Destiny Mine (Tormentor Mine Book 3)

by Anna Zaires

  I myself feel hopelessly adrift, like a rudderless ship in a storm.

  We reach my door, and I fumble for the apartment keys in my purse, acutely aware of Peter’s gaze on me. He doesn’t look impatient, but I sense it in him, feel the violent need he’s holding in check. My breathing grows shallow, my palms dampening as I finally close my hand around the elusive object.

  “Here, let me.” He takes the keys from me and unerringly finds the right one, opening the door on the first try.

  We step in, and he closes the door behind us as I flip on the living room lights. I hear the click of the lock, and I turn to face him, heart hammering. “Peter…”

  He’s on me before I can utter another word. His big hands frame my face as he backs me up against the couch, his mouth slanting greedily across mine as we fall onto the soft cushions in a tangle of limbs and unrestrained need.

  Whatever doubts I might’ve had are swept away, drowned by a wave of lust so intense it feels like fire in my veins. The orgasm in the parking lot just whetted my appetite, leaving my sex sensitized and swollen, desperately aching for more. My nipples are agonizingly tight, and I literally throb between my legs as he rips off my shirt and moves to undo my zipper, his hands rough with urgency, with the same hunger that’s tormented me for months.

  I meet him kiss for kiss, my hands ripping at his shirt as he yanks the jeans off me, growling in frustration as they get caught on my ballerina flats. I manage to kick them off my feet along with the bunched-up jeans as he unsnaps my bra, and then I’m naked, sprawled on the couch underneath him as he reaches for his zipper.

  There are no pretty words, no sweet caresses—just the primal feel of him as he ruthlessly pushes into me, face taut with lust and eyes glittering darkly as he catches my wrists and pins them above my head. I suck in a breath at the relentless invasion, my inner muscles quivering, struggling to adjust to the impossible thickness of him, to the way my flesh stretches to accept him. My body has somehow forgotten this part, and it feels like our first time all over again, only the shame and guilt are now just dim shadows in my mind.

  I need this—I need him—and I can’t deny it.

  When he bottoms out inside me, he stops, giving me a moment to get used to him, and I see him fighting for control, reining in that savage part of him so he won’t hurt me.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper, squeezing my pelvic muscles around his thick length. “It’s okay, Peter… I can take it.”

  I want to take it, in fact.

  His pupils dilate, and in the depths of his metallic eyes, I see the monster surface. With a low, guttural growl, he surges deeper into me, and I cry out, arching, as he sets a savage rhythm.

  He takes me violently, pounding into me without mercy, and my cries grow in volume as pain edges into pleasure, blanketing my mind with white noise, silencing the incessant buzzing of my thoughts. There’s no mental room for guilt or worry, no space for doubts and questions. There’s just this, just us, and as the tension inside me spirals, I scream out his name, cognizant of nothing but the agony and ecstasy splintering me apart.

  He comes at nearly the same time, his powerful neck cording as he arches his head back, hips grinding into me. The pressure triggers a wave of aftershocks for me, and I cry out again, my inner muscles squeezing and contracting, feeling every hard inch inside me as he groans and floods me with his seed.

  I might’ve zoned out after that, or closed my eyes, because the next thing I know, I’m being carried again, this time to my bathroom.

  I blink, instinctively looping my arms around Peter’s neck as he steps into the tub and lowers me to my feet.

  “Are you okay?” he murmurs, steadying me as I let go, and I nod, still too overwhelmed to speak.

  “Good.”

  He steps out of the tub and strips off the clothes he was still wearing. Greedily, I devour his nakedness, taking in the powerful lines of his tall, broad body as he steps back into the tub with me, draws the curtain closed, and turns on the faucet. Every chiseled muscle in his back flexes as he moves, his ass tight and round as he bends over to test the temperature of the water. His balls swing heavily between his legs, his big cock still semi-hard, and warmth creeps along my neck as I notice the gleaming slickness of our combined body fluids on his skin.

