Page 23 of Hidden Obsession

“Pack?” I repeated.

“You think you’re just going back home and what? I was just going to drop you off?”

“Yeah.” I stared at him, and he smirked.

“That’s exactly what isn’t going to happen.” I blinked. “I love you.” Three little words I’d never had directed at me by anyone I wasn’t related to.

“Hollis.”

“I love you, and you’re mine. I told you that first night.” A muscle in his cheek twitched.

“You’re a little possessive,” I whispered. His amber eyes brightened.

“There is nothing little about how possessive I am when it comes to you, little flower.” He pulled me closer, wrapping me up in his strong arms. “I told you the first time I saw you, I knew.” He had. The morning after, while we ate the brunch he’d whipped up for us, he’d told me everything.

His hidden obsession, he’d called it.

A madness that had driven him to do things he’d never thought he would do. From watching me from his brother’s office without me knowing to creeping into my trailer when I wasn’t home and even riding the bus sometimes a couple of rows behind me when I had used it to get home after a shift at the club to make sure I got back to my place safe and sound.

It had been a lot to take in.

At first, while he confessed what he’d done, I’d thought he was being funny. Pranking me. Making up outlandish shit for some kind of laugh. But when he didn’t smile, his eyes intense, I’d known.

Hell, I’d felt someone watching me but hadn’t been able to explain it.

What jarred me wasn’t what he’d shared but my reaction to it. I never felt everything I should have felt. I should have been weirded out, freaked out that he had broken into my place and even stolen my panties. I should have been terrified that he had looked into me and my life and knew all sorts of things about not just me but my mom and sisters.

But those were none of the things I felt.

He’d sat across from me and anxiously waited for my reaction, his shoulders set tensely. And when I’d stood up, I hadn’t missed the way his eyes had jumped to the front door. I’d known he thought I was going to make a run for it.

And having found out I not only had a bratty side, but that Daddy was a safe space for me to be one, I’d done just that.

I’d run. And he’d chased. Pinning me to the wall, apologizing with kisses on my neck, his hands on my body before he turned me around and froze when he saw the smile on my face.

It might have earned me my very first spanking.

One Daddy made sure I enjoyed.

But now? Looking at his place, comparing it to mine, I wasn’t sure how we would make this work. How we fit.

“You belong with me,” he said, almost like he knew exactly what I was thinking. “Right here, next to me,” he added, his tone the perfect mix of confident and stern. “It doesn’t matter where we came from.” He’d shared his own background of bouncing around in foster care until the Porters adopted him and his four brothers.

“Hollis.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “You have your life together,” I tried to explain.

“Bullshit,” he said, and I frowned.

“You do.”

“I didn’t have shit until you came into my life.” I blinked away tears. “Move in with me.”

“Hollis,” I sighed.

“I’m serious. I don’t want to live without you.”

“What about my sisters? My mom?”

“The house across the street is for sale.”