Page 43 of Brutal Obsession

Only a million times hotter.

Once I’m comfortable, I wrap an arm over her waist and yank her into my chest.

When I thought about how today would go, I can’t say spooning with Harper Brennan topped my list of predictions. But there’s something nice about it.

Even the silence that stretches between us is somehow comfortable.

When Harper thinks I’ve nodded off, she tries to scoot away from me, but I pull her back every time.

“Would youstop it?” she finally snaps.

I shush her. “Trying to sleep here.”

“I’m sleeping downstairs.”

Fat chance of that happening. Harper seems determined at first, trying to squirm out of the vice grip of my left arm, but she only succeeds in wiggling against my dick.

“Unless you want my cock in your ass, I suggest you relax.”

At those words, she freezes.

I was just trying to get her to stop squirming, so how did I manage to bum myself out?

One night.That’s what she said downstairs.

Should I shake off my bone-deep weariness and fuck the consciousness right out of us? It wouldn’t take that long to give us both a release.

“Is this how all your kidnap operations go?” Harper interrupts my intrusive thoughts.

I smirk into her hair. “I wish.”

After another few minutes of quiet, Harper pipes up again. I’m almost asleep, but I still catch her question. “Who were you talking to on the phone before?”

“Finn,” I mumble.

“Is he…” She stutters but finds the courage to continue. “Was he…very angry when he found out what I did?”

“No more questions…” is the last thing I remember saying before slipping into a coma.

As always, the same dream swallows me soon after.

I’m in the squalid, near-condemned apartment of my childhood, standing in the kitchen with a knife in one fist. The whole place looks like a crime scene.

My father’s glazed, drunken, dead eyes peer up at the ceiling, his body perforated with stab wounds. After the seventeenth, I stopped counting. One for each year of my life, and then a stab for every time he ever hurt my mom.

The place is eerie and silent. My mother is unconscious in the bathroom, and in a few seconds, the door to the place willopen, and I’ll see Shane’s horrified face when he discovers what I’ve done. Just before he decides to take me in.

But when the door to the apartment peels back, white light momentarily blinds me, and then, at the entrance to that horrible place, is Harper. I walk toward her until I’m through the doorway, and instead of being in the New York projects, I find we’re somewhere else entirely. A beach.

Harper runs to the sea, a glittering sapphire expanse, the likes of which I’ve never seen before. I chase after her, but I never catch her. She dives between the waves, and I do, too, but as soon as I’m in the water, my limbs start to spasm and cramp.

She smiles and laughs, treading water, splashing around like happy beach-goers the world over. Then, her smile becomes a mask of horror as she raises a shaky finger and points.

I glance down to find I’m covered in blood.

Harper swims away.

“No, wait!” I call, but I’m sinking. Even my throat is locked up tight. I can’t tell her I’m drowning. I can’t tell her anything, I just sink beneath the waves, disappearing into the dark and unknown depths of the sea.

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