Falling For The Forbidden

by Hawkins, Jessica

  Peter Sokolov was in the club with me. It wasn’t my mind playing tricks; he was actually there.

  I swallow convulsively as my nausea worsens. The water beats down on me, the spray almost painfully hot, but I can’t stop shivering.

  The monster from my nightmares is real.

  He’s coming after me.

  My dizziness intensifies, and I lie down, curling into a fetal ball on the tile floor. My hair is all over my face, wet and thick, and my throat constricts as memories of that night press in. For the first few days after the attack, I avoided washing my hair because I couldn’t take the feeling of water streaming over my head, but eventually, the need to be clean won out over the phobia.

  One breath in. One breath out. Slow and steady.

  Slowly, the suffocating sensation recedes, leaving only misery behind. I feel drunk and sick, and it takes all my strength to struggle to my feet and turn off the shower.

  Why is he here? What made him come back? What does he want from me?

  The questions streak through my mind as I towel off, but I’m no closer to answers than I was back at the club. My mind feels like a swamp, all my thoughts sluggish and slow.

  Wrapping the towel around my wet hair, I stumble to the bedroom and fall onto my king-size bed. The ceiling rocks back and forth, as though I’m on a ship, and I know I’m in for a brutal hangover tomorrow. I haven’t been this drunk since college, and my body doesn’t know how to handle it.

  Taking small, shallow breaths, I curl up on my side, hugging the blanket to my chest. The alcohol is dragging me under, but for once, I’m fighting the lure of sleep. I need to think, to understand what happened and figure out what to do.

  The killer who waterboarded me wants to meet for coffee tomorrow.

  It would be comical if it weren’t so terrifying. I don’t understand what he’s after. Why come up to me in the club? Why ask me to meet him in public again? He’s wanted by just about every law enforcement agency out there; surely he has to know that. Why take that kind of risk?

  Unless… unless he feels it’s not a risk.

  Maybe he’s arrogant enough to think he can evade justice forever.

  Anger ignites inside me, clearing some of the haze from my brain. I sit up, fighting a wave of dizziness, and reach for the corded phone on my nightstand. It’s a dinosaur, clunky and unnecessary in the age of cellphones, but George insisted on having a landline in the house.

  “You never know,” he said in response to my objections. “Cell phones aren’t always reliable. If power goes out during a winter storm, what are you going to do?”

  My eyes sting at the recollection, and I pick up the phone with an unsteady hand. I have a knack for remembering numbers, so I dial Agent Ryson’s from memory, pushing one button after another.

  I have most of the number keyed in when a sudden thought freezes me in place.

  Could Peter have bugged my phone? Is that what he meant when he said he’ll know if they set a trap for him?

  My mind leaps to another possibility.

  Could he be watching me right now?

  My breathing quickens, my skin prickling with adrenaline. Before the club, I would’ve dismissed the idea as a manifestation of my paranoia, but it’s not paranoia if it’s real.

  I’m not insane if it’s truly happening.

  Peter has resources, Ryson said. Could he have access to high-tech spyware?

  Are there cameras and listening devices inside my house?

  My heart hammering, I drop the phone back on its cradle and grab the blanket, pulling it up to cover my naked breasts. I rarely bother putting on a robe in my bedroom; even in the winter, I sleep in the buff, covered only by my blanket. I’ve never been self-conscious about my body—George loved it when I walked around naked—but the thought that his killer might’ve seen me nude makes me feel violated and painfully exposed.

  It also makes me recall my twisted dreams.

  No. No, no, no. Panting, I wrap the blanket around me and stumble to the closet to grab a T-shirt and a pair of underwear. I can’t think of those dreams. I refuse to. I’m drunk; that’s the only reason my mind went there in connection with that monster.

  Except he doesn’t look like a monster. Even with the scar cutting through his eyebrow, he’s a stunningly good-looking man, the kind that women salivate over. If I’d met him at the club without knowing who he is, I would’ve danced with him.

