Obsessed

by Aleatha Romig

  I silently scoffed.

  It was too bad I didn’t have some of our compound with me.

  I slowly spun a full circle, taking in the entirety of the room. It wasn’t only the answers that I might learn that brought a chill over me. His office was cold, not as in temperature, but as in atmosphere.

  Unlike the rustic chic and golden hue of the other rooms of his house, Kader’s office could be considered industrial, like walking out of a home and into a warehouse. In a way, his office reminded me of the basement where we’d been, only this one had windows.

  The wood floor that spanned throughout the rest of the house stopped at the entryway to the office. I stared down at my bare feet. The surface currently beneath them was smooth, much like concrete covered in a glossy finish, the same as people had in fancy garages. The walls were covered with the same gray coating. While there were multiple computer screens on the long desk at Kader’s eye-level, there were also huge flat screens mounted higher on the walls, currently dark. Beyond the computer center were other machines. Some were familiar, such as a normal printer and a 3D one as well. We had those at the university. Those were only two. There were plenty more of which I had no clue of their functions or benefits.

  Unlike offices of old, there were no walls filled with bookcases full of books and trimmed with fancy woodwork. There wasn’t a grand desk, a grouping of chairs, or a conference table for discussions.

  It was clear that Kader worked as he’d told me—alone. I also ascertained that his information didn’t come from old books, cases, or studies. Kader did his research through the internet.

  As a scientist and professor, I was cognizant that by the time a textbook was published, the material was out of date. Staying up-to-date on current research meant reading the most recent refereed publications. When my parents studied psychology, staying up-to-date meant subscribing to the most respected monthly research journals. Today those publications were online and not limited to monthly postings. Every day was a race to publish first, to blaze the trail.

  Mourning my loss, I admitted to myself that had been our goal—what we’d hoped would happen with our formula and compound.

  With a sigh, I tucked Kader’s shirt under my backside and sat on the chair he had waiting beside him.

  Turning away from the screen, his gaze met mine. “It’s late. There have been some developments, but they won’t change by tomorrow. Maybe we should wait. You seem...tired.”

  “I am. But I want to know.”

  His gaze lowered to my lap, scanning and stilling as it reached my exposed legs. “Fuck, Laurel, you know how to be distracting.”

  I tugged the shirt lower. “Tell me where the laundry room is, and I’ll throw a load in the washing machine before bed.”

  “If I don’t tell you, does that mean you’ll spend tomorrow in another one of my shirts?”

  Reaching toward me, Kader’s fingers splayed above my knee, the warmth sending impulses to areas of my body I knew would be counterproductive to learning the most recent developments. I covered his hand with mine. “This touching thing is still unfair.”

  “I like touching you, but if you say no...” His words trailed away.

  Leaning forward, I moved my hands to his smooth cheeks, closed my eyes, and brushed his lips with mine. Though it wasn’t really a kiss, the contact sent more waves of warmth through my circulation. My nipples drew tight, and without thinking, I pushed my thighs closer together. When I opened my eyes, we were nose to nose, our breathing shallower than a moment before as we inhaled one another’s breaths. “I’m not saying no. I like it too.” My hands were still over his cheeks. “I like touching you too.”

  The sound of something resembling a low growl came from his throat.

  “I’ll give you the same option you gave me,” I said. “If you say no...”

  “You have a short memory, Laurel. I’ve said no.”

  My shoulders slumped as the disappointment of his words squelched the fire that had been flickering within me. Pulling my hands away, I broke eye contact and looked toward the screens. “What’s happening on there?”

  Kader didn’t answer. Instead, he reached for my hands and returned them to the sides of his face. As he did, the fire’s warmth returned, a singular spark saved by an unanticipated fuel source. My heart began to race and my eyes widened.

  “What does this mean?” I asked.

