Obsession (The Plus One Chronicles) (10 page)

“Already sent.”

Sloane dragged his gaze from Kat, returned to his desk and downloaded the file on his laptop. “Has he gone near Sugar Dancer? Anything like that?”

“No. He’s mostly training or watching film of your fights and charity demonstrations, anything he can get his hands on.”

“Keep a close watch on him. He doesn’t get near Kat.” Since Olivia was in Florida, his mother was safe. Foster wouldn’t get through her protection anyway. Sloane started to disconnect.

“He has gone one other place.”

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “Where?”

“Sara’s grave.”

Rage seared his soul. Going to her grave to relive the rape and murder? Sara wouldn’t get peace until that motherfucker was dead.

Sloane cut the call and brought that day’s training video up on his big screen mounted on the wall. Leaning back in the chair, he forced ice into his veins. All his regrets, rage, grief were a distraction that could get him killed. Instead, he coldly analyzed the power Foster had developed in prison. He was a knockout fighter, going for the fast win, but he didn’t have the stamina for a true fight.

Sloane did. He’d toy with this fucker until…

A gasp startled him.

Kat stood in the French doors, her bruised face wide-eyed as she stared at Foster sparring with a partner on the screen. “That’s not you.”

“No.” He stopped the video. She hated fighting, had said she didn’t want to watch any of his old ones. But she had to see this to know what to look for. Sloane held out his hand to her. “Come here.”

She dropped her towel on the conference table as she crossed the room and slid her hand into his. The ice in his veins thawed with her touch and her trust in coming to him. He tugged her onto his lap to keep her warm now that she was finished stretching. “I need you to look at the man on the right.”

“Who is he?”

Sloane had never wanted this ugly part of his life to touch Kat. Pressing his chest to her back, he looked down at the unbruised side of her face. “Lee Foster.”

She stiffened. “The man who murdered Sara.”

“Yes. This is his training video from today. I have people watching him, plus you have bodyguards, so he should never get near you. But I want you prepared.”

She was silent, studying the frozen picture. “He’s not as tall as you.”

“He’s six one, two hundred and thirty pounds at his last weigh-in. His eyes are blue, dirty-blond hair usually buzz cut, and he has a burn scar on the back of his left hand from an accident in prison. No tats.”

Kat turned on his lap. “You do this every day? Watch videos of him training?”

The dark, clawing fear returned, but Sloane wouldn’t lie to her. “Yes. He’s watching videos of my fights, anything he can get.”

Her face paled.

Sloane reached past her and closed the video and his computer. He folded his arms around her, desperate to feel her against him. “I had to show you. Sara didn’t know how to protect herself, but you do.” He shuddered at the thought of her being attacked. “He wouldn’t expect you to fight back. That’s your advantage—you do whatever it takes to get away. No panicking, Kat. You live.”
Don’t die. Don’t leave me
. He needed her.

* * *

She looked over her shoulder at his rigid profile. “You showed me this knowing how I feel about your plan? That I don’t want you to do this?”

“Yes.” He rested his chin on her shoulder. “You were blindsided by an attack once before because of Dickhead and whatever he got himself into. You have the right to know in order to protect yourself if he gets to you, which he won’t.”

“Seeing that…” she waved toward the computer, “…makes it so real.” Kat’s stomach twisted at the idea of Sloane fighting with Foster. Killing him. She had to show Sloane he wasn’t a killer. But how? “You’re not him. You’re not a killer.”

Old pain haunted his eyes. “I have to be. My investigators followed him going to her grave.” Sloane’s entire body stiffened, and his knuckles whitened as he gripped the edge of his desk. “Even dead, Sara can’t escape behind tormented by Foster.”

That bastard. Kat hated him for the pain he was putting Sloane through. At that second, Kat wanted Foster dead, she just didn’t want Sloane to do it and destroy himself. Shifting around, she straddled his lap and wrapped her arms around him. “He can’t hurt Sara now. She’s out of his reach, but she’s not out of your heart. She knows you love her.” Kat pressed her face to the hot skin of his chest. His heart thumped against her cheek.

He released his hold on the desk. Wrapping one thick arm around her shoulders, he pulled the clip out of her hair and combed his fingers through it. “When you throw yourself in my arms like this, I don’t ever want to let you go. I want to be the man you think I am.”

She knew him. Didn’t she? She’d thought she’d known David too. Had known him for years…and been wrong. So wrong. Dark, ugly doubt brewed in her chest. Yet Sloane, who had been mad at her earlier, was massaging her scalp and running his fingers through her hair in sensual strokes, until she wanted to moan with the sweet tingles that were more comforting than sexual. He held her to him with his arm around her shoulders, careful of her sore ribs.

Her doubts began to melt.

This was the man who’d stayed up watching her for a concussion last night, applying ice packs while she slept and rocking her out on the deck when she’d been awake. She’d fallen asleep in his arms and didn’t remember him putting her back in bed.

“I know who you are.” Kat rested her hand on his chest. She had to believe he’d make the right choice when he got into that cage with his sister’s murderer, or he’d shatter them both.

Sloane gently drew his thumb over her bottom lip. “An asshole?”

“Not all the time.”

His mouth curved. “I meant what I said on the beach.”

“The part about ripping off my shorts?”

