Tormentor Mine(32)

Oh God. My skin feels both hot and icy, and my pulse jacks up even more. “Get out. I—I will scream, I swear.”

He tilts his head quizzically. “Will you? Why haven’t you done so yet?”

I take another step back, my gaze flicking to the room door for a fraction of a second. Would I make it before he catches me?

“Don’t try it, Sara. If you run, I will chase you.”

I continue backing away. “I told you, I’m not sleeping with you.”

“No? We’ll see about that.”

He comes toward me, and I back up more, my stomach twisting. I know what sexual assault does to women; I’ve seen the aftermath, the physical and emotional wreckage left behind. I don’t know if I can survive that on top of everything else.

I don’t know if I can survive it from him.

My trembling hand touches the door, but before I can twist the knob, his palms slap against the door on each side of me, caging me between his powerful arms.

“You can’t escape me, ptichka,” he says softly, gazing down at me. “Not now, and not ever. You might as well get used to that.”

He’s not touching me, but he’s so close I can feel the heat coming off his large body and see a couple more tiny scars on his symmetrical face. The imperfections add a deadly edge to his magnetism, intensifying its impact on my senses. My heartbeat is a panicked roar in my ears, yet my body tightens in a way that has nothing to do with fear. I should be screaming my head off, or at least trying to fight him, but I can’t move. I can’t do anything but stare at the lethally beautiful killer holding me captive.

“Come, Sara.” His hand slides down to lock around my wrist in a familiar iron shackle. “I won’t hurt you.”

I inhale shakily. “You won’t?” Maybe he’ll be gentle. Please, let him at least be gentle. I’ve experienced violence at his hands, and it terrifies me even more than the specter of rape.

“No. Now come.”

He pushes away from the door, but instead of leading me to the bed, he takes me to the chair in front of the vanity mirror.

“Sit.” He presses down on my shoulders, and I sink into the chair, trying to steady my ragged breathing. What is he doing? Why isn’t he just attacking me? My face in the mirror is deathly pale, my eyes wide as he steps behind me and pulls something from the inner pocket of his jacket.

It’s a small hairbrush wrapped in plastic—one of those cheap ones they sometimes give out in hotels and upscale airlines.

“This is all they had at the gift shop downstairs,” he says, removing the plastic wrap before meeting my gaze in the mirror. “I figured it’s better than nothing.”

Better than nothing for what? Some weird kinky game? My throat constricts, but before the panic can overtake me, he unwraps the towel on my head and drops it on the floor. His strong, sun-browned hands look huge next to my skull as he gathers my hair into a wet ponytail and begins working through the knots with the brush.

Shock steals all air from my lungs. My husband’s killer—the man who’s been stalking me—is brushing my hair.

His touch is gentle but sure, lacking any trace of hesitation. It’s as if he’s done this a dozen times before. He runs the brush through the ends first, getting them smooth and tangle-free; then he systematically moves up until the small brush can run through the entire length of my hair without snagging. And throughout the process, there’s no pain—just the opposite, in fact. The plastic bristles massage my skull with every stroke, and prickles of pleasure run down my spine whenever his warm fingers brush against the sensitive skin of my nape.

Fear or not, it’s the most sensuous experience of my life.

A strange sense of unreality seizes me as I sit there, watching him brush my hair in the mirror. In each of our prior encounters, I’d been so focused on the danger he poses I didn’t pay attention to less important things, like his clothes. So now, for the first time, I notice that he’s wearing a distressed gray leather jacket over a black thermal shirt and a pair of dark jeans paired with black boots. The clothes are casual, something any man might wear during early spring in Illinois, but there’s no mistaking my tormentor for a regular guy on the street.

Peter Sokolov is nothing less than a force of nature, ruthless and completely unstoppable.

He brushes my hair for several long minutes while I sit as still as I can, not daring to twitch a muscle lest I do something to make him stop. Each stroke of the brush feels like a caress, each touch of his rough hands soothing and thrilling at the same time. More importantly, while he’s brushing my hair, he’s not doing other things to me—things I’m dreading.