He slapped his hand down right on my clit, exposed and desperately throbbing for even the barest of contact, making me jerk. A delicious combination of pleasure and pain zinging through my core and causing my stomach muscles to tighten.

“Try again,” he bit out. “This time, don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying,” I gasped. “I really did— Shit!” I tried to twist away when he slapped my clit again, my inner muscles spasming.

“Do not play with me, little girl. Tell me the truth.” He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of my pussy, his touch and voice belying the angry glint in his blue depths.

My mind raced, wondering what exactly he wanted me to say—and what exactly he knew. There was no way he was aware of what I’d done to Kovak and his crew.

“Nothing to say?” he taunted, his tongue flicking over my clit once, twice, before pulling back so I couldn’t rub against him in search of relief.

“I don’t know what you want,” I finally answered. “I was at my parents’ house all night.” He slapped my clit for the third time, causing my back to bow up off the mattress. “Fuck! Make me come, Daddy. Please, I’m so close.”

“I told you never to put yourself in danger, didn’t I?” he growled. “I warned you, didn’t I?”

My eyes widened before I could stop myself from reacting.

“I’m only going to ask you one more time. What did you do last night, princess?”

How did he know?

Was it a guess, or could he have possibly known my every move?

It wasn’t completely implausible. I had cameras on him everywhere, apps on his phone, a tracker in his truck. But that was because I needed them to help combat the sickness that twisted my mind when I wasn’t with him.

His doing anything even remotely similar was laughable. Elias Reid wanted me, even cared for me, but he wasn’t sick.

Yet…

He was pissed.

Because he thought I’d been doing something I shouldn’t, something that might cause me to get hurt. Like when I’d gotten shot.

Breathing hard, I met his gaze and took a risk I never thought I would be faced with. “I did what I had to do so I could come home to you.”

CHAPTERTHIRTY-FOUR

elias

I tiltedSamara’s chin so she was forced to hold my gaze.

There.

No more hiding.

“If you can’t come to me, then I’ll come to you. No matter where you are. I will come for you. You do not stalk people—especially other goddamn men.” Jealousy gnawed at me, turning my anger darker. I was going to make damn sure that my baby girl never did that shit again. “And you sure as fuck don’t go hunting.”

Her chest lifted and fell in heaving pants. “You know,” she whispered in awe, her pupils expanding so much that the black nearly eclipsed the blue. “H-how?”

My eyes narrowed on her.

How could she be so blind to how far gone I was for her?

Did she really not know that I had an app on her phone that could not only let me track her, but see everything around her through the camera in real time?

For fuck’s sake, I knew all about the ones she’d installed on my phone. Admittedly, the one that monitored any contact with Berkeley was a recent one I’d only discovered following my baby girl’s tantrum in Hannigans’ bathroom. But the rest, I had already been aware of.

Just like I knew about the cameras throughout my apartment, my office, over my usual pool table at the bar, and countless other locations that let her follow the majority of my day-to-day. I was well aware of the tracker on my truck as well as the little chip she’d snuck into the lining of my cut two years ago.