Something that fills the well of loneliness left by the ruins of my marriage.
I don’t know how long Peter kisses me like this, but by the time he lifts his head, we’re both breathing raggedly, and the heat circling through my body is a full-blown conflagration.
Dazed, I open my eyes and meet his gaze as he bears me down to the bed. There’s no coldness in the gray metallic depths, no seething darkness, nothing but that hungry tenderness, and as he settles between my thighs, covering me with his powerful body, I know it could be easy.
I could stop fighting and buy into the fantasy, embrace this darker version of the fairy tale.
“Sara…” His strong palm curves around my face, framing it with aching gentleness, and the pain that spears through my chest is as potent as it is perverse. He’s looking at me like I’m his everything, like he wants to make my every dream come true. It’s what I’ve always wanted, always needed—but not with my husband’s killer.
Gathering the crumbling pieces of my sanity, I close my eyes, shutting out the silvery lure of that hypnotic gaze. No choice, I remind myself as his lips descend on mine with another searing kiss. No choice, I chant silently as I hear the ripping of a foil packet and feel his hair-roughened legs press against the tender insides of my thighs, opening them wider to let his cock nestle against my sex. No choice, I cry out in my mind as he thrusts inside me, stretching me, filling me… making me burn with scorching need.
It’s wrong, it’s sick, but it takes less than a minute before I come, his hard, driving rhythm hurling me over the edge with an intensity that wrenches a scream from my throat and brings tears to my eyes. My body shudders in dark ecstasy, clenching around his thick length, and I cry out his name, raking my nails down his back as he continues fucking me, taking me to the peak twice more before he comes himself.
In the aftermath, I lie draped over him, our limbs tangled together as he lazily strokes my back. With my head pillowed on his shoulder, I hear the steady thumping of his heart, and the glow of sexual satisfaction gives way to the familiar tangle of shame and desolation.
I hate him, and I hate myself.
I hate myself because something perverse inside me was glad for his ultimatum.
It felt good not to have a choice.
“You won’t be moving in a couple of weeks,” he murmurs, not pausing in his gentle stroking. “The lawyer couple no longer owns this house—I do. Or rather one of my shell corporations does.”
I should be surprised, but I’m not. I must’ve expected this on some level. My fingers tighten, crushing the corner of the pillow. “Did you threaten them? Kill them?”
He chuckles, his powerful chest moving underneath me. “I paid them double what the house is worth. Same goes for your would-be landlord. He’s well compensated for the lease you broke.”
I close my eyes, so relieved I could cry. I don’t know what I would’ve done if someone else had suffered because of me, how I could’ve lived with myself.
When I’m sure my voice won’t shake, I pull back and meet his shadowed gaze. “So that’s it? We’re just going to go on like this?”
“We are… for now.” His eyes gleam darkly. “Afterward, we’ll see.”
And tugging me back down to his shoulder, he drapes his arm around me, holding me as though that’s where I belong.
Part III
41
Sara
* * *
As the days pass, we fall into a bizarre pattern of domesticity. Every evening, Peter makes a delicious dinner for us, and the food is already waiting on the table when I walk in. We eat together, and then he fucks me, often taking me twice or more before we fall asleep. If he’s there in the morning when I wake up—and he frequently is—he also feeds me breakfast.
It’s as if I acquired a house husband, only one who does black-ops-style assassinations in his spare time.
“What do you do all day?” I ask when I come home after a particularly grueling day in the hospital and discover a gourmet meal of lamb chops and beet-based Russian salad. “You don’t just stay here and cook, right?”
“No, of course not.” He gives me an amused look. “What we do takes a lot of logistical planning, so I work with my guys on that, and also take care of the business side of things.”
“The business side of things?”
“Client interactions, securing payments, investment and distribution of funds, acquisition of weapons and supplies, that sort of thing,” he replies, and I listen in fascination as he gives me a glimpse into a world where insane sums of money exchange hands and assassination is a method of business expansion.