Page 60 of Obsession

He doesn’t want to let me go.

She inhaled at what should have been a terrifying idea. Tucker had taken her and done terrible things to her, but he’d also revealed a more tender side and had started to open up to her. Then there was the absurd hedonism he’d sparked. She didn’t think there would ever be another man who could replicate it.

“I’ll get my money.” His voice was calmer as he reached for her hand. “I just don’t take kindly to threats, especially from worms like your father.”

“And me?” She gazed up at his face. “Do you want me to go?”

“Do you want to go?” His question echoed in the air, epitomizing her every bewildered thought.

The truth was, she didn’t have an answer. Naturally, she missed her real life, but her jaunt to the woods had unearthed more than only terror and pain. Tucker seemed to have unlocked a part of her personality she hadn’t even known existed until he’d dragged her there—the desire to be overcome and made to submit, the quiet she found in the surrender, and the immense amount of pleasure.

“I…” Her reply dried up as she pulled in air. “I don’t know, sir, and that’s the truth.”

His brow rose, her answer apparently not what he’d expected. It wasn’t what she would have anticipated, either. Even a day earlier, she’d have clawed out his alluring eyes to break free from his twisted grasp, but now things felt different.

They were different.

Ella couldn’t risk walking out of his shitty cabin and never finding the same electrifying chemistry with another man.

“I’ll make it easy for you, beautiful.” A wry smile rose to his lips as he pulled her gently toward him for an embrace. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“But Alexander?” Panting at his sudden proximity, she craned her back to meet his eyes.

“I’ll deal with Alexander.” The vow sounded insidious. “And I’ll promise you one thing… wherever I go, you go with me.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Worm

Alexander Bennett

Anger pulsed through Alexander’s veins as he put down the phone, his stare traveling past the men seated on the oversized couch to the enormous window.

Fucking Bowman. His free hand balled into a furious fist. I should never have got Ella involved with him, should never have borrowed from him in the first place.

“How did the old man take it?” Chris Peyton’s eyebrow arched as Bennett moved toward the panoramic view.

The suite with the mountain vista should have been well out of his price range now that he’d fallen on hard times, but as it turned out, Bennett still had generous friends prepared to help him out—for a price.

“About as well as I expected.” Bennett didn’t glance back as he replied, his racing heart demanding he calm down before he made the inevitable next call.

“Shit.” Darius O’Neill clapped his hands together as he laughed. “Same old, Bowman! Did he tell you to go and fuck yourself?”

“Something like that.” Bennett turned to face his oldest pals. “He never did like being told what to do.”

But then, who did?

“So, what’s next?” Paul Williams’ voice was more serious as he lifted his glass to his lips. “Are you going in to get your girl?”

Bennett didn’t much care for Williams’ sarcastic tone or the implication that he was somehow a bad father. Hell, Bennett hadn’t even known he was a father until around ten years ago. Ella had been grown by the time he’d met her. True, in a moment of weakness, he had offered his only daughter to his ex-friend, Bennett. That hadn’t been his finest hour, he had to admit. But still, he was doing his best to claw her back. He’d begged, borrowed, and stolen the cash he owed Bennett and was even prepared to pay interest on the loan if it would appease the brute who’d happily accepted his child as collateral.

“Damn right, I am.” Maybe it was the whiskey talking, but standing in the plush suite, Bennett was more than happy to contemplate rescuing Ella with all guns blazing. The same friends who’d seen fit to open their doors to him in his hour of need had also offered the weight of their armory.

Not only could he be the hero who got his daughter out of Bowman’s grasp, but he’d enjoy sending the smug bastard a message—preferably at the end of a military-grade barrel. If Bowman ended up wounded or dead as a result of his resistance, that was too bad. Bennett would keep the money and have Ella back.

“When?” O’Neil’s question snapped him back to the sophisticated confines of the suite. “When is this mission happening?”

“I’m calling the troops now.” Bennett lifted the phone and searched for the number he needed. “The sooner, the better.”

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