  No condom again. For some reason, I’m not particularly horrified—or the least bit surprised. If Peter really intends to do this—to settle down with me here, where we can live a normal life—then children are not that insane of a notion. Given that he admitted to wanting me pregnant, I shouldn’t expect condoms at all going forward. We’re both clean, unless—

  “Did you sleep with anyone?” I blurt out, horrified at the possibility that just popped into my mind. “When you were away, I mean?”

  I’m shocked this didn’t occur to me before. Peter is a highly sexual male in his prime, with the kind of looks and lethal appeal that’s bound to cream panties. Case in point, my neighbors—both women in their mid-to-late twenties—giggling like eighth-graders. There’s no reason to assume he’s been faithful to me this whole time. Nine months of celibacy for someone like Peter is—

  “What?” He pivots to face me, dark eyebrows pulled low over his eyes. “Are you serious?”

  I shrug and try to sound casual, as if the mere of idea of him touching some other woman doesn’t make me want to vomit. “Nine months is a long time, and it’s not like we’re—”

  “Like we’re what?” His voice is dangerously soft as he grips my arms. “Like we’re what, Sara?”

  My mouth goes dry at the look in his metallic eyes. “You know…” I swallow thickly. “In a committed relationship.”

  “Are you telling me you slept with someone else?” His fingers bite into my skin as a tiny muscle starts ticking in his temple. “Let some other—”

  “No!” How can he even think this? “Of course I didn’t! Besides, I’m sure your spies would’ve told you. You said they couldn’t get that close, but they wouldn’t have missed that.”

  His punishing grip on my arms eases slightly. “No, they probably wouldn’t have,” he agrees after a moment’s consideration. Releasing me, he turns around to twist the knob that directs the water from the faucet to the showerhead above.

  I blink water out of my eyes and watch him adjust the spray so it hits lower. Then he faces me again, blocking most of the water with his back.

  “I haven’t fucked anything other than my fist since I dropped you off,” he says evenly. “In fact, since we met, I haven’t so much as brushed against another woman in a crowd. You are it for me, ptichka—all I want, now and forever. Every night for the past nine months, I’d lie in bed, dick so hard it hurt, and think of you. Only you. You’re every wet dream of mine, every fantasy and daydream. I want to fuck you all the time, no matter where we are or what we’re doing. Even when we’re oceans apart, you are the only one I want—the only one I’ll ever want.”

  My throat tightens, trapping air inside my lungs. I believe him. How could I not? He’s never lied to me, never tried to hide his feelings. From the very beginning, I’ve known the depths of his obsession with me, and while it used to scare me, it’s now perversely reassuring.

  For as long as we’re both alive.

  Something clicks for me, like a light flipping on, cutting through the fog of shock and post-sex daze. “Peter…” My voice shakes as I reach over to capture his hand between my palms. “Did you do it for me?”

  He cocks his head, gray eyes puzzled. “Do what, ptichka?”

  “This favor for Esguerra so he’d take you off the wanted lists… that thing that kept you away for so long.” Squeezing his hand, I bring it up to my chest, where a peculiar tightness constricts my pounding heart. “Am I the reason? Did you do it so you could be here with me?”

  He frowns, covering my clasped palms with his other hand. “Of course, ptichka. Isn’t this what you wanted? A life where I’m not a fugitive, where we could be together without you losing your family a
nd your career?”

  I stare up at him, finally comprehending the enormity of what he’s done. It is what I wanted, what I’ve been longing for in the deepest recesses of my heart. It’s my darkest, most shameful fantasy—an actual life with my tormentor—and he’s made it a reality.

  He’s done the impossible, pulled God knows how many strings—and all for me.

  The steam filling the bathroom is making my eyes burn, and the vise around my heart squeezes tighter.

  Peter loves me.

  Really, truly loves me.

  It’s no longer theoretical, what he’d do for me.

  It’s real. He’s done it.

  “Isn’t this what you wanted, Sara?” he repeats, frown deepening, and I find myself nodding like a marionette, still unable to speak.

