Arran’s Obsession (Body Count, #1)

Friday evening rolled in. I’d worked a ten-hour day, clocking in ahead of the lunchtime rush then quitting at eight, despite requests from my boss to do overtime.

At home, I arrived with the small hope that one of my family members would’ve appeared, but no one was here, same as when I’d got back in the early hours. I’d taken down the eviction notice and studied the small print. Cherry was bang on the money—Dad owed thousands in back rent. We had thirty days until the heavies threw us out.

Terror held me in its grip.

Finding Dad was all the more vital.

At least my brother had texted back. It was a short ‘I’ll call you’ message, but proof of life when I needed it.

I took a hasty shower, the power use burning through the money I’d put on the electric meter, shaved everything, and took off the bandage the stranger had taped on for me last night. My road rash was bruising with shades of purple and red, but it wasn’t bleeding anymore. Neither was the cut to my arm. I needed to cover both if I was going to look the part tonight.

Pulling on a dressing gown, I dried my hair in my tiny bedroom and moisturised my skin until it gleamed. Then I entered the living room, hunting down my makeup bag.

From the window, I caught sight of a figure outside.

I did a double-take then stared, my heart thumping. It was him, the man who’d mowed me down. He stood alone under a streetlight, the yellow glow falling over him and softening his handsome features. Like yesterday, it was a roasting evening, the heatwave unending, and my mystery man wore a close-fitting t-shirt and jeans.

I hadn’t forgotten my reaction to him. How his touch did something weird to my brain.

If he was here for me, that was…interesting. Perhaps I’d had the same effect on him.

Or maybe he was like Don and just another gangbanger wanting a woman to mess with.

Adrenaline rose in me. I had a half-drunk iced coffee from the convenience store beading condensation on our dining table, my caffeine addiction my only real vice, so my heart was already racing. That was my only excuse for the action I took.

Cranking open the sash window, I leaned out. “Hey.”

The man sought out my voice. He tilted his head in recognition then crossed the street.

“Why are you lurking outside my house?” I demanded.

Stupid, stupid girl. Now he knew where I lived. What the hell was wrong with me? One face-off with a pretty guy and I’d lost all sense.

“Hunting you down, little maniac. My best guess was the same place at the same time as yesterday,” he called up.

I perused him. “In case I leapt in front of your car again?”

His lips formed a smile. “Something like that.”

My stomach flipped. Smiles like that ought to be illegal.

At my lack of a reply, he continued. “I was concerned. Your injuries looked bad but you ran away.”

My mind supplied what it was that bothered me. The mistake he’d made when he’d asked if I sold sex for a living. I wanted to correct it. For some reason, it burned as a tight knot inside me.

Now he was here and I had a chance to set the record straight.

“You alone?” I asked.

He spread out his arms. “As you see.”

“Wait there,” I ordered and slammed the window closed.

In my bedroom, I dressed quickly in shorts and a spaghetti strap top, then tugged on ballet flats. Grabbing my keys, I left the flat and jogged downstairs.

Outside, a series of wide steps led to the paved street. The guy waited at the bottom.

In my light summer clothes, my injuries were fully on display, but his gaze stuck on my face. Heat crept through me, that weird attraction blooming low in my belly. I closed the door, still warm in the dusk, and leaned back on it.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then he cleared his throat. “My name’s Arran. I wanted to see you⁠—”

“Because you hit me with your car and wanted to be sure I didn’t sue or die on you? I got that.”

His mouth curved in amusement. “I don’t give a fuck about being sued. That hit was hard. I smacked the steering wheel with my shoulder and bruised from it. You came off a lot worse. I needed to see you were still walking.”

I eyed his shoulder, picturing him bare-chested. He had a nice shape to him, as well as an edge of danger. A fighter, maybe, like my brother sometimes was, though Arran’s knuckles weren’t busted and his nose was straight. “It was my fault. I deserved whatever I got.”

His gaze slid down to my thigh. “Does it hurt?”

Somehow he made that so distinctly sexual.

“Do you want it to?” I found myself saying.

Where the hell did that come from?

His eyebrows merged. “Probably not, but I’m open to being convinced.”

A dark-green car eased down the street, slowing as it neared. I squinted at it, then my blood ran cold. Don was in the driver’s seat, Moniqua’s violent cousin. He stared at me and at the man I was talking to.

God. Don was the type to pack heat. I’d never seen him with a gun, but he was easy with the knives and that was threat enough. If he was here for me, I needed either to run or put him off.

I tore my gaze back to Arran. “Come inside. I want to take a look at your shoulder.”

He didn’t move. “You’re worried about me?”

I was, but not for the reason he thought. Still, he wasn’t budging.

“Give me your wallet again for safekeeping, and I’ll trust you. Just keep your hands to yourself.”

This had him climbing the steps, hands shoved in his pockets. “Course I will.”

Upstairs, I let him into Dad’s flat, suddenly seeing it through the stranger’s eyes. I hadn’t grown up here, and none of the furniture was mine. Black mould stained the corners of the living room, the wallpaper peeling where I’d scrubbed it too many times. It was tidy, at least, no piles of beer cans littering the surface from where Dad would spend days on the sofa. No long-legged Riordan taking up space.

