Obsession (Forbidden #2)

by Michelle Betham

  My act is over, and as the lights go down on the stage I grab the robe one of the other dancers hands me and cover myself with it before I leave the stage and head down the corridor to the dressing room.

  ‘Kira…’

  I stop, and for a second I contemplate ignoring him, not even acknowledging him. But what good would that do? Talking to him here, though – that’s dangerous. And I’ve played with fire one time too often. This is too close. Neal’s here, in the club, and this – it’s too close.

  ‘Kira, please…’

  ‘Follow me.’

  I don’t turn around when I say that. I don’t want to look at him yet, I want to wait, until we’re alone. So I take him to one of the private rooms, and I know that’s just as dangerous, but we need to talk. We need to sort this. Now.

  Once the door’s safely locked behind us I finally turn to face him, and he isn’t smirking anymore. His face is serious, his eyes hard and dark. ‘The black hair, it suits you.’

  I don’t make any attempt to remove the wig. The eye mask might be gone, but leaving the wig on – I don’t know. Somehow it makes me feel a little bit more detached. Like it still isn’t really me in here, with this man I used to love more than life itself.

  He reaches out and grabs the belt on my robe, but I’m quicker than him, and my hand slams down over his before he has a chance to loosen it. And he smiles, and laughs quietly, and my insides give a massive, painful jolt; it feels like someone’s just punched me hard in the solar plexus.

  ‘It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before. Kate.’

  ‘Say that name one more time and I walk out of here. We are done. No more talking. I’m Kira now. Kate is dead.’

  He moves behind me, his fingers trailing along the back of my neck, pushing my robe down over one shoulder and I’m numb. I feel nothing, I don’t even know who’s working me but I don’t think I’m in control here.

  ‘OK. Kira.’

  His mouth is so close to my ear, his breath hot against my skin and I close my eyes and breathe in deep as his fingers continue to touch me, stroking my shoulder, and the numbness is slowly lifting now, to be replaced by beautiful shivers as memories of his touch flood my brain.

  ‘I can live with Kira. I can do that.’

  He reaches around and grabs the belt again and this time I don’t stop him. Because I can’t. I’m frozen, my arms won’t move, or I’m just kidding myself that that’s the case. Either way, he’s opened my robe now, and the second his hand connects with my stomach I can’t hold back the moan that involuntarily escapes me.

  ‘I’ve seen you naked so many times,’ he murmurs, his mouth still resting against my ear. ‘But watching you up there… doing what you do… How many men’s cocks can you make hard in a second, kid? How many poor bastards’ minds do you play with every fucking night?’

  ‘Why are you here, Jon?’

  ‘I’m here for you. I want my chance, babe. That chance we never had, I want that. Now.’

  His hand moves lower, resting on my hip bone, and it’s a second or two before I realise he’s pushed the robe right off of me, and I’m naked, and exposed, and he’s got me right where he wants me. But do I want to be here?

  ‘I know you’re with someone, Kira. And I know who he is. I know he owns this place, along with you, and Joey. I know you met him in a hotel room in Newcastle; that he was a client, before he became anything else. And I know you don’t love him. Not really. You can’t. He’s nothing but a rebound, a shield; someone you’re using to protect yourself from what you still feel for me.’

  Something suddenly snaps inside me and I pull away from him, grabbing the robe from the floor and wrapping it back around myself. ‘You never lost that arrogance, huh?’

  ‘Do you know how frigging beautiful you are when you’re angry?’

  The smirk’s back on his face, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t. I once loved this man, so much. But then I knew I couldn’t love him anymore. Even if I still wanted to, I couldn’t.

  ‘I still love you, Kira. I’m still in love with you.’

  Once more the smirk disappears and a seriousness crosses his face that I’m more than familiar with. It’s that same, haunted expression he wore for so much of our time together – a look that tells me he knows we’re living an impossible dream here. We can’t be together. It’s too dangerous. He knows it. I know it. He should never have come here.

  ‘I still love you. Even on my wedding day, I was standing there, reciting vows I didn’t mean because all I could think about was you. The words were coming out of my mouth but it wasn’t me saying them. I married Sara as a cover, Kira. She was my smokescreen…’

  ‘She didn’t deserve that, Jon.’

  ‘When I was fucking her, I was thinking of you.’

  ‘She didn’t deserve that.’

  ‘Those afternoons, when you came to me, and you’d pretend you were all detached, that you didn’t care, you think I bought that, huh? If you really hadn’t wanted me anymore, you wouldn’t have let anything happen. You would have told me straight to leave you alone. To walk away. You would have done that, but you didn’t. You couldn’t. Because you wanted me. You needed me…’

  ‘This can’t happen, Jon, you know that. It can’t happen.’

  ‘Who says? Who says this can’t happen? We don’t need to go back home, to England. We don’t have to go back there…’

  ‘I need you to go, Jon. Please.’

  He walks over to me, and his eyes are burning so deep into mine I can almost feel the searing pain, but I can’t look away.

