by Anna Zaires
She’s only about average height, but her legs are long, with the lean, shapely muscles of a dancer. Her belly is flat and toned, her slim waist flares into gently feminine hips, and her skin is smooth and pale all over, with not a tan mark in sight.
She’s beautiful, this new obsession of mine. Beautiful and scared.
“Now the rest,” I say roughly when she kicks off the jeans and stands there trembling, clad in only her bra and panties. I know I’m being cruel, but the raw, aching wound she exposed sucks out whatever little decency and compassion I possess, leaving only lust edged with the irrational need to punish.
I may not want to hurt her, but at this moment, I need to see her suffer.
She reaches for her bra hook in the back, unsnapping it with jerky motions, and I suck in a sharp breath, the pain in my chest drowned by a wave of even more intense desire. I saw her breasts last night, so I know they’re gorgeous, but the sight of her taut pink nipples and soft white flesh still punches me like a fist. My heart pounds in a fast, rough rhythm, and it’s all I can do to stay in place and not reach for her as she takes off her panties. Her pussy is smooth and hairless—she either waxes regularly or had her pubic hair lasered at some point—and my mouth waters as I imagine dragging my tongue through those delicate folds.
I can’t wait to taste her and make her come.
As I’m picturing that, Sara straightens and defiantly raises her chin. “Happy now?” Though her cheeks are bright red, she’s making no attempt to cover her body, her hands clenched into small fists at her sides.
Perversely, her little show of bravery softens the dark lust beating at me, and my mouth curves in amusement.
“Not yet, but I will be soon,” I say, taking off my own clothes. My movements are swift and economical, designed to accomplish the task as quickly as possible, but her face still flames brighter, her chest rising and falling as she stares at me.
“Come,” I say, walking over to her when I’m fully naked. “I know you like to shower before bed.”
She blinks, her eyes flying up to my face, and I realize she was staring at my cock—which is so hard it’s curving up to my navel.
“You can touch it in the shower if you’d like,” I say, my smile widening at her obvious embarrassment. “Come, ptichka. You’ll enjoy this.”
Clasping her wrist, I lead her to the bathroom.
22
Sara
* * *
I try to maintain my composure—or at least the appearance of it—as Peter drags me to the bathroom, his long fingers wrapped firmly around my wrist. This is definitely not how I imagined this night going when I was walking up the stairs. Despite the lingering darkness in his eyes, my tormentor now seems to be in a light, almost playful mood—a stark contrast to the terrifying rage I glimpsed on his face earlier.
It’s as if my forced little striptease calmed whatever demons those horrifying pictures had unleashed.
Nausea crawls through me again as I recall the images, the death and devastation depicted in such gruesome detail. I only looked at them for a few seconds, but I know I’ll never be able to forget them. I can’t imagine being there in person to take those pictures, much less knowing that it’s my family lying there—that the decomposing corpses used to be people I love. The mere thought fills me with such agony that for one heartbreaking moment, I understand what drives my attacker.
I don’t excuse it, but I understand it, and pity battles with terror in my chest.
If Peter believes my husband was responsible for those deaths, he had no choice but to come after him. That much is obvious to me. Even before he went rogue, the Russian’s profession would’ve exposed him to the darkest parts of humanity, taught him to embrace violence as a solution—and that’s not even taking into account whatever it was that turned him into a killer before age twelve. A man like that wouldn’t turn the other cheek; an eye for an eye would be more his speed. He wouldn’t care how many innocents he hurt in his quest for vengeance, and he certainly wouldn’t blink at torturing an enemy’s wife to get to him.
If George had any involvement in what happened, I’m lucky to be alive.
Stopping in front of the glass shower stall, my captor releases my wrist, steps inside, and turns on the water. As he plays with the faucet, trying to find the right temperature setting, I glance at the bathroom door. He’s wet and distracted, so I’m almost certain I can make it down the stairs and to my car before he catches me. But then what? Do I drive naked to a random hotel and hope he doesn’t find me tonight? Run straight to the FBI and beg them to hide me?
