Page 50 of Brutal Obsession

The words sound sultry and strange.

Maybe that’s because I’ve never been so sexually honest before. I don’t know what this new version of me means.

He moans my name, yanks my dress over my head, and then mumbles inGaelic, as if hearing my name in his sexy mouth wasn’t enough to finish me a second time. After that, Cian erupts.

He turns my navel and my breasts into a Jackson Pollock, painting me with abstract strokes of semen.

We both huff like we just ran the Honolulu Marathon.

Once he finishes with a final groan, we lie there unmoving.

He’s frozen over me, arm still holding my legs together, his cock still between my thighs. As our breathing slows, our eyes meet naturally, like two streams running into each other.

I expect to find another smirk. For him to say,now, thank me.And I would. Without hesitation or a shred of sarcasm. In this moment, I’m that far gone.

But what I find lurking in the depths of Cian’s green eyes isn’t well-deserved braggadocio. It’s a hint of fear.

He’s gazing at me likeI’mthe wolf, and he’s the defenseless prey.

We stare so long that his seed dries on my skin. Only then does he release my legs.

“Now, you can go to work.”

Confusion twists inside me as Cian climbs off the bed, grabs his clothes off the floor, and disappears into the bathroom, leaving me lost and alone and wondering what the hell just happened.

Chapter 13

Harper

The heat of our morning wake-up call cools into a bizarre, hyperaware form of apathy. Cian won’t look me in the eye, but his gaze touches my skin every second. He walks close but doesn’t manhandle me the way he did yesterday. It’s like he’s wary of me. Or trying to be thoughtful.

Either way, it unsettles me.

How I’m acting must be even stranger. I skirt around his hands, watching his fingers as if they’ll grab me at any second. In my mind, I tell myself I’m staying vigilant, but really, I’m afraid I’ll kiss Cian if I look at his face too closely.

I wonder if I’m going to battle that urge all day.

Cian apparently came here without packing a bag, so he’s in the honeymoon groom outfit from yesterday. He can get away with that, but not me. So the first stop we make after we’re both as dressed as we can be is Fukuoka Farms. His condition for my going to work today, of course, is that I’ll spend every second under his supervision.

I expected that, so his constant presence won’t get in the way of my escape plan.

When I study him out of the corner of my eye, I wonder whether Cian Mahoney is capable of falling in love. Ifthatbackthere demonstrates what he’s like when messing around with a woman he couldn’t care less about, what will he be like when he finds one he adores?

What kind of woman would it take to finally earn his genuine affection?

Cian steers the Porsche through the bright, wide open lands of Oahu’s North Shore. For a few uninterrupted miles, it seems we’re the only people on Earth.

He rolls down all the windows, letting in the salty air. With wind whipping my hair around my face, I probably look like I fell out of a clothes dryer by the time we make it back to the Fukuokas’. But, luckily for me, they won’t be there, and my disheveled appearance will buy me more of the precious time I need to orchestrate this escape.

Cian waits on the main floor of the house as I run up to my room and prepare. I shower in a flash and wrench my hair up into a ponytail. The first thing I’m going to do when I get away is hack off my blond waves with a pair of scissors. I’ll dye it too. No one will recognize me as the girl I used to be ever again.

I dress in a pair of designer, dark-wash jeans and a blouse, the comfiest clothes I have that can pass for business casual. From under my bed, I rip out the crossbody bag I keep all my cash in. I peel a few thousand dollars off the top and leave it in a shoe box with a note for the Fukuokas. It’s the same note I left for my father when I ran out on Finn.

Just two words on a small slip of paper.

I’m sorry.

There’s too much to explain, and I don’t want them to think I was kidnapped. I want them to know I left on my own and accept full responsibility for the shittiness of my abandonment.

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