Chapter 20
By ten o’clock that night, he’d had three voicemails from the doctor and four from Lily’s mother.
They were definitely starting to get desperate.
Paddy had been right to suggest that they take a step back and wait. With their desperation growing, they would fuck up, and then he’d be able to step in and figure out what the hell was going on.
Plus, Ronan wanted them to keep a low profile for the moment. Kidnapping the mother or the doctor could bring too much attention when he’d already taken Lily.
Harvey had spent most of the afternoon in his office trying to figure things out. He’d also been hiding.
From Lily.
It made him sound like a coward. But it wasn’t because he didn’t want to be near her, quite the opposite. He wanted to be as close as possible to her.
It was difficult to stick to his plan to cool things off a bit, to cool himself off a bit, when he was close to her.
Because all he wanted to do was take care of her and probably smother her. She’d made it clear that he was being too controlling, too much like her mother, and so he needed to change his ways. That meant that earlier today he’d had to hold back from ordering her to eat.
However, the urge to check on her was getting too strong to ignore. He had to see her. She’d barely eaten, so he needed to figure out a way to get some more food into her without being too bossy about it.
God, this was difficult. He never thought that he’d have to work so hard not to be himself.
Walking out, he found her sitting on the couch, watching a movie. It looked to be a romantic comedy, and he winced as the two main characters kissed.
This was not going to help his current state, because it seemed like the more he tried to stay away from her, the more he wanted her.
Seeing her sitting there with her hair tied up in a messy knot, no makeup on, huddled under a blanket, made him hard as hell.
He wanted to strip her bare and kiss every inch of her.
What was wrong with him? They didn’t have a clue what she’d really been through. It could be weeks or months before she was ready for anything more to progress beyond kissing in their relationship. Hell, at the moment, he wasn’t even sure they had a relationship.
Sure, he’d told her that she was his.
Unfortunately, he was all too aware that he couldn’t force anything. Although that didn’t mean he was going to give up on trying to win her over.
Gallaghers were known as stubborn, pig-headed, and determined
And they always got what they wanted.
“Hi, is everything all right?” She looked shyly up at him.
Adorable.
He gave her a small smile. “Everything’s fine. Sorry I haven’t been around. I’ve been arranging a few things.”
“That’s okay. You must also have work to do. I must be keeping you from it.”
“Well, if I did have work to do, you wouldn’t be the one keeping me from it. I would be, since I’m the one that decided to lock us up in this cabin.”
Which turned out to be a good idea in more ways than one. He’d wanted her safely tucked away where no one else could get to them while he worked on winning her over. But it also meant that no one could find her, including the doctor or her mother.
How disastrous could it have been if he’d taken her to his home which could be easily found? Who knows how long it would have taken them to turn up on his doorstep?
Shit. He hoped that Bea had remembered to feed the worms.
It was her responsibility to feed them while he was away, since she was the one that had given them to him as a birthday present a few months back. She’d told him that she was worried he was lonely and needed some company.
He had no idea what kind of company a bunch of worms could provide.
But it wasn’t like he could turn down a birthday present either.
Especially not with Ronan looking on. Ronan guarded his sisters with a protectiveness that was second to none, and no one, including his own brothers, were allowed to upset them. Not without feeling his wrath.
“What are you watching?” he asked, sitting beside her.
“Some romantic comedy. Do you want to watch it with me?”
God, that was going to be a serious test of his control, to sit here watching a romantic film while he couldn’t touch her.
But he also couldn’t tell her no.
“Got a couple of pizzas in the freezer. Why don’t I put them on, and then I’ll come back and sit with you?”
The smile on her face was worth the test to his control.
He could do this.
Harvey was sitting down the other end of the sofa.
The knot in her stomach grew tighter and tighter.
She hated the distance between them.
Somehow, she had to train her body to not be scared of touch, to not be scared of what he needed, the control he required.
So he wanted to boss her around in the bedroom. So what? Harvey would never harm her, and it wasn’t like she knew what she was doing, did she?
Maybe it was a good thing. Maybe she’d be less stressed about getting it all wrong.
Yeah, maybe she’d been thinking about this all wrong.
Instead of seeing his bossiness and need for control as a negative, perhaps it was a positive.
Because then she could be free of all this worry over what she was doing, over doing the wrong thing.
She wouldn’t have to think about any of that, would she, if he had full control?
Especially when it came to sex.
All she had to figure out was how she was going to fix what she’d broken.