Page 30 of Arran's Obsession

“What is this place?” I asked.

Arran didn’t answer, driving on to park the car beside a wide garage. He climbed out then came to my door. “Get out.”

I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself, stepping out to the cool of the predawn, the gravel smooth under my soles. “Are you going to leave me here? Whose place is it?”

“Who the fuck goes there?” A figure stepped out of the shadows of the house. He crossed the gravel but stopped dead. “Arran?”

Then he was running, slamming into the man who’d brought me here with a sound of happiness. He spun him around, peering at Arran’s face. “The fuck? Ye don’t call, ye don’t write. Now ye show up in the middle of the night barefoot, bloodied,and half-naked. With a woman? Ho-lee-shite. The lasses are going to lose their minds.”

Arran’s feet were bare like mine. He’d driven like that for hours.

Arran hugged him then backed off. “We needed a place to go for a few days. Is it okay to crash here?”

“Do ye even need to ask? Those rooms are yours for good—no one else has used them since we last saw your face, except maybe the kids. What’s going on? Are ye in trouble?”

Arran’s gaze slid to me, and his friend’s followed. I cringed under the scrutiny, too aware of the oddness of the situation and how I was only wearing a t-shirt, though fortunately one that covered my ass.

“We just needed somewhere to go,” Arran muttered.

The second man rubbed his hand over his dark hair. He looked about Arran’s age, late twenties, and had a happy, chilled-out expression that made him feel infinitely less dangerous than the crew at Arran’s club.

In his hand, something sparked. A lighter? My opinion revised fast.

“Let’s get inside. You’ve been driving a while, aye? Probably need a drink.” The man changed tack.

He started walking, and I trailed after. I had no choice. A quick glance around showed only pitch-black countryside beyond the expanse of lawn, no other houses to be seen. Wherever this was, it was intensely private. Plus neither man was trying to force me, for a nice change.

“I’m Jamieson, as my boy’s too rude to introduce me. Welcome to the Great House. This is my home. Well, mine and my family’s. You’re very welcome…”

“Genevieve,” Arran said for me.

Jamieson laughed and shook his head, climbing the mansion’s shallow steps. “Like I said, the lasses are going to lose their minds over ye.”

We entered a huge hall with a marble floor and a staircase that swept up to the next floor. A woman held the banister, peering down, her long blonde hair in a thick ponytail and her pyjamas with little hearts on.

“Who is it?” she asked, her accent English. Then her eyes widened. “Arran? God, are you okay? Where’s your shirt?”

“He brought a girl, similarly underdressed,” Jamieson quipped.

The woman gawked. Apparently I was the star of the show.

“Give me a minute and I’ll explain,” Arran said.

Without a word, he took my upper arm and towed me along with him, down the unlit hall to the right. We turned a corner, and I wrenched from his grip.

“I can walk by myself.”

“But can I trust you not to run or go where you aren’t supposed to? This is my friends’ home. There are children.”

“What am I, a monster as well as a sneak?”

We reached a room, and he propelled me inside the dark space.

“That remains to be seen. For now, I’m playing captor just the same as you trapped me. The windows are burglar-proof so don’t try breaking out, it’ll piss me off if I have to replace one. You’re perfectly safe here, so don’t fucking scream.”

I didn’t have a second to react. The door was closed, and a click indicated he’d locked me in.

Chapter 11

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