Page 25 of Fixation

“Yes.” The fear in your eyes feeds the animal within me. “You don’t know why you want me, and it’s eating you alive. But what really destroys you is the fact I never asked. I just took. You didn’t want it, Harper. You needed me. And I gave it to you.”

Her eyes flare. Green, passionate, and furiously beautiful. “Cut it out.”

I won’t. But still I say, calm as anything, “We’ll talk about it over breakfast. Not before you ask your first question, though. So, I’m listening.”

For a moment, it looks as if she’s going to withhold it from me. Until she sighs. Her shoulders drop. “You’re in here with me just because I might faint? You wouldn’t be here otherwise? Or…are you manipulating me?”

The showerhead returns to its place on the wall. Hot water cascades down our bodies.

I level her with my coldest stare.

“Yes and no. Hold on to me. Tighter.” She does, and I get shampoo in my hand and run it through my hair.

“Yes, you would’ve and no, this isn’t a game?”

I nod. She huffs.

“Why are you doing this, then? The real reason this time. You owe me that.” Her hands rise to my head, about to help me with the shampoo. Her body craves it. My girl, though, she’s stubborn. Confused. They fall at her sides. “None of this makes sense. You still haven’t told me why me.”

“I saw you. I wanted you. I stalked you.” I lather my body in soap, eating up the sound of her gasp. “Fast forward two months, you needed me. So I took you in.”

“You’re hiding things.” Her forehead creases. “What won’t you tell me?”

The water rinses the soap off my body1. Nothing can clean the dirty thoughts in my head. Which, at the moment, center around fucking the precious attitude out of her mouth before riling her up all over again.

“Now’s not the time. My shift starts in an hour.” I turn off the water, guiding Harper out of the shower.

She fights me every step of the way. Tugs at the towel. Scowls when I eradicate the distance between us.

Good girl.

Pride radiates through me. I pushed her in the right direction, and she’s following my lead.

“Let me. Please. For the last time.” A lie that narrows Harper’s eyes. “I’m going to dry you off.”

Despite her defiance, she holds still. With her feet planted on the white rug. “You aren’t going to let me go.”

“Yes, I am.”

Once I’m done running the towel over her body, I wrap her in it, tying a knot over her breasts, brushing my knuckles over her smooth skin while I do.

Fuck, I’ll miss her.

I’ll have her, soon. I’ll have her every day for the rest of my life.

Using the brush I bought for her, I untangle the knots in her mass of red locks. I’ve never done this before, for anyone.

Harper is silent. A single complaint doesn’t leave her lips.

“You helped me,” she whispers eventually, as I guide her to the bedroom. I’ll never forget this, her feet padding on my hardwood floor. She lets me remove her towel, then sits tall and naked and proud on the edge of my bed. “You—Dr. Maguire, I was in terrible shape.”

A pang of electricity zaps my heart, kicking it into action.

I slide a new pair of boxers over my hard cock. Put on the green scrubs over my strained muscles. “I did what any other doctor would.”

While I get her clothes from my closet—the outfit I picked from her house—I feel Harper’s stare on my back. Hot and questioning.

At my own pace, I turn to look at her over my shoulder and find doubt in those large green eyes.

“Other doctors wouldn’t have…” She’s conflicted between accusing me and thanking me.

It gets me so fucking hard.

“Put your hands forward.” I slide the straps of her black bra over her arms, clasp it behind her back, then dress her in a long-sleeved black T-shirt. I could do this for eternity. “Stand up.”

I’m so fucking glad that her legs are stronger today. Her balance is far better than it was when she tried to escape. When she stumbled while I was busy answering that bastard, Sergey.

It upset him that I’d asked for a meeting. Of course it pissed him off. I hadn’t told him why I needed one, but he’s a brilliant, conniving man.

He can definitely put sixteen and fourteen together.

I’m just as riled up. Not a good time , he texted me. It wouldn’t be a good time for a while now .

Whatever.

Who the fuck cares about him now?

“Foot up.” I’m down on my knees, guiding Harper’s panties up one leg. Then the other.

“I can hurt you like this,” she muses, pretending to hate me, though her pussy is wet. Her arousal tastes sweet when I kiss it off the insides of her thighs. She’s breathless when she says, “Hands around your throat. A kick to the chest. It’ll be so easy to kill you for what you did to me.”

“True.” Her black leggings fit snugly over her lean legs as I pull them up. As she lets me. “But you won’t do it.”

“Why not?” I stay there, at her feet. I’m a prick, offering her a false sense of power. “You aren’t going to let me go. It’s my only chance to break free.”

Before she finishes the infuriating word free , I stand up to my full height. She backs up, nearly falling onto my bed.

