Page 75 of The Art of Obsession

“Hmm, why when you’re my cure?” He rubs his lips along my brow.

“Ugh!”

He laughs and opens the door to the bathroom of water and colorful scales shimmering like prisms all around us.

31

“I thought I was supposed to be a good girl,” she snorts

Chapter Playlist:

“Thread the Needle” – Sleep Token

CAL

“Nice to know you care,Little Quill.”

I wince as I set her down and begin to remove my clothes. She gives me a feral, feminine glower and adorably covers her chest with her arms. The deeper blush in her cheeks gives her away.

Sticking her pert nose in the air, Everleigh looks away and sniffs. “I can’t have you bleeding out and leaving me trapped down here.” She escapes into the water. Good, the properties will help with healing her anal cavity. My blood is clean. Later, I will give her an enema just as a precaution. No doubt, she will kick and scream through it all.

Once I remove my vest and shirt, I assess the damage to my stomach. She flicks her stormy gray eyes down. The blood has slowed, but the gashes will need to be stitched.

Instead of following her into the bath, I head for the far side where the supply closet rests near the shower, retrieve a first aid kit, and sit on the marble bench outside the shower. Hissing from the antiseptic, I focus on threading the needle. For the first time, I find my hands shaky. Perhaps a little too much blood loss…not to mention the adrenaline crash. Nothing gets me off more than blood.

The sound of water splashing diverts me, but I don’t look up. In my lower vision, I notice her delicate hand picking up a white towel on the bath ledge. She approaches, the scent of lavender filling my senses.

She touches the back of my trembling hand. “I shouldn’t care,” she says softly, and I look up, awed by her eyes, how they’ve melted to a warm silver. She disarms me. I don’t deserve her compassion. “Let me.” But I’ll take it.

Kneeling before me—God, how beautiful she is on her knees—Everleigh threads the needle with ease, then moves it to my gashes with a steady hand. My willpower is tested by how much I long to comb my fingers through her dark, wet strands, peel them back from her cheeks. But I simply watch her, her focused expression and how she bites her lower lip.

I lean back, swallowing hard at first from the pain, but the endorphins soon sise. Tipping my head back against the wall, I close my eyes and take a deep breath, welcoming the sensation—the extreme contrast between her soft fingers and the sharp needle.

“Where did you learn to sew so well?”

“I like restoring old books. Many need their spines and pages sewn back up.” She sighs through her nose. “Why did you do this? You could have taken me from the front and avoided these injuries.”

“Mmm,” I muse without looking at her. “Punishment.”

“Punishment…for yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth, and I finally look down upon her lovely face. The water casts ripples of light along her pale, lovely skin.

“Punishment for what I’ve done to you…and what I will do to you.”

“You’re taking me back to the exhibit after this.” She doesn’t phrase it like a question.

“Yes.”

“Will you ever let me?—”

“No,” I’m quick to respond, voice deepening to a warning.

“—see the sun again?” she asks.