  I would’ve wanted his strong arms around me, his hard body grinding against mine.

  My hands shake as I pull on the underwear, and I feel a spot of dampness where my sex touches the cotton fabric.

  No. This isn’t happening. I’m not turned on.

  Putting on the first T-shirt I find, I stagger back to bed and collapse on it, wrapping myself in the blanket. The room is doing cartwheels around me, and my stomach roils along with it. I pant through the nausea and realize my lids are growing heavy as my thoughts start to drift.

  Clenching my teeth, I force my eyes to open. I can’t pass out until I decide what to do about tomorrow.

  Staring at the spinning ceiling, I mentally go over my options.

  The sane thing to do would be to tell Ryson about this and hope they can protect me. Except if my suspicions are right and Peter Sokolov is indeed watching me, he’ll know that I contacted the FBI, and I might not survive long enough for the agents to reach me.

  Of course, if he decides to kill me, I might not survive even with the FBI protection. The people on his list certainly didn’t, and he said he’d come after me.

  He promised to find me no matter where I go.

  Still, it’s probably worth the risk, because the alternative is going along with whatever cruel game Peter is playing. I don’t know what he wants from me, but whatever it is, it can’t be good. Maybe he hated George enough to want to torment his widow, or maybe, despite what he said, he thinks I know something—like the sister of that poor man he killed.

  At this very moment, he might be devising some new, exotic torture for me, something spectacularly horrible that somehow involves coffee.

  My eyelids droop again, and I rub my hands over my face, trying to keep my eyes open. I know I’m not thinking straight, but I can’t go to sleep without making this decision.

  Do I call the FBI or not? And if not, do I actually go to that Starbucks?

  A violent shudder ripples through me as I try to picture meeting my husband’s murderer for coffee. I don’t think I can do it. Just the idea of it makes my insides somersault. But what would I do instead? Hide in bed all day and then go to my parents’ house for dinner with the Levinsons as promised? Pretend the monster who destroyed my life isn’t after me?

  It’s the thought of my parents that decides it. If I were on my own, I might chance the FBI’s dubious protection, but I can’t endanger my parents that way. I can’t force them to leave their house and everyone they know on the unlikely possibility that Ryson and his colleagues would be able to protect us better than they’ve protected the others. And leaving my parents behind is out of the question; even if their age wasn’t an issue, I can’t risk Peter interrogating them like he interrogated me about George.

  There’s only one thing I can do.

  I have to meet my tormentor tomorrow and hope that whatever he does to me won’t extend to the rest of my family.

  When I finally close my eyes and pass out, I dream of him again. Only this time, he’s neither torturing nor fucking me.

  He’s sitting on my bed and watching me, his gaze warm and strangely possessive on my face.

  Chapter 14

  Sara

  By the time I pull up to the Starbucks at noon, the stabbing pain in my skull has quieted to a dull throb, and my stomach doesn’t threaten to revolt every second. However, my palms are damp with anxiety, and my hands shake so much I almost drop my keys when I come out of the car.

  I cross the parking lot, feeling like I’m going to my execution. Fear pulses through me with every rapid heart
beat. He could kill me at this very moment, just take me out with a sniper rifle. Maybe that’s why he lured me here: to murder me in a public place and leave my body to terrorize everyone.

  But no bullet finds me, and when I come into the coffeeshop, I see him right away. He’s sitting at one of the empty tables in the corner, his big hand wrapped around a paper cup.

  I meet his gaze, and everything inside me jolts, as though I got shocked with a defibrillator. For the first time, I see him in the light of day without alcohol or drugs in my system.

  For the first time, I fully comprehend how dangerous he is.

  He’s leaning back in his chair, his long, jean-clad legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles under the small round table. It’s a casual pose, but there’s nothing casual about the dark power that rolls off him in waves. He’s not just dangerous; he’s lethal. I see it in the metallic ice of his gaze and the coiled readiness of his large body, in the arrogant set of his jaw and the cruel curve of his lips.