Sloane closed his eyes, shifting his hips beneath her. The hard ridge of his cock glided against her cleft. “Stop distracting me. No sex while you’re hurting.” When he lifted his lids, the amber chips in his eyes flamed with need. “Do you know how I felt when I walked in and saw you trying to move Drake after you’d been in a car accident? You needed someone to care for you, but I had to go deal with the fallout of the steroid mess, then I went to the gym. I should have been here.”

“I told you to go to the gym.” Sloane had called to check in, and Kat had heard the strain in his voice. He’d needed to release tension. And everything had been fine with both her and Drake then. “I sent Jane home. Drake and I were going to watch movies in his room.”

“I get that, Kitten. But I want to be the guy you call even if you’re just having a bad day. You could have handled tonight on your own. The point is you don’t have to.”

His words sank into her and swelled until they filled her empty places. He wanted to be there for her. “Okay.”

He smiled. “But don’t stop yelling back at me. I like it.”

“You’re weird. Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to yell. I was supposed to be civilized.”

Wrapping his hand around the back of her neck, he tugged her toward him. “What we have is not civilized. It’s raw, real and honest. You’re my baker girl who asked me to spank her ass…and then begged me to spank her pussy. We don’t hold back from each other. Ever.” His eyes glittered while his cock throbbed.

Drowning in his desire, she dug her fingers into his shoulders. “You’re holding back now. I can feel how hard you are. We could be careful.”

He framed her face and gently rocked against her. “This isn’t holding back. It’s anticipation of stripping you and fucking you until you scream my name.” He pressed in, brushing his lips over hers. “I’ll be right there with you, losing control as I drive my cock into you and shouting that you’re mine.” He eased back in his chair. “That’s worth waiting for until you’re healed.”

A wash of soul-searing heat and love took her breath away. It was too much, too powerful.

It could destroy them both.

Chapter Seven

Tuesday afternoon, Kat paused at the door of the private room in the hospital. “Ethan?”

“Kat.” The young man looked pale, a little bruised and a lot tired in the bed. He muted the TV. “Is Sloane with you?”

The hope and fear made his voice uneven. Did he doubt that Sloane would be there? “He’s meeting me here. Is it okay if I wait with you?”

“Sure.”

Kat moved into the room.

His gaze widened. “Ah crap, your face.”

He sounded so stricken, she tried to joke and make him feel better. “You should see the other guy. He’s in the hospital.”

“Probably deserved it.” He looked away from her toward the window.

This kid was carrying way too much guilt. “What you deserve is for your friends, the people who care about you, to be here for you now.” This was why Kat had closed her shop early to come visit him. Sloane had told her Ethan was having a bad time of it. The cardiologist was worried about his depression.

Kat understood that all too well. But she’d had a support system she could count on. Sure, she’d had issues with David, but her family had demanded the best care for her. She’d known she was going home to her parents’ house.

Far as she knew, Ethan didn’t have any family around. Sloane had said they’d found him at sixteen.

“Drake wanted to come see you today. We talked him out of it, which involved promises of cherry popsicles and me baking him anything he wants on demand, but he finally agreed to wait to see you when you come home in a day or two.”

“Do you think Sloane will let me go back to the guesthouse? Until I figure something out?” Leaning his head back against the pillows, he added, “I don’t know how I’m going to pay all the medical bills.”

The weight of that boy’s worry was so thick, it nearly strangled Kat. “Oh, Ethan—”

“You will be coming home.” Sloane cut her off as he strode into the room. He stopped next to her, his presence chasing out some of Ethan’s lingering fear. “You have medical insurance as my driver. Everything is covered.”

Kat knew better than that. There would be some bills, but she suspected Ethan would never see them.

Sloane laid a hand on Ethan’s biceps. “Don’t you even think of going back to underground fighting. John and I will find you, and I promise you won’t like it when we do.”

Kat stiffened at Sloane’s harsh tone. Had he threatened Ethan?

“But my chances at UFC are over. I can’t get medical clearance with a heart condition. I don’t have anything else.”

Kat eyed Sloane. The scar by his mouth whitened.

“You fucked up.” He ran his hand over his face. “What I don’t get is why. You’re good, you didn’t need that shit.”

Ethan glanced at Kat, then at the muted TV on the wall.

This was her cue to give them a little privacy. Her heart ached for Ethan. She wanted to hug him and tell him it would all be okay, but it wasn’t that easy. Still, did Sloane have to be so hard? Fighting the urge to ask Sloane to be nicer, she said, “I have to go make a phone call. I’ll check back a little later.”

She headed toward the door when she heard Ethan say, “I wanted to be like you. You gave me this chance, and I didn’t want to fail you.” His voice broke.

Kat leaned against the wall outside the room and closed her eyes. She knew what it was like to try so hard to live up to what you believed someone wanted from you. She had tried to with her parents, particularly her mother. And David too. She knew that didn’t work—it led to bad decisions—and for Ethan, it was taking steroids.
Please, Sloane, understand that the boy worships you. Needs you.

“Jesus, kid.” Sloane’s voice flowed through the open door. “You don’t get it. You didn’t fail me. I’m here for you no matter what you do.” There was a pause then Sloane went on. “You failed yourself with a boneheaded decision. Now I’m not letting you out of my sight until we get you through this and figure out what you want to do with your future. Once you’re well, you can return to being my driver until you decide.”

A stream of warm love for Sloane filled her veins and relaxed her muscles. Pushing off the wall, she headed to the waiting room. She passed a bank of elevators and cast a glance at a couple of people waiting.