  “Good.” He gently extricates his hand from my grip and turns sideways, so that I’m under the water spray. Picking up my shampoo, he pours it into his palm and starts massaging it into my scalp, as though that’s what one does after that kind of revelation.

  As though that’s all there is to say.

  And maybe that’s true. Maybe we should revisit this conversation when I don’t feel so blindsided, so overwhelmed by his sudden return and all that’s bound to go along with it. Because I still don’t know what to say to him, how to explain the way I feel.

  How to tell him that though I’m overjoyed to have him here, I’m terrified in equal measures.

  He washes my hair thoroughly, his strong fingers massaging my scalp and neck, and then he applies conditioner and lets it sit while he washes the rest of me, his soapy, callused hands sliding all over my body, stroking and caressing my skin with just the right amount of tenderness and roughness.

  It feels amazing, like the most exquisite spa treatment, and when he finally rinses the soap off me, I pick up the body wash and do the same to him, enjoying the feel of his sleek, hair-roughened skin as I run my hands over his large, hard-muscled body.

  He’s always taken care of me, pampered me like a princess, but I’ve never done it for him, I realize. Returning my tormentor’s affection has always felt like a betrayal of George and everything else that mattered, and while I couldn’t help myself in bed, I kept myself aloof at other times, accepting Peter’s ministrations but never reciprocating them.

  I still feel some of that guilt, that sense of wrongness, but it’s no longer the suffocating pressure it once was. As the months passed and the shock of George’s violent death faded, I’ve been able to think about it more rationally, to analyze the events from a different perspective.

  For one thing, George wasn’t truly alive when Peter put a bullet in his head. He’d been in a coma for eighteen months, and given the extent of damage to his brain, there’d been almost no chance he’d ever emerge from it. At some point, I would’ve had to make the excruciating decision to take him off life support—something I’d been avoiding thinking about, especially since I’d been convinced that George’s accident was partially my fault.

  In a way, Peter took that awful responsibility from me—something I’ve only recently let myself consider.

  There’s also the fact that George betrayed me. The drinking that ruined our marriage was bad enough, but all along, he’d also led a double life, had a career as a spy that I knew nothing about. It’s taken me all this time to absorb it fully, but I now see George’s actions for the gross betrayal that they were, and the love I thought I felt for him now seems like a chimera.

  Not that any of this justifies Peter’s actions—not by a long stretch. He’s still the amoral assassin who’s killed more people than I can wrap my mind around, still the man who once tortured, stalked, and kidnapped me. But now he’s also the man who loves me, who’s demonstrated in the clearest way possible that I matter to him.

  That he’s willing to do whatever it takes not just to have me, but to make me happy.

  Finishing with his chest and stomach, I wash his underarms and the top of his broad shoulders, then massage the thick, heavy muscles around his neck with my soapy hands. He seems to enjoy that, arching into my touch like a big cat, so I knead the area some more, then crouch and wash his legs. His thighs are like steel, with zero give in the powerful muscles, his glutes as round and hard as a bodybuilder’s. Unable to help myself, I squeeze those tight globes and look up, blinking at the water spray, to see his eyes closed and his head tipped back in purely masculine bliss.

  He likes what I’m doing. Likes it very much, judging by the rapid hardening of his cock.

  Impulsively, I close my soapy fist around that thickening column and cup his balls with my other hand, then glance up through the water spray again. He’s staring down at me now, the rapturous look replaced by one of predatory hunger.

  “Keep doing that,” he says hoarsely, slipping his hand into my hair. “And take it into your mouth.” Closing his fist around the wet strands, he guides my face to his groin, the pressure gentle but inescapable.

  I obediently close my lips around his now-fully-erect cock, tasting water and the faint remnants of soap as I shift forward onto my knees. Despite my earlier orgasms, heat is curling deep within my core, my sex beginning to pulse anew. I might’ve started it this time, but he’s taking over, taking charge as he always does. Unbidden, the recollection of the time he punished me comes to mind, and my inner muscles clench on a surge of need, the images in my head more erotic than any pornographic movie.

