock you up in here for life for the fuck of it.

Deep down, you understand who I really am. What you mean to me.”

“You’re touching me. My body reacts.” I frown. I huff. I watch him with rapt attention as he dips the washcloth in the silver bowl. “That’s how it works. I thought you were a doctor.”

“I am.” He rubs the washcloth over me like he lathered soap into my skin. A well-oiled, thoughtful machine.

There’s only so much sensory overload I can absorb without bursting.

It isn’t seduction. It’s a strategy, meant to drive me out of my mind.

Tears burn the corners of my eyes. I don’t want to feel this. Don’t want to be grateful.

I’m compelled to be.

I was alone at home before I came to the hospital.

Lonely and helpless.

And really, really sick.

With him, I’m okay. I’m not lonely or coughing or feverish. He didn’t hesitate at the hospital. He took me in.

He’s done so much for me because he cares. Because I matter to him.

So much.

Then again…

My eyes glide over the front of my body. I’m clean on the outside. On the inside, I’ve never felt dirtier. More filthy.

“Are you a virgin?” His question is a demand.

I snap my gaze at him. “Excuse me?”

His fingers grasp my chin, tilting my head higher. “Have you ever been fucked, Harper?”

“Is it going in my file, Dr.?” I’m mocking him. I’m trying to rid myself of this heat and need and desire that take hold of my body. Of my soul. “Tell me.”

A shake of his head. “No file. No chart. Just me, asking you—has anyone fucked you, Harper?”

He’s close and intense. The air crackles in the room. Then he bends lower, making it impossible for me to lie to him.

He sees me like no one ever has.

“No.”

“No, what?” Anderson’s lips brush mine as he speaks. My heart thuds, slowly, painfully. Shamefully. “Use your words.”

“No one’s ever fucked me,” I say in a hushed voice.

“And this hole?” He slips a thumb between my lips. “Have you had another man’s cock in your mouth?”

My sick, deranged captor is a pro at stealing the breath out of my lungs.

“You’re really going to waste your second question on that?” I rasp.

“Yes.” His swift reply surprises me for all of a second.

Then I see him, just as profoundly as he sees me. For some strange reason, he needs this.

For some strange reason, I want to give it to him. “I haven’t—haven’t?—”

He presses his thumb to my tongue, making a growly sound in the back of his throat. “Speak up.”

“I haven’t had another man’s cock in my mouth.”

Anderson steels himself, as if he were a statue. His features freeze. His fingers hold my chin in place.

No part of him moves.

But his gaze. The emotional turmoil behind them reminds me of winter in New York.

The pelting rain. The hail that follows. Of snow and blizzards and thunder that have me shaking in my bones.

I shudder at his gaze.

“Fucking your hand should’ve been enough,” he talks to himself, pulling back from me. “I can’t give in. I can’t—you’re my patient, goddammit. But…”

His lungs expand. He squeezes his eyes shut. Comes an inch closer.

Anderson bends to me, infiltrating my personal space.

His eyes open when our foreheads press. “Fuck it.”

“Oh—” It’s hardly a breath before his mouth crushes to mine.

No brushing. No testing.

Kissing. Assaulting me, coaxing my lips open.

His hand is rough as it slides down my neck. Into my hair. My body breaks out in shivers at the swipe of his tongue along my lips, as it demands to rub against mine.

This man is claiming me thoroughly. Unapologetically.

For the entirety of this mind-numbing kiss, anyway.

He draws back quickly, leaving me gasping, breathless, and messed up.

“I’m sorry about that.” The apology is as stern as his hands on my arms. As concise as he manhandles me, flipping me onto my stomach. “It won’t happen again, Miss Arlington.”

“Harper.” My cheek is pressed to the pillow. Hair tucked behind my ear. Anderson did that. Anderson is taking care of me. “I’m Harper.”

“Miss Arlington.” Anderson doesn’t need to raise his voice for me to listen to him. For me to be quiet. “I’m trying…” As he sucks his lips in, I notice the first signs of hesitation.

Only until his eyes darken. Once they do, he pins me with a stare so intense that I think I imagined the whole thing.

“You’re my patient. Being on a first-name basis will only lead to unnecessary confusion.”

