Page 4 of Fixation

ANDERSON

“ H ey! We were here first!” a man calls out behind me, righteousness and entitlement tainting his voice.

“What is wrong with you? Can’t you see she blacked out?” a woman hisses at him. “What was he supposed to do, leave her there on the floor?”

“He was supposed to let the nurses prioritize the cases.” A huff.

No wonder he’s pissed. That motherfucker.

I stalked past every other person in the waiting room, blatantly ignoring them. Plus, there’s a woman in my arms. A woman who just walked in. She just walked in, and here I am, pressing her soft body close to mine.

Carrying her to where I would supposedly treat her.

Everyone here can be pissed all they like.

I have her. At last.

God, she smells good.

She feels even better.

I imagined she’d be perfect. But this, actually holding her, it’s taken me by surprise.

Goddamn otherworldly.

She’s a warm ray of light on a particularly cold day. That first sip of coffee in the morning, or whenever the fuck it is that I wake up.

Holding Harper is like getting through a complicated procedure. One where every move counts, and I get it fucking right.

Most of all, she feels like mine.

That doesn’t calm my nerves at the slightest. I’m furious at myself.

My temples throb as I stalk toward one of the exits in the back. Heat rushes under my skin like acid through a vein.

I curse under my breath as Harper’s matted, red hair caresses my wrist.

She’s so sick that she fainted.

She needed me, and I was here, in an emergency surgery for the past ten hours.

The signs were there. I was the idiot who ignored them. It all started yesterday morning when she sneezed. When she worked in her pajamas instead of changing into comfortable yoga pants and a loose T-shirt.

Drinking tea, sneezing, and the occasional cough—nothing about that was particularly alarming.

I convinced myself I was being overprotective. Irrational.

That going over there wasn’t worth the risk of exposing her to the Russian mafia.

Plenty of people get seasonal allergies.

After I got off work, it kept nagging at me, so I watched over her. Then my pager blew off three hours into my nap.

While I should’ve been watching her, I’d operated on a man with a gunshot wound. Patched up his ruptured spleen. The twenty-year-old I’d never met before took precedence over Harper.

Never.

Again.

I try to reason with myself that this isn’t the end of the world. She’s here. She’s alive.

I’m looking after her now. I’ll make sure she’ll recover in no time.

Meaning no harm done, right?

Wrong.

Plenty of harm done.

This angel.

This wounded kitten.

My obsession.

I missed over ten hours of her life, and look where it’s gotten us.

Regret pulses through me. I make up for neglecting her by hugging her tighter.

I take comfort in the fact that my scrubs are clean. That I changed out of the bloodied ones. That I can hug her without worrying about her catching anything.

I’m grateful for getting this right. Thankful that my sixth sense sent me to the waiting area, to Harper.

I have her.

And yet, the full body ache won’t leave me be. It hurts everywhere—my heart, my muscles, my bones—to know she’s been in immense pain and all by herself.

From now on, I’ll do better.

I won’t simply watch her. Won’t just visit her.

I’ll be there to make sure she takes care of herself.

Since she fails to do that, I’ll be the one to do it for her.

“Cold,” she hums, her burning head lolling against my chest.

A soft cough rattles her body.

Her eyes remain closed.

She isn’t conscious, and that’s okay. She doesn’t need to be for me to take her home and do what I do best, treat her.

I have another hour into my shift. Haven’t been relieved yet. Don’t care.

I’m getting her out of here.

“Twenty minutes, tops,” I whisper to avoid being overheard by the staff. “We’ll be home in twenty.”

Her hands are balled into fists, knuckles grazing my chest. “So cold.”

“Fuck.” I hold her closer.

As if that’ll help.

With her cheeks so flushed, I hardly see her freckles. Her body is searing me through my scrubs.

She needs a bath and a warm bed and soon .

The staff room is on my right. Locker rooms are further down the hall. I’ve got to swing by there to grab my things before we head out.

Once we’re back in our neighborhood, I’ll need to be on high alert. Especially in that short window between the garage and my front door, when I’m carrying her.

Sergey might be watching. That bastard feeds off control.

I can’t afford to slip.

Which is why I pause, considering the whole thing.

There’s still time to spare her from all of this. To spare her from me .

The wise thing to do would be to have her admitted to the trauma unit, where she’d be treated.

She needs fluids. Meds. The dedicated staff members would closely watch over her.

This particular hospital is one of the best ones in the country. They can offer her all of this and more.

Had I not been here, that’s what they’d do.

But I am here .