  ‘I’m in love with someone else,’ I whisper, but he isn’t listening. And he’s too close now, but I can’t back away, I can’t. I’m too weak, and once more I hate myself, and everything I’m feeling right now. Because I know it’s wrong. I know that. I’m saying it, over and over again in my head like a mantra. It’s wrong. It’s wrong.

  ‘You’re in love with me,’ he murmurs as he slides his hand inside my robe, and I gasp as his fingers splay out across my hip, pulling me to him. ‘You’ve always been in love with me. Always.’

  It’s like every bone in my body has just disintegrated to nothing as I collapse against him, and he’s kissing me, and with that kiss he’s unlocked every sad and beautiful memory I have of my time with him. He’s making me remember those stolen days and the handful of nights we managed to spend together, making plans for a future we almost had, before it was ripped away from us. He’s making me remember the afternoons when I’d go to him, and he’d pay me for sex, so desperate was he to still be with me. And I let him in. But I should have locked him out.

  ‘We had our chance, Jon.’

  I try to ignore the way my stomach continuously contracts as he holds my naked body against his clothed one. And I should feel vulnerable, but I’m suddenly feeling stronger than I thought I could be. I just hadn’t been ready to see him again, it was a shock I just wasn’t prepared for. But now that I’ve had time to get used to him being here… Now I’ve had time, I think I might just be able to handle this.

  ‘We had that chance. And we blew it.’

  I pull away from him, wrapping the robe back around myself as I head for the door.

  ‘If you really love me, Jon, you’ll leave me alone. You’ll let me live my life. You’ll let me forget you.’

  He walks back over to me, but I breathe in deep and ready myself for his touch, and when it comes I think I do a pretty good job of not letting it affect me.

  ‘I can’t do that, Kira. I can’t. Not now I’ve seen you. I can’t walk away, not this time. You think I’m throwing all those years away like they never happened?’ He shakes his head, and his eyes are back burning into mine with an intensity I have never experienced before. It’s like some dark spell is being cast around us and I have no chance of reversing it. He’s sucking any strength I thought I might have clawed back right out of me, so easily it’s terrifying. But I can’t let him control me. I can’t. I’m not going back
there. He’s not going to erase all those years it took me to become the woman I needed to be – while I was still sleeping with him… Jesus! What the hell am I? Who am I? Who do I really want to be…?

  ‘I’m in love with another man.’

  ‘You keep telling yourself that, darlin’, but it’ll never be true. Because you’ll never be over me. What we had, that was ended prematurely, with so many loose ends we didn’t tie up…’

  ‘Don’t…’ I whisper, shaking my head, because there are some things I just can’t face remembering. I can’t, and I don’t want him to go there. ‘You have to leave.’

  ‘It’s not enough for me to be your client anymore, Kira.’

  ‘I’m not an escort now.’

  ‘I know. I know, kid. But the days of you pushing me away are over. I have loved you so fucking much, for so many fucking years, and you aren’t gonna push me away, not anymore.’

  His hand drops lower, our eyes locked together as he slides it between my legs and I cry out quietly as he pushes against me, gritting his teeth, and the hatred I feel for my weak, pathetic self intensifies because I know he has me. He’s got me. I’m going to open my legs and let him back inside me and I’m going to hate every beautiful second, but I’m going to let him do it. I need him out of my system. I need to pretend Kira Blu, the escort, is back; treat him like a faceless client who just needs a mindless fuck as some kind of relief.

  ‘Come on, Kate. You know we can do this.’

  He said that name again. He said it, and that’s killed whatever moment that might have been, and I suddenly pull back from him but he grabs my wrist, and his eyes are back on mine, and that spell is being cast again. But he said that name…

  ‘Be my Kate again, and it won’t feel wrong,’ he whispers, and I feel sick and excited, and scared. I’m still so fucking scared. Again. Because I suddenly realise I’ve spent most of my life being scared.

  ‘I can’t…’

  ‘I love you, Kate.’

  Oh, Jesus, no. Please, no. No! He isn’t doing this…

  ‘Don’t do this, Jon, I am begging you… Please, I’m begging you…’

  ‘My beautiful, beautiful Kate…’

  The tears I never wanted to cry for him are back, streaming down my face as he kisses my neck, his fingers gently fanning out against it as he presses me to him. ‘I’m begging you, Jon…’

  And then his mouth closes in on mine and I’m done. The memories are real and alive all over again, and there’s nothing I can do to shut them back down. But I can’t let him make love to me. I can’t do that, not now. I do that, and I cross the one line I can’t ever come back from. I do that, and Kira Blu dies. I need her to stay. The small amount of strength she offers me, I need that. I need her.

  ‘No!’

  I don’t know where it came from, but that one tiny piece of sense I needed to see has made an appearance, and I let go of him.

  ‘No, Jon.’

  He says nothing for a beat or two, just puts his hands in his pockets and tilts his head to one side slightly as he looks at me, like he’d used to do in the past. And I want to reach out and run my fingers over his days-old stubble, kiss his mouth, feel his arms around me, but I can’t. Like I said, we had our chance. We never took it. Game over.