The old me, the one from who knows how many days ago, would’ve screamed at him. She’d say that there is no confusion here. That I’ve been kidnapped. That he’s the one who’s doing the kidnapping.

This new me is unsure.

Grateful.

“Okay, Dr. Maguire.”

“Better.” The uncertainty has been wiped off his face. He massages cool soap into my shoulder blades. The curve of my back. The length of my legs. “Stay still,” he gives me a heads up before he rubs the soap on my feet, though it isn’t necessary.

His grip is firm, practiced. Nothing ticklish about his strong hands on my feet, either.

What’s wrong with me that I crave his touch?

Everything.

“Ass up.”

A light tap on the small of my back, and I obey him, tucking my knees in, raising my hips.

I’m soaked.

For him.

He sees that.

“Good.” His praise bathes me in warmth I don’t want to feel.

I won’t accept it. I fight against the things it’s doing to my heart and head. I fight my lust harder when he grabs the backs of my thighs and spreads my legs.

“Miss Arlington.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. Bite my tongue to stop panting.

Anticipating the worst, I wait and…

Nothing.

My eyes open, and there he is. Next to my face. An all-powerful man looming over me.

Something about his posture makes him seem like a God.

He’s unlike any other doctor I’ve ever met. He looks capable of killing people just as he’s capable of healing them.

The realization doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t.

The fluttering in my stomach is just as confusing.

And his being dangerous turns me on.

“I’m going to clean you between your legs.”

A decent doctor wouldn’t say that. Between your legs . He’d say vulva. He’d ask for permission.

He wouldn’t get hard doing it.

A decent doctor wouldn’t put up this act. Anderson does. With him, it’s as if he’s doing everything in his power to stay composed while he’s about to defile me.

What a horrible way to manipulate me into believing he’s a good man.

He isn’t. I have to remember that, as challenging as it is.

Or. Am I being ungrateful?

“It might be awkward at first.”

That sentence. It startles me. It gets me out of my head, makes me stop doubting myself.

Because fuck . The nerve of him.

“This might be awkward?” I snap. “As opposed to what? Being kidnapped and touched in my sleep?”

“You might react to it.” I don’t fight. What’s the use? He’ll just ignore me, in that sexy, confident doctor way of his. “But I want to reassure you that anything that happens is perfectly natural.”

He wraps a hand around my hip, and I gulp, reality sinking in. This won’t end with a quick brush of my privates. He’s fighting his urges, and he’s losing.

I’m just as lost to it.

“Say you understand.” His palm faces up. There’s soap there, and this isn’t the first time he’s washed me. Before, I was knocked out, sedated. He’s going to show me what he did now. “I won’t touch you unless you tell me you do.”

Frustration heats my cheeks. How dare he act as if I have a choice? How dare I like this game? “I understand, Dr. Maguire.”

“Good.” Every time he says that, I hear what he’s holding back on. He wants to call me good girl, and he’s doing everything in his power not to.

While I do my best to silence my moans.

Two long fingers press over my pussy, and holy fuck .

Holy. Fuck.

His touch is highly impersonal. More so than ever before. Blunt. Methodical. Efficient.

My thighs shake, hands clinging to the sheets.

“Almost done.” He drags his fingers up and down between my lips, then pushes them in, just up to the first knuckle.

His voice thickens with lust. “You’re doing so well.

I know it must feel strange…having your doctor clean you like this.

But look at you, staying perfectly still. You should be proud of yourself.”

What I should do is stop wanting this. Put an end to this fucked-up orgasm that winds up inside me.

Instead, I lie there, ass up, letting him rub me.

“Better.” Humiliation and desire bang inside my chest while Anderson’s attention remains fixed on my ass. While his fingers rise to my tightest hole. “Relax for me. It will hurt less that way.”

“Please.” I can’t be ready for this, for his finger in my ass.

I can’t like it.

He’ll make me like it. He’ll coax me, force me, touch me until my soul shatters and my heart gives in to him.

Until I think this is perfectly normal doctor behavior.

His eyes cut to mine. His lean, large body towers over me. “Please, what?”

Before I answer him, I get struck by a brilliant idea.

I still have one question left.