  Lowering his eyelids, for a moment Kader’s green disappeared, and then it returned, glowing with the light from the screens. “Fuck, Laurel, I don’t know. I’m no longer saying no. I’m saying I like having you touch me too. Just keep it to my face, hands...” He lowered one of my hands to his arm, placing my palm over his sleeve. “...and clothes. I don’t want to explain any more. I...” He swallowed. “...this is new for me. I don’t understand it.”

  My forehead furrowed. “What is new? I’m no expert, but I’m confident that what happened back in the basement wasn’t your first time.”

  “First is more subjective than it sounds. It was the first time I’ve wanted a woman as much as I want you. I don’t remember ever being as overwhelmed as the way you overwhelm me. You’re fucking with my head. You’re messing with my self-control, and for a person in my line of work, that’s not a good thing.”

  A smile bloomed across my face, growing larger with each of his sentences. “I know exactly what you mean about being overwhelmed.”

  His broad shoulder shrugged. “I doubt that, but I’m tired of fighting it, especially with you sitting here with only my shirt covering you and nothing else underneath.”

  My neck straightened as my mouth dropped wide open. “H-how did you know that?”

  His lips curled upward as his cheeks rose. “When you walked in the kitchen, the way the light hit you, the shirt was...” His eyebrows moved upward. “...transparent. With one glance, I was ready to forget the dinner and get a better look at what I’d seen upstairs.”

  I sat back against the chair and covered my heated cheeks. “I’m so embarrassed. I need to do laundry.”

  He reached for my hands. “For a doctor with your credentials, I’m certain you’ve been required to make a case for a thesis or dissertation and to defend that case to the committee in a convincing manner.”

  I nodded.

  “And I would assume you were kick-ass.”

  “I succeeded.”

  Kader’s hand was again on my leg, inching upward over my thigh. His green orbs glowed with a new warmth rivaling the intensity of the sun. His head shook. “If your argument for laundry is that with access, you won’t walk around here like you are now, with your bare pussy inches from my touch and your hardened nipples tenting the material of my shirt, your argument has failed.”

  Covering his hand, I smiled. “Thank you.”

  “For wanting to finger-fuck you right now, right here?”

  Though I was smiling, my eyes filled with tears. “You knew I was scared about what you might tell me. Thank you for distracting me.”

  “Is that what you think I was doing?”

  I nodded as I entwined my fingers with his, moving his away from my leg. “I do. And you succeeded.” I looked up to the screens. “Are you going to tell me what you’ve found?”

  Taking a deep breath, Kader began typing, his actions pulling up the same surveillance I’d seen on the screens in the basement. “Right now, not much. It’s two hours earlier here than in Indianapolis.”

  The clock in the kitchen had read a little after ten at night when I turned off the lights and headed this way.

  He looked up. “I did confirm that during the conversation where Olsen was defending you and Cartwright, he was speaking to Oaks.”

  Did it make me happy or sad that Eric believed in us?

  For the next undetermined amount of time, Kader ran footage at a faster than normal speed. He started with today’s and then yesterday’s, making his way back in time. It was as if we were watching movies in fast-forward. The human mind was a fast
learner. It didn’t take much time before I was viewing the sped-up feeds as if they were in real time. He only slowed the feeds when someone would come and go.

  It was as we were watching footage from my kitchen that I gasped, and new tears filled my eyes.

  “Slow it down,” I cried. “What is the time stamp?”

  The feed paused, yesterday’s date and 4:15 P.M. became visible in the corner. On the screen was a policewoman in uniform entering my house.

  “Laurel, I haven’t seen this footage. I think that I should watch it first.”

  Though my heart was beating wildly within my chest, my fingers blanched as I held tightly to the chair, and I’d now scooted to the edge of the seat. I shook my head. “No. I want to see.”

  The feed began moving in slower than normal speed. The woman in uniform walked about my kitchen as the door opened and a man in a suit entered. She stepped back, allowing him to take the lead.

  “Who is that?” I asked.