Just me and the big man. In my home.

The moment he closed the door behind us, fresh wariness settled over me. Arran held something out, and I fixed my skittish gaze onto it. His wallet, his driving licence on top.

“Take it. Send a picture to a friend or a neighbour if you want.”

I accepted it, scanning the details automatically.

Arran Daniels, twenty-eight, the picture of him wildly handsome in a way that wasn’t fair on government ID. At least he’d been honest about his name.

He crossed the living room to the window I’d hailed him from and watched the street. “Who was in the car?”

I breathed out. “How did you see that? You had your back to the road.”

“I have ears, and I was looking right at you.”

Which meant he could read reactions. I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself. “Bad news. Hopefully he’s gone now.”

For a moment, Arran kept his gaze on the dark road then stalked to the dining table, claimed a chair, then took it right back to the window where he could be seen from outside. “I have to get to work soon but I’ll wait to be sure you’re safe.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know. It’ll serve double duty if you show me that scratch of yours.”

I lifted my chin, not budging from my spot by the door. “You show me yours first.”

A pause, and a smirk replaced his neutral expression. Then the guy leaned forward and plucked his t-shirt right over his head, revealing his naked upper body. He rolled his shoulders. “I’m giving the bad-news brother a show from the window. Don’t be alarmed.”

Alarmed? I was anything but. My imagination had done a poor job of filling in the blanks of his shape. He was toned, but ruggedly male, too, with powerful muscles. Lines marked him, scars perhaps, and tattoos in black ink decorated his side. A black circle with an image in it. A skull. Goddamned mouthwatering.

Then I caught the shadow of a bruise at his shoulder. It had my feet moving until I was right in front of him.

“You hit the steering wheel when you braked for me.” My hand came up. I withdrew it. Touching him would be insane.

“It’s nothing.”

“Are you kidding? That’s a huge mark. I’m going to get something for it.”

“Not necessary,” he called after me.

“You’re not the only one with a first-aid kit,” I hollered back. In a few moments, I returned with cotton wool and a bottle of arnica. I soaked a handful of the wool in the medication then set the bottle onto the windowsill. “Want to do this or shall I?”

“What the hell is it?”

“Arnica? It brings out a bruise. Gets it healing faster.”

Arran wrinkled his nose, obviously dubious, but turned his head to indicate for me to proceed.

Leaning into his space, I extended my hand, trying to ignore the rush and rise of tension from how close we were. I dabbed his skin, the sharp tang of the arnica eclipsed by his much more pleasant scent. Something dark and masculine. It had me inching closer still.

The solution darkened the bruise, some small balance restoring after I’d hurt us both.

More, my body was having a field day at being next to a warm-blooded, attractive man. My last boyfriend had been over a year ago, and I didn’t do the casual thing.

Need built in a steady, insistent coil. It was boosted again by Arran’s short intake of breath as I moved between his spread knees. His fists bunched.

“Do you often walk into traffic like that?” he said, low and gruff.

“No. I’m normally better at self-preservation. I was distracted.”

“By what?”

I shrugged and changed the subject, trying to keep my brain in order as attraction continued its climb. He didn’t need to know my personal life. “You said you’ve got work. What kind of job starts at night?”

“Management.”

“Of what?”

I pressed his collarbone, where the bruise stained darkest, and Arran winced. Abruptly, he stood, taking me by the hips to reverse our positions. “Your turn in the chair.”

Carefully, I sat, wide-eyed at the switch. “I’m okay.”

Arran knelt and peered at my cut-up thigh, not touching me but close enough that the man-effect was doubling. “You haven’t even told me your name.”

“Genevieve,” I breathed.

His lips curved. “Pretty.”

The atmosphere shifted. Tightened. My body became molten.

His question to me returned, and I laughed under my breath, a nervous sound, betraying everything inside. “Still not a prostitute.”

He blinked. “I know. Wouldn’t matter if you were. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

I eyed him. If I leaned from the window, I could probably see Cherry on the church steps, getting abused for cash by some grimy piece-of-shit guy. No one could think that a great career choice, regardless of the right for women to choose. What I didn’t get was why this man was protesting.

“Yes, there is. It’s a shitty job, if you can even call it that.”

Arran sat back, the haziness in his eyes clearing. The air between us cooled, and he stood from his crouch and shrugged his shirt back on. All business again. “You share this place, right?”

I nodded once.

“Good. Then you won’t be alone long.”

He leaned over me, and I froze, but he only plucked his wallet from the windowsill, slotting his card back in place. On his way to the door, he spied my iced coffee, the ice cubes nearly all melted. “This yours?”

Another nod, and he picked it up and took a goddamned sip from my straw.

“Not as sweet as I expected.”

I gaped at him.

Then the confusing-as-hell stranger disappeared out of my door.

I lurched for my precious coffee and opened the window again, gazing down at him walking away as I drained the cup. Sirens wailed somewhere nearby, life as normal in the city.

But just like when I’d run from Arran yesterday, he didn’t look back.