Page 116 of Lethal Obsession

I set a course for Italy, more because I won’t risk exposing Ofelia by hanging around the Spanish coast than for any real desire to go there.

What I want to do is bring her back to my yacht, get her clothes off, and spend the rest of this forced hiatus taking her body apart on every available surface.

If she was any other girl, we’d already be doing exactly that.

And that, right there, is the fucking problem.

Ofelia isn’t just any other girl. And not just because she’s Roman Borovsky’s daughter.

The simple truth is that it’s only been days since she left, and I already crave her like the worst kind of addict fiending for a hit.

I still haven’t let the cleaners launder her sarong, because I like the way her rose-and-almond scent clings to it, filling my cabin like she’s still in my bed. I obsessively check the satellite map, calculating exactly how long it would take me to get to her from each port we pass.

I pace the upper deck agitatedly for the tenth time since I woke before dawn. Normally the vast blue expanse would calm my mind. Today all it does is piss me off.

I don’t want Ofelia in her house in Granada talking to me down a secure line, no matter how careful we’ve been, how good the dragons are, or if there’s absolutely no reason at all to suspect anyone is watching her.

Despite knowing damned well that being close to me is literally the most dangerous place she could possibly be, I want her fucking here, on my yacht, surrounded by my men, with my gun and knife watching her back.

I don’t need anyone to tell me that I’m the chief fucking reason she’s likely to need protection in the first place.

Goddammit.

It’s a frustrating circular argument that I’ve been having with myself from the moment she left. Before that.

Hell. I’ve been having the same fucking argument with myself for seven damn years.

And if I’d thought that sleeping with her would somehow put it to rest, I was sorely mistaken. Our week together has made it abundantly clear to me that there’s no chance in hell I can give Ofelia Borovsky up. If I’d thought my self-imposed distance from her difficult before, now it’s exquisite fucking torture.

I want her with me. Beside me every day. Want to hear her playing when I come out onto the deck. To lie on the sofa while she practices, watching expressions shift across her face as she loses herself in the music, listening to the parts of her soul that only emerge through those keys—or when she’s naked and gasping beneath me.

My body seizes so hard it takes my breath away.

Christ.

Celibacy is definitely a new experience. I’m accustomed to ruthlessly taking out my lust on whatever woman happens to be available. But after the week I’ve just had, mindlessly fucking a stranger just to scratch an itch holds no appeal whatsoever.

I want Ofelia. I want her here, and I want her forever.

I stare at the sun blazing off the deck, heady possibility warring with stark reality.

Forever isn’t a heady sojourn on a yacht. It isn’t an intense rendezvous every few months. And it certainly isn’t being on the run, dodging fucking bullets from an unknown enemy.

My hand goes unconsciously to the pocket of my deck shorts, probing the square box I’ve been carrying around for days now.

Why didn’t you just give it to her, you idiot?

But I know why—just like I know why I took the box in the first place.

Because some part of me always knew what giving Ofelia that gift would mean.

It would mean going to her father, and mine, and beating back every one of their inevitable arguments until they realize there’s no fucking chance I’m backing down.

It would mean a home. One somewhere far away from the swamp.

Ofelia playing stages around the world.

Maybe even children one day.