  “I’ll run facial recognition, but I’d assume an IMPD detective. They aren’t going to send a patrol officer in alone. I’m surprised they didn’t send a forensic team.” He shrugged. “Maybe they did Wednesday night.”

  With my lip snagged between my teeth, I watched, enthralled by what I was seeing. They spent a few minutes in the kitchen. And then the man led as they both disappeared from the kitchen, heading the direction of my living room.

  “Do you have other cameras?”

  Kader typed as the screen before us subdivided. My living room, bedroom, and spare bedroom came into view. The policewoman was walking up the stairs while the man was already in my bedroom.

  “I thought the cameras at my house had been disabled,” I said, recalling when they went black.

  “I put in more when I went back to...” Kader didn’t finish the sentence.

  “What do you think this means?” I asked as the two moved about the rooms.

  “Based on an earlier news app I’d seen before you came in here, you and Cartwright have been reported missing. You’re both nondisabled adults. The police don’t usually investigate adult disappearances during the first forty-eight hours. You were last seen on Monday. The news didn’t mention you being at the university in the middle of the night. I’d disabled the cameras out on the loading dock. That means that whoever was taking you or wanted you got rid of the footage from the front lobby as well as the elevator.” He tilted his head toward the screen. “This was recorded on Thursday. The timeline fits.”

  A surreal feeling washed over me as we sat watching someone I didn’t know go through my house.

  Kader and I sat in silence as each room was checked and they descended the stairs going back to the kitchen.

  “Can you imagine...” I stopped, trying to swallow my grief and tears. Reaching out, I laid my hand on Kader’s arm.

  When he looked my way, he silently covered my hand with his.

  “...if they would have found...him...” I looked down.

  “They didn’t. They won’t.”

  “I’m not sure if I ever said thank you.”

  “You did,” he said.

  Movement on the screen refocused my attention beyond Kader’s handsome face.

  The policewoman and gentleman exited; however, they didn’t stay gone for long. The door opened again. My heart soared as I jumped from the chair and stifled a gasp.

  “Oh my God. It’s my parents.”

  Kader

  I wasn’t certain at what point it happened. My memory blurred. No one’s anguish affected me. I’d watched men die from a distance. I’d also been close enough to feel their last breaths and hear the crackling of the vertebrae as I snapped their necks, severing the vital nerves. Respiratory arrest was immediate; cardiac took longer. During those instances, I had even allowed the beneficiaries of my services to see me.

  There was satisfaction in a job well done. To view the expression of an assignment during his last seconds of life, watching the change in his expression as the realization of imminent death settles over him was a show unlike any other. In many instances, I wanted that person to see me, to then enter the gates of hell with the knowledge that I was the one who delivered to them their destiny.

  Mindless pleas spoken by a sentenced assignment—a man or more rarely a woman—never mattered to me. I was deaf to them. To be honest, they bored me. Those that haven’t witnessed what I have often harbor preconceived notions about the fortitude of powerful businessmen, entrepreneurs, or even hard-core criminals. It was a general belief that the more powerful that individuals were, the more dignified a manner in which they’d face death. I could testify that in most cases that belief was untrue.

  None were above pleading for their lives. The bigger the assignment, the more they possessed to offer.

  Fortune.

  Power.

  Women—even their own daughters.

  There was nothing a man or woman wouldn’t put forward in exchange for that next breath.

  Those promises and pleas never affected me. Those people had nothing I wanted. It was the opposite. Taking their lives meant fortifying my reputation.

  Somehow with Laurel, all of that had changed.

  The sight of Laurel’s anguish as she watched her parents overwhelmed me in an unfamiliar way. Moved to action, I’d offered to turn off the feed, to watch it by myself and tell her what happened, or to watch without sound. Every offer was met by a shake of her head until there was nothing left to do but watch with her.

  Her eyes grew red and puffy as she struggled to breathe.

  Helplessness was also foreign to me.