Before I can start that internal debate again, Peter steps out of the shower, water droplets glistening on his powerful chest. “Come in,” he says, reaching for my arm, and I almost stumble as he pulls me into the stall.
“Careful,” he murmurs, steadying me, and I look up to find him watching me with a mix of hunger and dark amusement. “It’s slippery in here.”
At his innuendo, the flush that hasn’t quite left my face blazes back to life. I hate it that he knows about my body’s reaction to him—that just moments earlier, he caught me eyeing his erection like a teenage girl seeing her first porn. Granted, he could star in porn with a cock like that, but that’s not the point. It shouldn’t matter to me that he’s a gorgeous male animal; his powerful body is something for me to fear, not desire.
He’s a dangerous, possibly mad murderer, and I should regard him as such.
And I do—rationally, at least. However, as he angles the shower toward me, letting the warm water spray hit my back, I realize I’m not nearly as terrified as I was last night—though I should be, after seeing those pictures. If Peter believes what he’s told me, then he has every reason to hate me, and whatever attraction he feels toward me is likely of the toxic variety. I don’t know why he didn’t rape me last night, but I’m almost certain he’ll do it tonight. The thought should fill me with dread—and it does—yet the visceral panic I felt in that hotel room is absent. It’s as if sleeping in his arms desensitized me to the sheer wrongness of what he’s doing to me, to the violation that is his presence in my house and my shower.
For the second time in as many days, we’re naked together, and I don’t find it nearly as disturbing as I should.
“Close your eyes,” Peter says, picking up my shampoo bottle, and I obey, letting him pour the soapy liquid into my hair. Despite his earlier volatile mood, his strong fingers are gentle on my skull as he massages in the shampoo, and I realize he’s pampering me again, further disarming me with his bizarrely caring ministrations. I have an incongruous desire to arch my head back, butting against his hands like a cat demanding a petting, but I remain still, not wanting him to know that I enjoy any part of what he’s doing to me.
Whatever my tormentor’s game is, I refuse to play along.
My determination lasts until he begins massaging my neck, skillfully working out the knots at the base of my skull. I didn’t even realize how much tension I carried there until it melted away, the heat of the water combining with his touch to make me feel warm and relaxed in a way I haven’t experienced in a very long time.
I try to recall if George has ever washed my hair like this and draw a blank. I can’t even remember him showering with me outside of a couple of times early in our relationship, when we were still relatively adventurous in bed. By the time we’d been dating for a year, our sex life had become routine, and George rarely touched me in ways that couldn’t directly get me off—and toward the end, he rarely touched me, period.
Over the past couple of days, I’ve had more physical intimacy with my husband’s killer than with my husband during most of our marriage.
When my hair is clean, Peter guides my head under the spray, rinsing out the shampoo, and then applies conditioner to my strands. As he does this, he steps closer, his chest brushing against mine for a second, and my nipples tighten under the hot spray, my sex growing soft and slick as I feel the smooth head of his hard cock against my
stomach.
He steps back a moment later, but it’s too late. The warm, relaxed feeling transitions into arousal so quickly I have no chance to guard against it. Though he’s barely touched me, I’m left breathless and trembling, aching for him. It’s a purely physical reaction, I know, yet it fills me with shame. I shouldn’t want him or this forced intimacy; nothing about this should appeal to me on any level.
Biting the inside of my cheek to distract myself with pain, I open my eyes and see him pouring body wash into his palm.
“Let me do it,” I say tightly, reaching to take the body wash from him, but he shakes his head, a sensual smile curving his lips as he moves the bottle out of my reach.
“Not yet, ptichka. You have to wait your turn.”
