Page 47 of Unapologetic Obsession

“What do you want to know?”

I stared at him briefly before boldly demanding, “Everything.”

A slight twitch in his eye, a flicker, suggested he was considering something. Maybe how much to share with me?

Just when I thought I had pushed too much and met the quota of how far he was willing to go to entertain me, Dr. Maxwell threw me for another loop. He continued to work on my injuries, as he had done last night, revealing things about himself bit by bit.

He grew up in New York but attended fancy boarding schools abroad with his twin, who was just as gifted in his field. They lost their mother to a drug overdose when they were young. I had expected some change in his tone or expression—a flicker of vulnerability—when he spoke of her death. However, the detached words came out of his mouth as if he were talking about a distant acquaintance rather than his mother.

Dumbfounded, I opened my mouth to express my condolences, but he stopped me. Her death meant nothing to him. They weren’t close, and she spent the majority of his childhood in and out of rehab. Because he didn’t know her, he never felt the pain of losing her. However, it added to his interest in treating addiction because he saw the turmoil it brought to the families.

His attitude toward her was odd. He didn’t have any real emotions toward his mother, or his father, for that matter. Other than his brother and a couple of cousins, everyone pissed him off.

I realized he found consolation in his work because he preferred solitude, so I asked about the specifics of his lab. He never sounded irritated by my excessive pestering. What I appreciated the most was that he never made me feel less smart than him. The man was a literal genius, and the questions I asked were probably elementary, yet he answered patiently, his intense gaze locked on me the entire time.

Why did it feel like he was telling me his life story as an excuse to stare at his heart’s content? Only periodically, his eyes shifted to check his work. Otherwise, his gaze remained fixed on me, almost obsessively so, without so much as a single blink.

My heartbeat quickened when I caught him staring at me for the umpteenth time. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

An unperturbed gaze moved over his face, and he didn’t deny the allegation. “Because I can.”

I swallowed as he checked my ankle. The touch was gentle, contrary to the roughness in his voice.

Being the sole focus of this unattainable man’s attention was indescribably addicting, and even a genius like him wouldn’t be able to find a cure for it in his lab.

Strong hands probed my bruised ankle to examine it, and I bit my bottom lip when his fingers grazed the skin around it. I was immensely distrustful of strangers. Surely, some of these traits existed before my accident. I couldn’t have had that much of a personality transplant. Yet, my body welcomed his touch with open arms.

My swollen ankle served as a necessary distraction. He had managed the pain last night with drugs and a cold compression. Soaking in the bath had also helped, along with the medication Amelie had administered. But the numbing sensation had fizzled, replaced with throbbing agony.

He was quick to catch on. “I’ll give you something for the pain.” He opened one of the drawers to pull out an unused syringe. “This should get you through the night.”

“No,” I whispered. “I don’t want the needle.”

He frowned. “It’s a small dose, and it’s perfectly safe.”

Dr. Maxwell told me about his experience with addiction. I also saw what those things did to people with repeated use and couldn’t condone it in good faith. “That’s not why. I’ve seen people use those things.” I nodded at the bottle with the morphine sulfate label. “They can’t seem to think straight afterward.”

He stared at me pensively. “I told you why I started my lab; I would never give you morphine long enough to cause dependency. Most people get addicted because no one checks up on them, but I’ll always monitor you.”

There was an insinuation of an ongoing relationship whenever he said things like, “Never talk to other men when I’mnot around,”or“I’ll always monitor you.”It sounded like he would always be around. Did he realize he was leading me on?

I wasn’t in the mood to decode his inexpressive eyes or figure out his intentions. I was only concerned with one thing. I had seen too many empty vials to count. It had scared me straight for life. “Please,” I murmured. “I don’t want morphine.”

“The pain will keep you up all night.”

I shook my head. “I’ll deal with it.”

I thought he would insert the needle anyway, but he set it down and grabbed my ankle instead.

What the hell?

Chapter

Seventeen

ROSE

Dr. Maxwell saton the office chair, rolled it closer, and massaged my ankle. Hot and cold nipped my skin at the first touch; I never knew ankles could be so sensitive.