  ‘I want you to go.’

  He smiles, and it’s not a cocky, arrogant smile. Not anymore. This is the Jon I fell in love with. The Jon I wanted to marry. The Jon who promised us a good life with a nice house and two beautiful kids that we’d bring up to be wonderful, amazing people. That life lived in our heads for so long, and it could have been real, it was almost real… if everything had been different; if I’d been a better person. A stronger person. Because I’ve only just realised now how weak I really am. How much I’ve messed up my own life.

  ‘I can’t live without you, Kate.’

  ‘Jon, please…’

  He’s never going to stop calling me that, no matter how many times I beg him to. He knows what it does to me. He knows the affect it has, and it’s cruel, for him to keep doing it. But I know why. I know why he won’t stop.

  ‘I’ll never be gone, kid. And you know that. I’m always gonna be there, inside your head; the one thing you could have had that would have made you happy. Really happy. And it isn’t too late. It could still happen. I could still give you everything you need...’

  ‘Kate doesn’t exist…’

  ‘She does. She’s still there.’

  I shake my head and stay completely still as he comes back towards me, reaching out to gently brush the tears from my cheek.

  ‘I can see her, behind that mask. I can see her. And she needs me just as much now as she needed me then. And I need her. I’m a fucking wreck without her, I have nothing – without her.’

  ‘This isn’t fair.’

  ‘Life isn’t fucking fair. You just have to grab whatever remnants of happiness you can, when you can. It’s a selfish, Godforsaken fucking world we live in, darlin’, and I really don’t care who the hell I hurt to get you back in my bed, but I will get you. D’you hear?’ He leans in to me, his mouth once more so close to my ear I can feel his breath warming my skin. ‘You’re my beautiful obsession, Kate. And I won’t leave you alone. You got that?’

  His hand moves to my neck again, pressing against it lightly as he gently pushes my head back, his mouth grazing the base of my throat.

  ‘I won’t leave you alone.’

  And then he lets me go, steps back from me and leaves the room.

  I know he isn’t lying.

  I know he means everything he says.

  And I don’t know if I want to be saved anymore…

  Twenty-Three

  Neal

  She has no idea I have cameras in the private areas. I keep the bank of monitors that survey them in a locked room at the back of the office that even she has no idea exists. And they’re not there for voyeuristic purposes. I can watch that shit going on quite freely outside in the main club, if I want to. But we have to be careful. What we do here, it all has to be legal. Consenting. One wrong, stupid mistake and we could be shut down. So those private rooms, they need to be checked every now and again. Just to be sure. And tonight, I checked them. I needed to do something to take my mind off all the crap going on right now. Barry’s pissed me off big time. That call, from my lawyer; Barry wants me out of the business. He wants me gone, says I’m too big a risk to our reputation. He says that me dating a hooker and running an underground sex club doesn’t send out the right kind of message, to our clientele. Although, why he felt the need to have my lawyer call me at this fucking hour to let me know all of that, I have no idea. It’s quite obvious he’s just doing anything in his power to be the biggest jerk he can be. And if he’s aiming for bigoted prick of the year, he’s well on the way to that title.

  But I’ve got bigger shit to worry about. I can deal with his crap later. Right now, my world is falling apart, and I need to get my head in the right place and prevent it from shattering altogether.

  I hadn’t expected to see what I saw, when I checked those private rooms. I mean, if she goes in there, I usually know about it. I didn’t know about this. I didn’t know I was gonna see her, in there, with that same man I saw her with in the photograph. I didn’t know that was gonna happen. But now I’m looking at him touching her naked body; looking at the way she’s staring up at him, and it’s fucking killing me. There’s a rage building inside me I’m not sure I can control, and it’s all I can do to stop my fist from slamming down onto the table in front of me. I want to slam it into his fucking face, I am so freaking messed-up now.

  As I look at the small monitor to my left, she’s in his arms, and he’s holding her, and it’s so obvious there’s a history there that I have no idea about… Jesus! Surely he isn’t…? She wouldn’t do that, she wouldn’t be that way with him. She wouldn’t let a man who did that to her touch her like that again, so I’m almost sure he isn’t her ex-boyfriend. He isn’t Simon. I mean, she ne
ver described him to me, why would she? She was trying to forget him, not bring him back to life. But that man who’s kissing her in a way only people who truly care about each other kiss; that man, he means something to her, I’m not blind. I can see it quite clearly, even from here.

  It’s like a dagger to my already breaking heart as I watch her fingers stroke the back of his neck, the same way they stroke mine. Is she whispering things to him that she whispers to me? Making him promises of hours between her crazy-long legs? Is she about to let him inside that beautiful body; let him take her the way I dream of taking her, even when I’m fucking her? But as I keep watching she pulls back from him, and it looks like he’s said something she doesn’t like, her face – she’s upset, and I’m sure she’s crying…