Page 34 of Arran's Obsession
“Did you kill her?”
Anger flashed over his features, swift and cold. Something else, too. It looked like hurt. “No, I didn’t. I don’t hurt women.”
My mouth fell open. I was playing with fire again, but I couldn’t stop. “Your whole life is set up around hurting women. Are you joking?”
Through gritted teeth, he made his answer. “I’m tired, and likely to act irrationally, so I’m going the fuck to sleep. Tomorrow, I’ll ask you again, and you’ll answer me. Don’t bother trying to leave. I locked the door.”
He turned his back. In a minute, he was out cold, and I stared into the dark room, my spiralling thoughts settling into better logic.
If he had been the murderer, he would hardly confess it to me. But a feeling in my gut told me I was way off the mark, even considering his lifestyle and the part of his empire that I’d seen.
Yet someone had murdered her. The same evening Arran was talking about, I’d seen Don drive by. I’d assumed he was there for me, and perhaps he had been, but he could’ve moved on to taking out his anger on the next warm body. Also, Cherry had mentioned some clients she was expecting to see. That was a starting place to rack my brain over. And to bury the oddest sense of guilt from accusing the gang leader at my side.
Eventually, sleep claimed me as well.
I woke to Arran’s heavy arm curling over me. He grumbled and tugged me closer, burying his face in my hair, though his breathing stayed slow and deep, the undoubted pain from his injuries not waking him. I could’ve extracted myself, but I needed a hug. Even if it was from him.
When I woke the next time, daylight was fading around the shutters, night returning once again. I’d slept the day away. The bed beside me was empty, but noise and light from the other room told me my kidnapper wasn’t far away.
He appeared in the doorway, thankfully dressed, and snapped on a lamp, a tray in his hand. His bruises had worsened, dark and shiny. “You slept hard.”
“You slept mostly on me,” I retorted and sat up, keeping the sheet tightly wrapped around my naked body.
He snorted, then brought the tray over. The scent of bacon reached me, and my stomach rumbled. The meal he offered was a bacon sandwich, a mug of coffee alongside.
“Sorry about what I said last night,” I mumbled. Better to keep him sweet than make even more of an enemy.
Arran’s expression remained neutral, but he nodded once. “Thank you. Now eat.”
Hunger took control of me, and I accepted the tray, chugging the hot coffee first before tearing into the sandwich. If he was poisoning me, I’d take the risk.
The gangster rumbled a laugh and settled in an armchair by the bed. “Couldn’t make it iced coffee for you, but I figured that would be good enough.”
I sent him an appreciative half-smile around the last mouthful, sitting back to sip the coffee in dizzying delight. He’d even added some kind of syrup, just a smidge, as I liked.
“You take good care of your prisoners.”
He lowered his gaze. “You’re the one who tied herself to me, so you need to be wherever I am, and vice versa. Also I can’ttrust you not to roam my friends’ house unguarded. That’s why I locked the door.”
“Screw your rules.” I wrinkled my nose. “What if I don’t follow them?”
“I intend to, so you can either make it really easy, or very hard.”
His gaze held mine. Heat zapped through me. There was something magnetic about this man. A draw towards him that wouldn’t break. If I’d caught a tiny crush from him coming to my flat, his actions on the floor of the warehouse had boosted that to the stratosphere.
I hated him, but my craven, traitorous body didn’t get the memo.
I swallowed. “Talk me through them. The rules, I mean.”
“The game is a love match. The people who enter it are looking for something different to normal dating.”
“Wow,” I drawled. “Romantic.”
“It is. Intensely so. Love like no other, for those involved. Once the lucky ones are paired up, they live together for four weeks. Share their lives completely. In the first week, they can’t be apart for more than two hours. That eases as time goes on.”
I widened my eyes. “I’m your prisoner for a month?”
My missing father, the eviction notice, the fact I couldn’t text my brother to let him know where I was. It all crammed forward in my mind.