Page 92

MARISELA

“ H ow’s that feel, little lamb?”

I could sense him hovering above me, the mattress shifting beneath my fingertips as he leaned forward. Closer and closer to that spot between my legs. His breath warm and his hands cold as he poked and prodded until goose bumps were breaking out along both sides of my inner thighs.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t there to get me off but to put something on. A fresh bandage in place of the one I must have bled through at some point in the middle of the night.

I honestly didn’t remember much of what happened between then and now. That was my own fault. I’d been angry. Impulsive. I’d goaded him because I liked the way it felt a lot more than I liked the consequences. I was also self-destructive on some deeper level.

But we both knew that .

I tried to lift my head to glare at him, and he was already moving again, the tail of his lab coat brushing across my ankles as he stepped around the foot of the bed.

A quiet buzzing sound seemed to follow him.

At first, I thought it was some sort of machinery, a medical device or pump, but then I realized the cocky son of a bitch was humming to himself as he adjusted the tube currently pushing god knows what into my veins.

Not pain killers, though. The pain was still there and so was the throbbing in my temples.

I forced my eyes open, expecting to find bright lights and white walls. Surgical tools and metal trays. Instead, Dr. Adrian Lambert was smiling back at me from the confines of my own bedroom. I was home, at the estate, and not locked up in some padded room at Briarwood.

Guess he could still surprise me too.

I lifted my chin and gestured to the IV pole. “What’s in the bag, Adrian?”

He tracked my movement, his glare bouncing from my face to the pump and back again. “Just fluids, Marisela. I’m not drugging you.” He sighed. “You lost a lot of blood with that little stunt of yours.”

“I lost a lot of blood because of your pride . Not my stunt ,” I countered, and he balked.

“It wasn’t my pride that had you sitting in my office and impaling yourself with a pair of rusty scissors, Marisela.

I’ve never been too proud to tell you exactly how I feel about you.

But that was the point, wasn’t it? You were testing me.

Seeing how far you could push me before I snapped.

Before I either fought you or fucked you. Just like you did fifteen years ago…”

I refused to answer him. Mostly because the sound of his voice was grating on my nerves and partly because he was right.

I was trying to bait him into fucking me that night—even if I hadn’t realized it at the time.

But not for the reason he was thinking. Not because I’d wanted to run away with him.

But because I’d wanted to feel something.

I’d hoped sex would somehow reset whatever was wrong with my body.

And when it hadn’t, I was angry. At him and at myself for being so na?ve to believe he was the answer.

“Despite what you’ve been conditioned to think—by Tate, by your father—that’s not the way love works. You can’t just stop doing it because it’s easier that way.”

I stifled a laugh. Tried to speak before stifling another one.

“That your way of telling me I have daddy issues, Dr. Lambert?” I didn’t wait for him to respond.

“I can’t believe the orphaned bastard of a serial womanizer is lecturing me on love right now.

How the fuck do you even know what love is, Adrian?

How could you possibly know something you’ve never been given from someone else? ”

Yes, I was angry again. Vulnerable and cruel. Lashing out against someone who probably didn’t deserve it. At least not today. But this was who I was. Who I’d become and there was no undoing it. No going back to that girl in the window.

And soon enough, he would realize it too. He’d realize that the girl he’d been so infatuated with didn’t exist anymore and he could give up on chasing after her ghost .

Adrian stepped closer to the bed, dipping his head down and pressing his lips to my ear, as his fingers trailed lower and lower on my torso. Not stopping until he reached the apex of my thighs.

“Love is kinda like sex, Marisela. Like an orgasm. You don’t know what it feels like until it hits you.

And then there is no denying it.” He circled his thumb around my clit a few times, groaning deep in his throat, as if he enjoyed getting me off as much as I enjoyed him getting me off.

Only to quickly pull his hand back and rise to his full height again.

“If you aren’t sure, then you didn’t experience one.

And if you don’t know, then you aren’t in love.

I know ,” he grunted, bringing his hand to his mouth and sucking his digits clean before releasing them with an exaggerated pop. “Do you?”

I pushed up from the mattress, propping myself on one elbow and canting my head to the side to get a better look at him. “Is that what this is? Are you here to convince yourself that you’re lovable? That I love you when your own parents couldn’t.”

“Oh, no, I already know that you love me, little lamb. I’ve known it since the first time I had you coming on my tongue.” He shrugged. “Since I got the girl who never asks for anything to beg me not to stop.”

“Then why bring me here? Why bring me home? When you had me exactly where you wanted me.”

“It’s simple, really. We’ve played teacher… doctor…” He glanced at the IV bag, flicking it once before turning back to me. “Now I think it’s time we played house.”