Page 214 of Fixation

We’re here now, parked on a gravel trail right outside of a remote forest where the ground is soft in some places, according to one of my dad’s journals.

Stars shine above us in the clear skies of Maine. I have my arm around Harper’s shoulders while we stare at them. Just us. Two people in black jeans and hoodies looking up at the sky.

Your average-looking couple, standing next to the trunk of a white Lexus.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

My heart hitches.

She should be freaking out, yet she seems completely unfazed. To the extent that she has time to worry about me.

Harper was sheltered her whole life before we met. The closest she’d gotten to the mafia had been on the production sets in Hollywood.

She told me herself she’d never seen a real gun. The worst injuries she’d been around were the ones she caused herself when working on her jewelry.

Then there’s me. I’ve been eating, breathing, and shitting blood, guts, and gore for the past sixteen years.

And still, she worries about me.

“Kitten.” My thumb traces the inside of her wrist. I couldn’t keep my hands off her the entire ride here.

There are moments, dangerous ones, when I think I’ll have to start bringing her to work with me.

“Yes?” She shifts, her arm grazing my side.

I turn my gaze to her, and she clenches her thighs. Restless energy surrounds her.

Yes, she cares about my well-being.

Her body is also a live wire. Tuned to tension, craving release.

“I’m not the issue here.” I put a finger beneath her chin, tipping her face up to mine. Her furrowed brow is adorable. Her green eyes shimmer beneath the stars. Fuck, I’m hard. “The real question here is, are you okay?”

“You’ve hardly had any sleep.”

“Shh.” I slide my finger from her chin to her mouth. Silencing her. Watching the way her breath catches. “I would’ve never gotten behind the wheel if I wasn’t anything but okay. Least of all with you in the car. Now tell me, how areyou?”

Harper shows me just how okay she is by tilting her head, parting her lips, and sucking my finger into her mouth.

The fight in my basement hasn’t lessened her sexual appetite. If anything, it’s made her hungrier.

Apparently, she gets off on violence. She takes my finger deep down her throat. Swirls her tongue around it.

Jesus fuck, those sounds she makes while sucking it.

“Bad girl.” Her wavy red hair is soft in my fist.

I’m anything but gentle, tugging on her locks, pulling her to me. I add another finger to her mouth, dragging both in and out of her.

Indulging myself, I fuck her mouth one, two, three times. When I pull out, I smear her spit on her cheeks. Marking her.

“Please,” she whispers.

“You want to get caught?” My tone turns threatening, and her throat bobs. “Want to be arrested for public indecency with two dead bodies and shovels in my trunk?”

“I want you.” The feel of her hand as she fists my cock over my jeans…it’s intoxicating. “I want you to bend me over. Choke me. Spank me. Fuck me. I’ve been craving it since you killed those men for me. For us. You showered me and dressed me, letme suck you on the way over, but you wouldn’t fuck me. I need you so, so, so bad, Dr. Maguire.”

I’m not going to give in. But I can’t deny that her words are making me fucking delirious.