Page 113 of Obsession

It doesn’t take long for my security team to swarm the building, looking for any clues as to who the assassin might be. Christian is on the phone with someone while Vaughn has disappeared. Both have their roles to play in helping me right now.

As do I.

But for now, I’m sitting in the master bath, plucking shards of broken glass from the beautiful, quivering woman before me.

“You need to try to hold steady,” I chastise her, the sight of her blood irritating me. I’m typically not that affected by the sight of blood, but hers bothers me far too much.

“I’m in shock!” she snaps back. “And stop yelling at me.”

“You’re the one who’s yelling,” I remind her.

I sigh when she gazes back at me with mournful eyes filled with a sense of injustice. Without so much as a warning, I reach out and lift her up by the waist before turning around and carrying her to the guest room. I sit down in the middle of the made bed, settling Megan in between my legs and wrapping myself around her as I proceed with my task.

“There, this is much more comfortable. Now stop shaking.”

I can feel her body tense at this closeness, but then she relaxes into me and complains, “It hurts.”

“I know.” I can’t help it when my voice turns a little soft. I hate that she’s hurting like this because of me. “Just bear with it for a little longer.”

“Do you have any idea why that person was trying to kill you?”

My hand goes still, and I look down at the top of her head. So far, Megan has made it a point not to ask any questions about my business, which I guess is why it’s been so easy to incorporateher as a part of my life at the club and home, too. Her easy acceptance of the violence she has faced at the club has been odd for a mild-mannered art student slash bartender, but I hoped, since she tends to look the other way, that she’d continue to.

“So you want to start asking questions now?” I ask her, my voice low, as I carefully pluck out another shard of glass. “I’m sure you have an understanding of the kind of life I lead.”

She’s silent, and then she burrows deeper into me as if seeking warmth. “A dangerous one, but besides that, I know next to nothing about you. I mean...” She hesitates and then says abruptly, “Never mind.”

I let out a small sigh, then respond because I know I should after all that she’s been through. I owe her that much. She almost died in this apartment.

“Megan, as long as you keep your head down and pretend to know nothing, you will be fine in my world. The key to survival is silence.”

She stiffens. “So a man tries to annihilate you, and you don’t want to involve the police?”

“I don’t use the police for protection. I pay them to mind their business. This is my mess to clean up.”

“Is that why no one’s responded to the gunshots?”

“My team made a few calls. The police are aware that we have the situation in hand.”

It doesn’t escape me how different I am with Megan. I’m telling her things about my business that I’ve never told a woman before, and it makes me feel uncomfortable, to say the least. I’ve only known her for a couple of weeks, and she’s gone from an intriguing woman in my bar to the object of my desire; and now she’s in my apartment, whimpering as I try to patch up the injuries she received because she chose to save me rather than herself.

Ever since the night of the fire, when I stood in front of my blazing house, screaming myself hoarse as I was held back, something within me froze. When I realized that the two people who’d meant the world to me no longer existed, that they had been torn from my side in the most vicious manner possible, my insides turned glacier cold. I vowed to myself that I would never be in that situation again. I would never make myself vulnerable again.

To love.

But as my jaw tightens at the sound of the small woman in my arms, I realize I’ve left a small crack in my impenetrable shield open. I want to break her, own her, and consume her every thought. I want to possess this woman in a way that frightens even me.

“Fine,” she tells me. “If the entire Los Angeles Police Department stays tight-lipped, who am I to ask any questions?”

I hold out her wrist in the light to see if I’ve missed anything.

“Good, because you know too much already. The less you know, the safer you are from the people who want to hurt me.”

“Well, this is a fun conversation,” she says under her breath, and despite the grim reality of the situation, the corner of my lip twitches. “If that’s the case, shouldn’t you just leave me alone?”

“Why are you so desperate to walk away from me?” I demand, knowing full well that she’s completely right, no matter how much I hate to hear it. I should leave her alone. The smart thing to do would be to distance myself from her as far as possible. But I don’t always make the intelligent choice when it comes to her. “Do you have another lover lined up?”

“What?” Her voice is genuinely surprised, but I ignore it, fury pumping through my blood at the mental image of her with any other man.

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