Page 40 of Fixation

ANDERSON

H arper’s fear tastes like something I crave. Intoxicating. Mesmerizing.

I’m drunk on it. Fucking heady.

But she’s going to try to run. She’s going to try to push me away.

She never planned on falling for a hitman.

I.

Don’t.

Care.

Out of everyone I’ve ever known, Harper doesn’t deserve this lifestyle. The risks involved.

Still don’t care.

“You lied to me.”

“No, I didn’t.” I plant both hands on her hips. Grounding her. Calming her while she shudders.

“Lying by omission…” She sucks in a breath, bracing her hands against the door. “That’s lying, Anderson. You should’ve told me before…”

A sob racks her. It takes twice as much effort to help her stop shivering like that.

I pin her to the door, turning her face to the side. I’m addicted to the sight of her trembling in fear. Soaking it up, I graze my teeth along the curve of her neck to coax a hitched breath from her chest.

“Before what?” Needing to claim back what’s mine, I shove my fingers between her and the door, then beneath the hem of her shirt.

I was having my coffee when I saw the two detectives walk in here. Into this sacred space.

One of them raised his voice at her. He shouted at my precious patient. At what’s mine.

Problem is, killing a policeman would land me in prison. Would get me locked up in a cell, away from her.

He and his partner are alive, thanks to Harper.

“Before I fell for you.”

Harper’s neck reddens, even though she’s already told me she fell for me once. Her shoulders slump.

Falling for a terrible man is the worst possible scenario.

For her.

For me, on the other hand…

“Harper. Kitten.” My heart is in my throat. The nerve endings on my skin are raw. Open.

“This isn’t the life I wanted.” She slams a fist on the door.

“They could kill me. They could kill you , you asshole. I wish you’d just leave.

I wish none of them would lay a finger on you.

That you’d always be here. Safe. I’ll never have that, right?

I’ll always have to worry that they’ll murder you. ”

I’m broken and torn. For a moment. Then I’m back in my body.

Back to my unhinged self.

I whirl her toward me, gripping both her hip and the nape of her neck.

Our foreheads press together. God, breathing her air turns me territorial, obsessive, dominant.

“I hate this.” Tears stain her beautiful cheeks.

I catch one of them with my lips, then put some distance between us so I can meet her tortured emerald gaze. “I love you.”

“Shut up.” Her eyes squeeze tight, her face crumpled.

“Don’t you dare say that to me. Don’t you dare love me.

Loving me. Ha.” She opens her eyes, glowering at me beneath thick, wet lashes.

I cup her cheeks, and she grabs both my wrists, desperate to bound me to her.

To keep me safe, even. “When you die in a year or a few months, what am I supposed to do with this love, then?”

“I won’t die so fast.” Harper hears me best when I lower my voice. She gets off on it. “In fact, you’ll hear me say that I love you for the rest of our lives.”

Her hands move to my neck, holding tight. Just another proof of how much she’s into me.

“You can’t know that.” The sting of having her nails digging into my neck is nothing. Nothing compared to the emotions barreling out of both of us. “Don’t leave me.”

“Not fucking happening.” I’m throbbing. The need to fuck the pain out of her suffocates me. “We were meant to be together. No one and nothing would ever get between us.”

“What do you do for them?” Desperation makes her nails dig deeper. “Is it safe?”

I move them to my shoulders, where she can break every inch of my skin.

Fucking appearances.

My cock has never hurt like this. Never needed inside of Harper this badly.

“Why was the head of the mafia hanging around here? Is he still out there?” she whispers, her tone begging me to ground her. I do just that by firming my hold on her. “Outside my home? In my neighborhood?”

“ Our neighborhood.” My grin has a whimper tearing out of her.

Quickly, her mouth snaps closed, her face settling into an almost impassive expression. She wants to be brave.

She is brave.

She’ll need to be even braver when she hears about my secret life.

“He’s watching me,” I admit.

“What. Do. You. Do. For. Them?” It’s cute that her voice is filled with anger while her body leans into mine. The way her full lips move. How they glisten. “Be honest. No omissions. No lies. No more of that.”

Her tears on her lips, I have to have them. To kiss them off her. She groans and bites me, and I’m dying to have more of her.

“You said you loved me,” she breathes.

I pull away, only an inch. “I did say that. I do love you, Harper.”

“Love means honesty.” Her chest expands, her breasts brushing against me. Electricity pulses through me at that. “Love means not hiding such fundamentally huge shit that has an impact on the other person’s life. That’s what love means. Even you have to realize that.”

“Is it the omission of the truth that bothers you? Or the fact that I’m involved with the mafia?”

“You still haven’t told me what you do for them.”

While I consider my answer, I slide my hands down her arms, helping her put them around my neck. I lift her legs around my thighs. Harper sags into me, her cheek pressed to my shoulder, her breath hot on my skin.

Her emotions pour out of her. Her love engulfs me in an electric field, a sphere. We’re alone here, in this home. In this universe.

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.

She doesn’t need me to be soft right now. She needs me to be strong.

Ruthless, unrelenting, and entirely myself.

It’s the only thing I’m good for, anyway. It’s what I do best.

“Stop crying.”

Her frown is adorable. “You can’t just snap your fingers and make me stop.”

“Of course I can.” I pull her closer to me. Tilt her head. It’s painfully erotic, breathing her in before I ruin her.

My lips brush the side of her neck, softly, before I shover her sleeve down and sink my teeth sink into her shoulder.

Her pained shriek eases the ache in my chest.

I lick and suck on her skin. Marking her.

Wounding her.

Finally, her hands are in my hair.