Her Obsession (by Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 70

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He didn’t let me move first. One second I was boneless and buzzing, the next I was flat on my back again, Conner braced over me like a wall, eyes scanning me the way he scans a battlefield. Soft, and deadly serious.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he murmured, a kiss to my temple before he vanished into the bathroom.

I could have laughed. Where was I gonna go? Water ran. Cupboards opened. He came back with a basin of warm water, a stack of clean towels, fresh gauze, tape, scissors, a little brown bottle I recognized as antiseptic, and that stubborn set to his jaw that meant I wasn’t winning any arguments.

“Hey,” he said, gentler now. “Eyes on me.”

I blinked up at him, the room swimming back into place. He wrung out a cloth and touched it to my collarbone first, testing temperature like I’m something that can break. I’m not used to that. To being tested for tenderness. It does something strange to my ribs.

“We overdid it?” I asked, voice rough.

He huffed a laugh, eyes flicking to my shoulder bandage. “We did just enough. Now I fuss.”

“Bossy,” I muttered.

“Possessive,” he corrected, and the word warmed me in places heat couldn’t reach.

He started with my face, careful around the split at my lip, then down my throat where bruises from training painted shadows. He didn’t ask me to move; he moved the world around me, tilting my chin, lifting an elbow with two fingers, sliding the cloth beneath me to catch what needed catching. Between my thighs he slowed, eyes meeting mine like a question. I nodded. He took care of it with a reverence that made everything in me go quiet. When he reached my shoulder he paused, breath steady, soldier-steady. He unbuttoned the ruined green shirt the rest of the way, his shirt, my shirt and folded the fabric back. The bandage was clean but tugged at the edge where we’d pressed too hard earlier. He soaked the tape, peeled it off millimeter by millimeter, and my vision sparkled white for one hot second.

“Easy,” he whispered. His hand slid to the back of my neck, thumb at my pulse, counting. “Breathe with me.”

I matched him, four in, six out, while he examined the wound with a medic’s patience I didn’t know he owned. “No fresh bleed. Still holding.” He dabbed antiseptic, reapplied a thin layer of ointment, then laid new gauze down like it was silk. His fingers never shook.

“Ribs next.” He palmed the wrap, eyes lifting like a warning. “You’ll hate me.”

“I already do.”

He smiled for real then, that crooked thing he doesn’t hand out. I let him sit me up against his chest, the sheet gathered over my lap. Every inch he tightened the wrap around my ribs felt like a drawn-out confession. I didn’t make a sound. He didn’t ask me to. But his mouth found my hairline when the worst passed, a thank you pressed to skin.

“Water,” he said, reclaiming his hands like he missed them on me. He fed me sips with a straw, then a small glass of electrolyte mix that tasted like salt and fake citrus. “Antibiotic. Half a painkiller. Don’t argue.”

“I never argue,” I lied, swallowing both.

He set a soft ice pack against the edge of the wrap, slid a warmed towel beneath my calves, and because he is who he is, reached for my hair. His fingers worked through the tangles with embarrassing care, then he gathered it low, loose, a knot that wouldn’t pull at anything

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14:12 Sun, Oct 19

Possessive.

tender. He laid my knives on the nightstand within reach without comment. Respect. That nearly undid me more than anything else.

“Temperature’s good,” he murmured, back to doctoring. He checked my pupils with a mini penlight and smirked when I squinted. “Hydration’s not. We’ll fix it.”

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“You’re thorough.”

“I’m invested.” He tucked the blanket around me like he was building a perimeter. “You safe?”

With you. “For now.”

He nodded, accepting the terms. Then he slid under the covers beside me, not crowding, just there, heat and weight and watchfulness. He angled pillows beneath my arm to keep strain off the shoulder and guided my head to his chest like it belonged there. Maybe it did.

“You’re staring,” I said, after a minute of listening to his heart find its normal pace.

“Cataloguing,” he admitted. “Every bruise. Every stitch. So when I get my hands on Yakov, I return them one for one.”

I closed my eyes and let the promise settle. “Interest, too,” I murmured. “Always take interest.”

He breathed a laugh into my hair. We stayed like that, the quiet thick and kind. He brushed lazy circles at the inside of my wrist where the IV had been, keeping rhythm with my breath, and I let myself float, tired and clean and claimed.

“You know,” he said softly, like he was speaking to the ceiling, “you don’t have to always be iron.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I came here.”

His arm tightened, just a fraction. “You came home.”

Dangerous word. Beautiful, stupid word. I let it sit between us and didn’t kick it away.

“Conner?”

“Yeah, little ghost.”

“Thank you.” It felt small for what he’d done, what he does. But it was the heaviest thing I could lift.

He kissed the crown of my head. “Sleep. I’m on watch.”

I should have told him I don’t sleep well when someone else is guarding me. That trust is not a switch I know how to throw. But his heartbeat was steady under my cheek, and the room smelled like soap and warm cotton and him, and the knives were where I could reach them and for once, I let the world be simple. He turned off the lamp. Shadows softened. Somewhere in the house, a floorboard sighed and then went still.

“Always watching,” I said, a smile I didn’t mean to show curving my mouth.

“Always,” he promised back.

I slept. I didn’t need to, but I did for him.

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14:12 Sun, Oct 19

Possessive.

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14:12 Sun, Oct 19

Her Obsession.