And that changes everything. It’ll be okay. No one will hurt her.

She has me now. With her in my arms, I’m done waiting.

I’m going to take care of her.

Financially. Emotionally. Physically.

I’ll guard her with my life. Keep her in my basement where I can treat her.

At first, Harper might reject this idea.

I won’t let her brush me off.

Part of me realizes I’m being selfish, but I don’t care. Not when she’s in this state.

Out of everyone, I know what’s best for her. I’ve been watching her long enough to figure out what she needs.

Me. She needs me.

“Hmm. Hmm.” Poor thing. Trembling while she’s passed out.

Her sweat soaks through my scrubs. Her pulse is a little higher than it should be.

A fever. It’s just a fever.

Yeah, and I’m just her neighbor, right?

Not the man who can tell when she’s going to wake up by how she twists and turns in her bed.

I’m basically no one. Just the man who memorized her favorite yogurt brand. How she takes her coffee—two sugars, no milk.

Just a stalker who worships every second she peels off her clothes before the shower as if it’s for him.

That’s me. Just me.

Code blue, code blue . I twist with Harper in time before one of the nurses rushes past me toward the room where he’s needed.

Still standing in place, I dip my chin, staring at the passed-out Harper.

The outside world disappears. There’s only her. The only one who’s ever spoken to the rot in my chest.

Saying I’m drawn to her is an understatement. I’m fixated. Obsessed.

Whatever it is, it’s grown roots. Deep, twisted, and permanent.

And my actions? They say more than any denial ever could.

I’m taking her home.

To heal her.

To…

Fuck, no use denying that, either.

I’m kidnapping her. Temporarily.

Only until she’s better.

Into the locker room we go. I move her to my shoulder, balancing her there.

I only need one hand free to open my locker and retrieve my belongings.

My other arm wraps around her thighs possessively.

She’s mine.

The territorial path my thoughts have taken brings a memory to the surface.

After a twenty-eight-hour shift in the hospital, I did what I always had. I showered. Spent an hour watching the feed from Harper’s studio, where she smoothed the edge of one of her silver pieces.

She rubbed her shoulders every few minutes, doing what I will do for her in the very near future.

Despite how tense she was, she wouldn’t take a break.

I dozed off while staring at her scrunched nose and twisted lips. I fell asleep wishing I could have them wrapped around my cock.

When I woke up, it was dark outside. My phone rested in my open palm. Harper was sound asleep.

Someone out on the street wasn’t.

The sound of heavy footsteps came from the direction of her home. I left the window open, and I could hear another person approaching.

It took me less than a second to be out on the terrace on the second floor.

Her regular delivery guy was walking up to Harper’s door.

He had a bouquet of roses in his hand.

Harper wasn’t dating him. She hadn’t dated anyone. Never giggled or swooned over text messages. She only went out one time with her friend, Darla.

Men? No, there were no men in her life. She wasn’t in a relationship or searching for one.

Of course not. She had me.

Then this fucker came along and thought he could…what?

Leave flowers, maybe a note on her doorstep? Hope she would date him?

My body buzzed with barely repressed fury. My biceps flexed under my T-shirt. My hands gripped the iron railing until my knuckles turned white.

This thief was trying to steal Harper from me.

In two months, everyone would know she was mine.

I’d date her. Take over her life. Treat her like my filthy obsession behind closed doors, my crown jewel everywhere else.

Unless she told me no. In that case, I’d have to take a rougher approach to get the message across. Something physical, a lesson her body wouldn’t forget.

Until then, I had to keep my love for her a secret.

Still. Secret or not, that man had no right.

No. Right.

The asshole lowered the bouquet to her doorstep, effectively sealing his fate.

Killing him would be wrong. I’d make amends by bringing a few other worthy people back to life.

Problem solved.

So. I strode back into my house.

Down the stairs.

Shoved my feet into my boots, shrugged on my hoodie, and pulled the hood over my head and my neck gaiter over my mouth.

Then I got my gloves and was out the door.

The delusional blond man turned into an alley on his bike.

I saw where he was going and took a shortcut, waiting for him at the other end.

“Coming through,” he said with a chirpy cheerfulness that grated against my nerves. He didn’t make it any easier for me to kill him.

Yes, yes, he did. He thought he could date my girl.

I moved aside, pretending I was letting him ride past me.

I didn’t.

My arm was up in his face.

The man-boy flew off his bike and landed on the ground with a satisfying thump .

He rubbed his forehead, staring at me accusingly. “What the hell, man?”