Stepping behind me, he starts washing my back, and even through the heat of the water, his touch burns me, each stroke of his rough hands intensifying the flames of arousal in my core. I try to focus on something else, anything else, but my heart is racing too fast, my body burning with equal parts shame and desire.
And fear. Though muted for the moment, it’s an insidious presence in the back of my mind. I haven’t forgotten what the man touching me has done or what he’s capable of. Perhaps some other woman in my situation would fight instead of letting him do this, but I don’t want him to truly hurt me. Yesterday, he subdued me with pathetic ease, and I know the outcome would be the same today. Except he might not stop once he has me stretched out underneath him.
He might give in to the darkness I glimpsed in his eyes tonight, and the game, whatever it is, would end in some horrible way.
So I stand still and stare straight ahead, watching the water droplets roll down the steam-fogged glass wall as his soapy hands slide over my back, my shoulders, my arms… my sides. It’s torture of a different kind, and as his hands move to the front, spreading soap over my quivering stomach before sliding up my ribcage, I can’t take it anymore.
“Stop,” I whisper breathlessly, my nails digging into my thighs as his fingers brush the underside of my breasts. “Please, Peter, stop.”
To my shock, he listens, lowering his hands to my hipbones. “Why?” he murmurs, drawing me against him. His chest molds against my back as his erection presses into my ass. “Because you hate it?” He dips his head, his stubble rasping against my temple as he traces the outer rim of my ear with his tongue. “Or because you love it?”
Either. Both. I can’t think clearly enough to make up my mind. My eyes drift shut, and goosebumps pebble my skin as his tongue dips into the hollow behind my ear, turning my insides to liquid mush. I want to push him away, but I don’t dare move in case I do something stupid, like tipping my head back toward the tantalizing heat of that wicked mouth.
“What is it you’re afraid of, ptichka?” he continues in a soft, dark voice. “Pain?” He bites my earlobe gently. “Or pleasure?” His right hand inches diagonally along my stomach, moving toward the aching nook between my legs with insidious slowness. He’s giving me every chance to stop him, but I can’t—not even when I realize his destination. All I can do is take quick, shallow breaths as his callus-roughened fingers breach the top of my slit and leisurely part my folds, exposing the sensitive flesh within.
“No answer?” His breath is warm on my temple. “I guess I’ll have to find out for myself.”
The tip of his finger circles my clit, and my breath stutters in my chest, my mind going strangely blank. It’s as if every nerve ending in my body has come to life all at once. I’m hyperaware of his big, hard body pressing against my back and his stubble rasping across my ear, of his large hand resting low on my belly and the hot water spraying down on us. And that finger, that rough yet gentle finger. It’s barely touching me, yet my whole body feels like a coiled spring, each muscle rigid with anticipation.
Dimly, I register a strange sound, and realize it’s coming from me. It’s a moan, mixed with a kind of gasping whimper. It fills me with shame, but the embarrassment only intensifies my arousal, all my senses centering on the pulsing ache in the bundle of nerves he’s so cruelly teasing. I can feel the slickness between my thighs, and as his finger presses harder on the exquisitely sensitive flesh, the ache transforms into an unbearable tension, one that grows and intensifies with every second. It’s both pleasure and agony, and it’s so acute I’m vibrating with it, waves of heat rolling over my skin. I try to hold it off, to stop the tension from cresting, but it’s as impossible as holding back the tide.
With a choked gasp, I come, my whole body clenching in a release so intense my vision goes white behind my tightly closed eyelids. It goes on and on, the pleasure radiating out from my core in pulsing waves that leave me dazed and shaking, barely able to stand upright. I try to push my tormentor away, to end the terrifying pleasure, but he tightens his hold on me, and I have no choice but to ride it out, feeling every shameful ripple he forces from my body.
“That’s it, ptichka,” he breathes when I finally sag against him, panting and drained. “That was so beautiful.”
His hand leaves my sex, and I open my eyes, the post-orgasmic lethargy dissipating as the horror of what happened seeps in.