  This is a man who lives and breathes violence, an apex predator for whom rules of society don’t exist.

  A monster who’s tortured and killed countless people.

  The surge of anger and hatred that comes with the thought cuts through my fear, and I take a step forward, then another and another until I’m walking toward him on almost steady legs. If he wanted to kill me, he could’ve already done it in a million different ways, so whatever he wants today must be something different.

  Something even more evil.

  “Hello, Sara,” he says, rising to his feet as I approach. “It’s good to see you again.”

  His deep voice wraps around me, his soft Russian accent caressing my ears. It should sound ugly, that voice from my nightmares, but like everything else about him, it’s deceptively appealing.

  “What do you want?” I’m being rude, but I don’t care. We’re long past politeness and good manners. There’s no use pretending this is a normal get-together.

  The only reason I’m here is because not showing up could endanger my parents.

  “Please, sit.” He motions to the chair across from him and sits down. “I took the liberty of ordering a cup of coffee for you. Black, no sugar… and decaf, since you’re not working today.”

  I glance at the second cup—prepared exactly the way I would’ve ordered it—then meet his gaze again. My heart drums in my throat, but my voice is even as I say, “You have been watching me.”

  “Yes, of course. But you figured that out last night, didn’t you?”

  I flinch. I can’t help it. If he saw me try to make that call, then he saw me stagger drunkenly into the bathroom and come out naked.

  If he’s been watching me for a while, he’s seen me in all sorts of private moments.

  “Sit, Sara.” He gestures at the chair again, and this time, I obey—if only to give myself a chance to calm down. Rage and fear are a tangle of live wires in my chest, and I feel like I’m one deep breath away from exploding.

  I’ve never been a violent person, but if I had a gun on me, I’d shoot him. I’d blow his brains all over the trendy Starbucks wall.

  “You hate me.” He says it calmly, as a statement of fact rather than a question, and I stare at him, caught off-guard.

  Does he read minds, or am I that transparent?

  “It’s okay,” he says, and I catch a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “You can admit it. I promise not to hurt you today.”

  Today? What about tomorrow and the day after? My hands form into fists under the table, my nails digging into my skin. “Of course I hate you,” I say as steadily as I can manage. “Is that a surprise?”

  “No, of course not.” He smiles, and my lungs tighten, preventing me from breathing. It’s not a perfect smile—his teeth are white, but one is slightly crooked on the bottom, and his lower lip has a tiny scar that wasn’t visible until now—but it’s magnetic nonetheless.

  It’s a smile nature designed for one purpose only: to lure in unwary women and make them forget the monster underneath.

  My nails dig deeper into my palms, the bite of pain centering me as he says, “You have every right to hate me for what I did.”

  I gape at him. “Are you trying to apologize? Do you seriously think that—”

  “You misunderstand.” The smile disappears, and his silver eyes flash with sudden fury. “Your husband deserved it. If he weren’t brain dead, I would’ve made him suffer so much more.”

  I recoil instinctively, pushing my chair back, but before I can jump to my feet, his hand catches my wrist, shackling it to the table.

  “I didn’t say you could go, Sara.” His voice is dark ice. “We’re not done here yet.”

  His fingers are like a molten iron cuff around my wrist, his grip burning hot and unbreakable. I remain sitting and instinctively glance around. The nearest patrons are a good dozen feet away, and nobody is paying attention to us. Panic beats in my chest, but I remind myself the lack of attention is a good thing. I haven’t forgotten how he threatened the others at the club.

  Pushing my fear aside, I focus on slowing my breathing. “What do you want from me?”

  “I’m trying to decide that,” he says, his face smoothing out. Releasing my wrist, he picks up his coffee cup and takes a sip. “You see, Sara, I don’t hate you.”

  I blink, caught off-guard again. “You don’t?”

  “No.” He puts the cup down and regards me with cool gray eyes. “It probably seems that way, given what I’ve done to you, but I hold no ill will toward you. Just the opposite, in fact.”

