Page 71 of Brutal Obsession

I unleash a scream louder than any sound that’s ever wrenched out of my throat.

Cian rips the curtain back one more time. I’m wheezing for breath, pointing, frantic, as the biggest,ugliestcockroach I have ever, ever seen scuttles out from the shower drain, bypassing all the water flowing into it, and sprints up the wall toward the showerhead.

You’d think that after having my workplace ambushed by men with automatic weapons, I would not be scared of an insect a thousand times smaller than myself. But I guess being aroundmen with guns has nothing on the primal fear response that cockroaches elicit in me.

I flatten myself against the opposite wall, terror and disgust doing some morbid tango inside me. And then Cian does the single most revolting thing I have ever seen in my life. He snatches that giant hideous creature off the shower wall with his bare fucking hand.

My horrified gasp is involuntary.

His knuckles pop as he crushes the roach in his fist.

Paralyzed with relief and revulsion, I can’t pull my eyes away as Cian kicks the toilet lid up and drops the limp insect carcass inside. I didn’t even know a cockroach could be killed like that.

Cian flushes the dead menace away, knocks the lid shut, and proceeds to wash his massive hands in the little blue sink. All this while I stand there in the stall behind him.

Somehow, even with all my experience with the mafia, that was the most brutal, graphic, vile, and violent thing I’ve ever seen someone do.

If Cian would do this—kill a cockroach just for scaring me—I already know what he’d do to anyone who threatened my safety or my life. When enforcers are assigned to protect people, nowhere in the assignment does it specify that the target should be protected from insects.

When he finishes washing his hands and turns back around, I study Cian Mahoney like I’ve never seen him before.

What if everything I thought I understood about him is wrong?

He examines me too. For entirely different reasons.

I forget I’m naked until that tickle under my skin informs me that my nipples are stiffening. His heavy gaze glides over my bare body like a paintbrush. I’m self-conscious and wishing I could hide, but he ripped the shower curtain, so all hopes of bathing privately died a tragic death.

And maybe I’m okay with that.

My pulse races, and I feel like I’m vibrating. A dam breaks in my chest, unleashing a reservoir’s worth of emotion. Everything inside me rises to the surface, boiling like the wild lust on Cian’s face.

The disparity of his clothed body and my bare one starts to get to me. I gulp air before hoisting my chin and issuing an order.

“Take your clothes off.”

He strips so quickly that I almost miss the show.

And Cian knows what comes next, so he’s already climbing back into the shower. Soon, water rains on his back. He’s facing me. Good.

We’re both afraid. For what other reason could he be standing there, hesitating, his muscles twitching? He knows the same way I know. After we plunge into what comes next, there’s no coming back.

For better or worse, we’re about to mark each other forever.

The moaning starts the second I pull him into me. Those big hands are all over my bare body, both of us wet and slippery from the water while Cian melds his lips to mine.

I could die just like this.

It would be my pleasure.

Chapter 19

Harper

How did we end up here, with Cian back between my thighs?

His fingers comb through my wet hair, and I can’t keep my fingers out of his luscious curls either. My clit isthrobbing.I think my body’s hotter than the shower water.

When Cian breaks our kiss long enough to speak, his voice is husky with desire. “You still want me to fuck you?”

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