  He fucked my mouth that time. Tied my hands behind my back and took it without mercy, controlling my breath, my very life. It had been brutal, utterly crushing, yet it made me ache with this same agonizing arousal, made me crave more of the darkness.

  I don’t fully understand why his roughness turns me on so much, why I enjoy being in his control like this. Prior to meeting Peter, my sexual fantasies rarely involved any element of force or coercion; vanilla was my comfort zone, even in my mind. Could the trauma of our first encounter in my kitchen have transformed me somehow? Maybe some wires got crossed in the aftermath, and the violence I experienced at his hands became linked with pleasure in my mind?

  Either way, whatever the reason, I burn as he pushes his cock deeper into my mouth, so deep I almost gag. Reflexively, I brace myself on the steely columns of his thighs, but I don’t fight him, not even when he starts to move his hips, thrusting into my mouth with increasing savagery. I just stare up at him, blinking away the water spray, and when the pulsing ache between my thighs grows unbearable, I slip one hand there and rub my clit, letting his thrusts pace my fingers’ movements.

  He notices, and his hard features tighten, the predatory look intensifying. “Yes, that’s it, ptichka.” His voice is a low, thick rumble as he pushes deep into my throat, cutting off my air. “Keep doing that. Let me see you come.”

  Eyes watering, I obey, rubbing my clit faster as I hold his gaze. My other hand clenches on his thigh, my heart rate surging as my body catches on to the lack of air.

  I’m not breathing.

  I’m not breathing, and there’s water on my face.

  My entire body stiffens, my eyes squeezing shut and my muscles locking up as my mind flashes back to the torture in my kitchen, when he had me drowning in the sink. The recollection chills me, but doesn’t cool the fire in my core. Somehow, the terror intensifies it all, ramping up the tension, and even as I claw at Peter’s thigh in panic, my other hand frantically works my clit.

  I come so hard I see explosions of light behind my tightly closed eyelids. The spasms rack my body, making me scream, and it’s only when I slump against Peter’s legs that I realize my mouth is free and I’m breathing.

  Dazed, I look up and find him fisting his cock, a savage grimace on his face. Then, with a harsh groan, he comes, spurting ropes of cum all over my face and hair. I blink up at him, wiping it off my forehead with a shaky hand, and he helps me up to my feet, his grip strong, though he must also still be recovering from his orgasm.

  I don’t say anything and neither does he as he washe
s my hair for the second time. It’s not until we step out of the shower and he’s toweling me off that he speaks.

  “You never gave me your answer, you know.” His tone is calm, but I see slivers of darkness in the cool gray of his gaze as he wraps the towel around me, then reaches to the side to grab one for himself.

  I blink, gripping the edges of the towel. “Was there a question?”

  I know what he’s talking about, of course—the ring is still heavy on my finger—but I’m nowhere near ready for that discussion. I didn’t even think this discussion would happen. He didn’t ask me to marry him; he told me that’s what’s happening. So it’s not like I was supposed to—

  “Don’t, Sara.” He drops the towel and steps close, backing me against the vanity counter. “Don’t play games with me.” His jaw flexes as he grips the smooth stone on both sides of me and leans in. “Are you going to marry me?”

  I stare up at him, frozen, unable to speak or think. I didn’t expect that he’d demand an answer. That he’d want an answer at all. From the very beginning, he’s made all the decisions in this strange relationship of ours, and it’s hard to believe that he’s giving me a choice in this.

  That he’s giving me the option of not marrying him.

  “What if…” I swallow, gripping the towel harder. “What if I don’t want to?”

  His face tightens. “Is that a no?”

  Yes. No. I don’t know. How can I answer when my brain is mush from his sudden return and all the orgasms he’s wrung from my body? I want to slink away, crawl under my covers and sleep so I can wake up with some magical clarity, but even in this foggy state, I know it’ll never happen. There will never be a clear yes or no when it comes to Peter, never an easy decision to be made. What we have together is a shrink’s wet dream, and I could sleep for a week straight without gaining any insight into our mutual insanity.