Page 50 of Arran's Obsession

Yet in no universe was I taking Arran’s blood money.

With a stab of my finger and an ache in my gut, I reversed the payment.

The same happened the next day.

We slept the daylight away, he worked, we ran, he sent me money which I refunded, then he fucked me with that solitary, vow-keeping thrust. Nothing more, no matter what I needed.

And the day after. A pattern formed.

I didn’t ask to see anyone, knowing Cassie would’ve poisoned the rest of the household against me. I messed around on my phone, idling over stories from students who’d done my nursing degree.

Arran noticed. “You want to be a nurse?”

I put my phone face down on the sofa. “Hard to do that from prison.”

His lips twitched. “Seriously. Are you meant to be studying?”

“No,” I reluctantly replied. “Eventually I will, but I haven’t signed up yet.”

He took his seat at the desk. “One of our most interesting couples to come out of the game included a surgeon. She was thirty-five and in a killer career. She didn’t want kids but badly wanted to be owned and possessed.”

I leaned in, intrigued. “Did she come to your office and tell you that?”

“Video call, but yes. She was time poor but had an opportunity in her career ladder to take a month out.”

“Who caught her?”

“An MMA fighter. Savage asshole with a big personality and a liking for violence. On paper, they couldn’t be more different.”

I tried and failed to gel the two in my head. “But they worked out?”

“She and her claimer are deeply in love and happy. Look them up, if you want.”

He provided a name. I tapped it into my phone, bringing back results for the surgeon. Her medical brilliance was side by side with results for her fiancé’s social media photos and videos. She was pretty, with long auburn hair, and most of her pictures of her in scrubs or suits. He was tattooed and half naked in all his.

In the pictures of them together, there was a strange kind of middle ground. A shirt on him. A spiked necklace on her. The top result was their engagement announcement which he’d made at the end of a fight, bloodied, sweaty, and strangely compelling.

“They’re engaged?” I said slowly, then raised my head. “When did you run their game?”

“November.”

I reread the article with their announcement. It came in December, which meant they’d reached the one-month mark and put a ring on it.

The final stage was a ring offered on bended knee, then. At least that wouldn’t happen to me.

I closed the search down and picked a book from the shelves in the living room instead. But I couldn’t ease my Arran-shaped distraction. He filled my senses and dominated every thought.

The only time I got anything from him was when he was inside me. Held me for that moment. Laid a kiss on my throat or asked a question.

My desperation grew to dizzying proportions until there was only one option for me to break the deadlock.

Unseeing, I stared at the pages, a plan forming.

I just had to find a way to offer.

Chapter 16

Arran