I came. I came at the hands of the man who ended my husband’s life.
He starts turning me around to face him, and I finally find the strength to act. With a pained moan, I twist out of his hold and stumble back, nearly crashing into the glass wall behind me. “Don’t!” My voice is high and thin, verging on hysterical. “Don’t touch me!”
To my surprise, Peter remains still, though I can see he’s still hard, still wanting me. Cocking his head to the side, he regards me silently for a few moments, then reaches over and turns off the shower.
“Come out,” he says gently, pushing open the door of the stall. “I think we’re clean enough.”
23
Peter
* * *
I dry myself off with a fluffy white towel; then I grab another one and wrap it around Sara as she steps out of the shower. She looks like she’s on the verge of shattering, her hazel eyes glittering with painful brightness, and despite the lust consuming me, I feel something close to pity.
She must hate herself right now. Almost as much as she hates me.
I rub the towel up and down her body, drying her, then wrap it around her wet hair. I know I’m treating her like a child instead of the grown woman that she is, but taking care of her calms me, helps me keep the darker impulses under control.
Helps me remember I don’t truly want to hurt her.
Bending down, I swing her up into my arms, and she lets out a startled gasp. “What are you doing?” She pushes at my chest. “Put me down!”
“In a second.” Ignoring her attempts to wriggle away, I carry her out of the bathroom. She’s light, easy to carry. It’s as if her bones are hollow, like those of an actual bird. She’s fragile, my Sara, but resilient at the same time.
If I’m careful, she’ll bend for me instead of breaking.
Reaching the bed, I put her down, and she grabs the blanket, pulling it over herself to cover her nakedness. Her gaze is filled with desperation as she scrambles backward on the bed, away from me.
“Why are you doing this to me? Why can’t you find some other woman to torture?”
“You know why, ptichka.” Climbing onto the bed, I yank the blanket out of her grasp. “I have no interest in anyone else.”
She jumps off the bed, clearly forgetting the futility of running from me, and I leap after her, catching her before she makes it to the door. My blood is pumping thickly in my veins, the monster rearing up as she struggles in my arms, and it takes all of my self-control not to crush her against a wall and fuck her raw.
If it weren’t for the fact that I don’t want our first time to be like that, I would already be inside her.
“Stop fighting,” I grit out when she continues to writhe in my arms, trying to get away. I can feel my control unraveling, my cock reacting to her twisting movements as if to a lap dance. “I�
��m warning you, Sara…”
She freezes, comprehending the danger she’s in.
I inhale slowly, then release her and step back to minimize the temptation. “Get into bed,” I say harshly as she stands there, panting. “We’re going to sleep, understand?”
Her eyes widen. “You’re not going to—?”
“No,” I say grimly. Stepping forward, I take her arm to usher her to the bed. “Not tonight.”
No matter how torturous it will be, I’ll give Sara more time to get used to me. It’s the least I can do to make up for our violent beginning.
She’ll be mine soon, but not yet.
Not until I can be sure I won’t destroy her.
* * *
“Are you awake, Papa? Come play with me.” A small hand tugs at my wrist. “Please, Papa, come play.”
“Let your papa sleep,” Tamila chides, rising up on her elbow on the other side of the bed. “He got in late last night.”
I roll over onto my back and sit up, yawning. “It’s okay, Tamilochka. I’m up.” Leaning down, I pick up my son and stand up, lifting him at the same time. Pasha squeals in excitement, his small legs kicking in the air as I hold him above my head.
“You’re way too indulgent with him,” Tamila mutters, then gets up also, throwing on a robe over her pajamas. “I’ll go make us breakfast.”
She disappears into the bathroom, and I grin at Pasha. “You want to play, pupsik?” I throw him in the air and catch him, causing him to erupt in shrieks of excited laughter. “Like this?” I throw him again.
“Yeah!” He’s laughing so hard now he’s practically chortling. “More! Higher!”