Page 40 of Obsession

“I meant what I said before,” he went on. “I will keep you safe, little girl, and if you’ll let me, I’ll do a whole lot more.”

“If I’ll let you?” A flicker of defiance flashed in her eyes, but he saw the moment it dwindled.

“Yes,” he insisted, refusing to take her bait and tumble into an argument about whether she’d wanted him.

They both knew that she had. Her soaking arousal was a testament to that fact. But going forward, he knew he couldn’t win her affection with ropes alone.

She won’t love me if she’s my prisoner.

The idea that it was her love that he longed for was startling, but deep down, he accepted his premise was true. If his growing feelings were to mean anything more than hot sex, he would have to learn to trust her and let her trust him.

“Let me feed you, little girl.”

“Okay.” She leaned into his palm with a sigh, her eyes closing, but her knitting brows suggesting her confusion about the sensual act. There was a paradox to their strange dynamic.

She wanted him, but she detested him.

She needed him to free her, yet she loathed the necessity for deference.

Tucker could relate. He, too, was having problems working out his emotions for the younger woman who’d exploded into his life and turned his whole world on its head. He, too, had hated the way his senior officers had pulled rank on him when he’d served.

He understood more than she realized.

Part Three

Culmination

Chapter Sixteen

Soup

Ella

“The soup smells good.”

She’d said something similar once before when he’d promised her pie and lived to regret it, but there was no getting away from her gnawing hunger and how good his broth smelled.

A fleeting memory of the way she’d vomited the poor rabbit whipped through her mind, but she pushed it away. The last thing Ella wanted was a reprise of that disaster. Things were bad enough. Her shoulders begged for release from the cruel position he’d compelled her into. Their plight was matched only by her poor, aching knees.

“The soup ideally needs a little longer to cook.” His attention bored into the pot he was stirring. “But you need food now.”

Her stomach growled as if to prove the point. “What’s in the soup, sir?” He’d mentioned there was no meat in the concoction, but she wanted to be sure before she consumed it.

Not that there’s much choice. I’m starving.

“Not all vegetables grow in the partial shade offered by the forest.” His gaze shifted to the window before returning to the bubbling soup. “But I’ve established a small and thriving veggie garden of celery, leeks, and potatoes.”

A veggie garden? Her brow rose at the news. Who would have thought?

She would never have guessed that the giant of a man who proactively chose to live in a dank cabin in the woods would have a flair for gardening and cooking, but then that was Tucker. There seemed to be lots about the enigmatic stranger she hadn’t anticipated, like his utter determination to keep her.

He was a walking, talking contradiction.

A brute who was willing to haul a woman over his shoulder against her will, then tie her in such a brutal way shouldn’t be the same man who could bring her the most fabulous pleasure and ask to hold her afterward. She could barely reconcile that the two sides of Tucker were the same man.

He was completely perplexing.

“How does that sound?”

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