“You’re really going to kill me, Harper?” I hook an arm around her waist, shoving my free hand down her panties. At the first contact of my middle finger and her cunt, she moans. Frowns. Pouting, her eyes accuse me. “You think you could live without me?”

“I—” Her forehead falls into my chest. I press the heel of my palm to her clit, shoving two fingers inside her. Stroking that sensitive area that has her breath hitching and her fingers burying into my arms. “It’d be the right thing to do. You’re a bastard.”

“I am.” Her orgasm takes over her faster than I would’ve liked. She pulses and moans and clings to me like I’m her lifeline as she comes undone for me. “Your bastard.”

Your everything.

Harper stares up at me. Blinking. Confused as all fuck.

“Thank you.” Her lips curve down. “No, no, fuck that.” She backs up, sliding to the side, straightening her clothes. Flushing, she watches me lick her arousal off my fingers. Her hands rise. “I’m not thanking you.”

I cock my head, ignoring the painful hard-on in my pants.

Bending her over and claiming her repeatedly isn’t how I get to keep her forever. I have to play it smart.

“I never asked you to.”

She can’t stand to look at me, can’t take the weight of the emotions barreling into her.

It’s a beautiful thing to watch. Her distress. Her eyes that dart around the room but always return to me.

This little kitten is lost.

I’m silent, waiting for the moment that she finally looks out the window. Realization dawns on her face. Her mouth hangs open. “I was right. You are my neighbor.”

“Never said I wasn’t.”

“That’s the point.” Her face pales. She steps backward toward the door. “You never said anything.”

That’s only half-true.

I also failed to tell her that the Russian mafia is my second employer. That I scanned the street before she woke her up this morning. I never mentioned that the only reason she’s allowed to leave me in broad daylight is that they aren’t out there.

“You should stay over for breakfast.” I lick my fingers, tasting her pussy on them. Reminding her that I just made her come for me.

Harper’s lips part. Red splotches bloom on her cheeks.

Power surges through me. I’m terrifying her with this one simple act.

She’ll have more to worry about once she gets home.

Plenty of surprises to freak out over there.

To be grateful for.

“You’re delusional. I’m not staying for breakfast.” Christ, her growl is adorable. She’s beautiful, standing tall in the doorway to my bedroom, chin held high. “This…What I’m feeling for you, it’s messed up. It’s a lie. I won’t stay here.”

“Okay.” That part hurt. My heart twists, by some. “As I promised, you’re free to go.”

“You said discharged.” She stalls, her teeth disturbing her bottom lip. “You won’t admit me…here…again, right?”

Her emerald eyes. Her wavy red hair. The cute button nose and those damn freckles I want to lick, kiss, and bite.

The way she studies me.

Fucking addictive. Fascinating. I could look at her for hours.

I could lock her up here.

My legs move on their own. I’m advancing on her. Backing her out and into the hall.

“Anderson.” Her voice is half-reproach, half-fear. Her hands grip the wood railing behind her. “Please.”

Against my better judgment, I stop. Breathe. “No one’s holding you here. You’ve healed. You’re well-rested. You can go now.”

“Seriously?”

Over the weeks I’ve spied on Harper, I’ve learned a lot about her.

This look is one I haven’t seen before. This curiosity . The wonder on her face.

She’s been searching for these qualities in herself for months. Told me about this numbness in her heart.

She’ll have it back in no time.

She’ll have me .

“Yes, seriously.” Absolutely not.

“And you’ll leave me alone?” Harper rubs her arms, though it isn’t cold outside. She tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear. I wish I were the one doing that.

Touching her.

“Anderson?”

“Go home, Miss Arlington.”

Home, where I have cameras watching you. Home, where you’ll sleep, with only a thin wall separating us.

Home, where I swapped your pills for mints.

I slide a pair of flip-flops her way. I kept them here by the door sine I had a feeling she’d run out of here first chance she got. That she’d want me, but still be confused enough to flee like a bird that just learned to flap its wings.

No way was I going to let her walk outside barefoot.

A moment passes where she lingers there, watching me intently.

Hell, maybe she’s even afraid to turn her back on me.

I’m still hard from having my fingers in her cunt. From just looking at her. From remembering how her hair felt as I threaded my fingers through it.

“Last shot at walking away, kitten.” I’m not lying or manipulating her. I’m teetering on the precipice of sanity. Another second of this, and I’ll be too weak to hold on. I’ll drag her with me to the basement. I’ll never let go. “Take it before it’s too late.”

That part is a lie.

She lost her freedom the day I laid my eyes on her.

But, as tempting as it is, I can’t cage her. Yet.

“Okay. Okay.” She blinks, slips on the flip-flops, and snatches her bag.

Turns around and runs.

Her feet stomp down the stairs.

The front door slams behind her.

I smile to myself.

As if a door could separate us.

As if anything ever could.