  Not certain what to do, I offered her my hand. “Come here.” She wasn’t far away; nevertheless, any distance was too far.

  Laurel didn’t move as her grip of the chair’s arms tightened.

  Perhaps it wasn’t her decision to remain still. I would ascertain that at that moment she couldn’t move. Laurel was paralyzed by the scene unfolding: her parents wandering her house, accompanied by the detective, the policewoman, and Laurel’s assistant. Mrs. Carlson’s tears and Mr. Carlson’s constant questions filled our ears.

  “I don’t understand,” her mother repeatedly said between bouts of crying. “You think she left?”

  “Why would she leave? You have to find her,” her father pleaded with the detective.

  I stood, momentarily blocking the screen. If Laurel wasn’t going to come to me, I was going to bring her to me. Bending down, I scooped Laurel from the chair. She didn’t protest or object. Her slack body fell against me as her dampened blue eyes vied between the screen and me.

  “I-I want to watch,” she managed to whisper.

  “We won’t leave.”

  I’d carried Laurel before, when she was unconscious, but this was different. As I sat back in my chair, her trembling body in my lap and bare legs over mine, Laurel curled farther into my grasp, settling her head against my chest.

  My mind filled with questions.

  When had her parents been contacted?

  Who had contacted them?

  Why would they allow so much traffic within her house?

  Had they decided it wasn’t a crime scene?

  And then as the five people left her home, the tugging in my chest accompanied by the way Laurel’s hands fisted my shirt—holding on for life—I knew my questions could wait.

  My lips brushed the top of her head. “Let’s take you upstairs.”

  She nodded.

  “Can you walk?”

  Instead of answering my question, Laurel began speaking about what we’d seen and heard. “This isn’t me.” She pointed at the screen as her volume rose. “That isn’t me. I wouldn’t leave like that. They...” She gasped for air between words of her tearstained declaration. “...did you hear what they said? They think Russ and I took off—left. They’re accusing us of stealing the university’s research.” She turned in my lap and faced me. “Kader, my reputation...my research and published papers are respected worldwide. We
re. This...” She gestured about. “...has taken everything from me, everything.” She elongated the repeated pronoun, turning back to the now-dark screen with a sigh. “And my parents are being told...lies.” Swallowing, she turned back to me and acknowledged my earlier question. “Yes, I can walk.”

  Pushing away, Laurel moved her feet to the floor, her bare ass squirming in my lap.

  Fuck, it was totally inappropriate to get hard at this moment.

  My mind knew that.

  When it came to Laurel, my dick and mind weren’t on speaking terms. At the moment, the denim of my blue jeans was the only thing keeping my growing rod from her pussy.

  How much pressure could a zipper take?

  I stood beside her, needing to adjust myself before the zipper’s teeth lost the war.

  Laurel looked up at me. “I don’t want a new life. I want you to help me save mine.” Her neck straightened as she pivoted and walked toward the doorway. At the last second she turned back to me. “Or I’ll do it myself.”

  In one stride I was before her. “What do you think you are going to do?”

  “Where’s my phone?”

  Without verbally answering, I shook my head as my jaw clenched.

  Laurel pointed back at the screens. “Were those real police? Are my parents and Stephanie in danger? How is Stephanie back at the university when she said she received the same call as I had?” Her hands cupped her cheeks. “Oh, Kader, you said the only way my parents would know about me was if they were in contact with the person who hired you. Now they’re in danger.”

  New tears filled her eyes.

  I reached for her shoulders. “I said the only way your parents would know you were dead was if the person who hired me was in contact with them. You heard what they said on that recording. They don’t know you’re dead. They only know that you’re missing. Anyone could make that assumption. You haven’t been to work since Monday. You haven’t been to your house. Your car is in the driveway. They know you are missing.”

  Laurel nodded and taking a step out of my grasp, walked away. Instead of heading toward the stairs, she turned back to the kitchen. Pushing a panel of switches, she bathed the room in light.