  My pulse lurches before settling into a new frantic rhythm. “What do you mean?”

  The corners of his mouth turn up. “What do you think it means, Sara? You intrigue me. You fascinate me, in fact.” He leans in, his gaze pinning me in place. “You don’t remember what you said to me when you were drugged, do you?”

  A hot flush crawls up my neck and spreads over my face. I don’t remember everything from that night, but I remember enough. Bits and pieces from my drugged confession surface in my mind at random times when I’m awake and pop into my dreams at night.

  Into my most twisted dreams, the ones I try not to think about.

  “I see you do remember.” His voice turns low and husky, his lids lowering halfway as his large, warm hand settles over my trembling palm. “I’ve been wondering what would’ve happened if I’d stayed that night… if I’d taken you up on your offer.”

  His touch burns through me before I yank my hand away, clenching it into a fist under the table. “There was no offer.” My heart is pounding in my ears, my voice tight with mortification. “I was high. I didn’t know what I was saying.”

  “I know. Drugs that lower inhibitions tend to have that effect.” He leans back, freeing me from the potent effect of his nearness, and my lungs drag in a full breath for the first time in two minutes. “You didn’t know who I was or what I was doing. You would’ve reacted similarly to any other reasonably attractive man who had you in that position.”

  “That’s… that’s right.” My face is still blazing hot, but the rational explanation steadies me a little. “You could’ve been anyone. It wasn’t directed at you.”

  “Yes. But you see, Sara”—he leans in again, his gaze filled with dark intensity—“my reaction was directed at you. I wasn’t drugged, and when you came on to me, I wanted you. I still want you.”

  Horror ices my blood even as my sex clenches in response. He can’t be saying what I think he’s saying. “You’re—you’re insane.” I feel like I’ve been dropped from a plane with no parachute. “I’m not… This is just sick.” I want to jump up and run, but I press on, pushing through the panic. I have to make this clear to him, put a stop to this insanity once and for all. “I don’t care what you want, or what your reaction was. I’m not going to sleep with you after you killed my husband and God knows how many others. After you tortured me and—”

  “I know, Sara.” His hand finds my knee under the table an
d rests on it. “I wish I could go back, because I would’ve found a different way.”

  Startled, I push my chair to the side, scooting out of his reach. “You wouldn’t have killed George?”

  “I wouldn’t have tortured you,” he clarifies, placing his hand back on the table. “I could’ve located that sookin syn some other way. It would’ve taken longer, but it would’ve been worth it not to hurt you.”

  My freefall from the plane resumes, the air whooshing past my ears. What planet is this man from? “You think torturing me is a problem, but killing my husband would’ve been okay?”

  “The husband who lied to you? The one you said you didn’t really know?” Rage ignites in his eyes again. “You can tell yourself whatever you want, Sara, but I did you a favor. I did the whole fucking world a favor by getting rid of him.”

  “A favor?” An answering fury blazes to life inside me, burning away all caution. “He was a good man, you… you psycho! I don’t know what you think he did, but—”

  “He massacred my wife and son.”

  Shock paralyzes my vocal cords. “What?” I gasp out when I can finally speak.

  A muscle pulses in Peter’s jaw. “Do you know what your husband did for a living, Sara? What he really did?”

  A sick sensation spreads through me. “He was a… a foreign correspondent.”

  “That was his cover, yes.” The Russian’s upper lip curls as he straightens in his seat. “I figured you didn’t know. The spouses rarely know, even when they sense the lies.”

  My world tilts off its axis. “What do you mean, cover? He was a journalist. He wrote stories for—”

  “Yes, he did. And in the process of getting those stories, he gathered information for the CIA and carried out covert missions for them.”

  “What? No.” I frantically shake my head. “You’re wrong. You made a mistake. You had the wrong man. I knew you must’ve had the wrong man. George wasn’t a spy. That’s impossible. He didn’t even know how to change a tire. He—”