Page 28 of Obsession

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

I scroll a little more.

“Oh. Oh, wow.”

“What? Will you please stop that?”

Fuck, I need to find a better poker face.

I shake my head. I will not tell him I had no ideathatwas a position one could put themselves in. I mean, honestly… someone would have to have… like a really,reallybig… in order to fit that way…

“We aren’t going to work together if you’re hiding things from me.”

“I just don’t know if you want to know what I’m seeing over here about sexual positions, Mr. Master.”

He clamps his mouth shut.

“Some of these are—” I stop talking, as a cold shiver runs down my spine.

Baby’s breath.

She has six search histories involving baby’s breath and three more with purple irises.

Why?

He pulls into a parking spot outside the restaurant. I remind myself to tell him about the flower search history later.

I need to call my bestie Candi but have to find a way to do it without him knowing, since he doesn’t want to involve the police.

I pull out my phone and shoot her a text.

Babe, off record. You were telling me something last night about a recent string of sexual assault victims… what can you tell me about it?

No response. I tuck my phone in my left pocket and Skylar’s in my right. He parks the car. I pull up my pants leg to make sure my knife’s secured, inwardly groaning when I see the purplish bruises along my shins from getting into his truck. I look like I fell off my bike when my mom took my training wheels off.Great.

I don’t miss the way people look at us, and I don’t think it has anything to do with my odd choice in attire. I can tell that people recognize him, and those that don’t, notice him from afar. He’s large and intimidating, but that isn’t what garners attention so much as the way he walks.

Some people walk like they know you’re watching them. Others walk timidly, as if they don’t want to step on toes or offend you. Cain walks into the restaurant as if he belongs here and anyone who doesn’t ought to fuck off before he makes them. His confident gait and the take-no-prisoners steel in his eyes are silent declarations that he isn’t afraid, that if anyone does something dangerous, they’ll deal with him. He drips arroganceand violence through his goddamn pores, something that should turn me off.

It doesn’t. It doesn’t at all.

A few women vaping to the right of the entrance look him up and down, and one even hands her bag to her friend and steps toward us. She gives me a quick look and easily dismisses me as someone who isn’t competition, because she doesn’t even bother to hide the fact that she likes him, thinks he’s hot, and wants to sleep with him, probably right this very minute.

Without missing a beat, Cain slides his large, warm hand along my lower back, curves his fingers around my side and pulls me to him. His eyes are glacial, a man on a mission, but my body doesn’t seem to care. At the feel of his hand on me, my blood heats, an electric current coursing its way straight through me. I can’t help but step closer to him. I like the way my body tingles, as if every nerve knows this is a man who knows how to treat a woman’s body.

The woman heading toward us halts mid-step, then shoots me a scowl. I don’t know if I want to stick my tongue out at her or punch her.

We step further inside, and a waitress hands us some menus.

“Do you still have wings on the menu? Babe, you remember those wings you like?”

Babe? Wait, what? Cain Master’s just staked his claim on me, and I have no idea why. But when the woman who’d been heading toward us steps to the side, it’s starting to become clearer.

I draw in a shaky breath and laugh. I could get into this. “I do. You’re the best, honey.”Gag. Me.

A glimmer of a smile crosses his lips, like a particle of sun breaking through clouds before they swallow it up again. “Anything for you.”

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