His jaw flexes and his fingertips twitch, as if he’s about to reach for me. “What are you saying, Sara?”
“I’m saying…” I take a breath and wrap my arms around myself, feeling like I’m about to fly apart. Even though I’m doing this to manipulate him, everything I’m saying is the truth, and dredging it up is tearing me open. “I’m saying the agents aren’t entirely wrong with where they’re casting blame.”
Peter’s eyes narrow. “What are you talking about? You had nothing to do with that bastard’s death.”
“No, but I have been sleeping with you—with his killer.” My voice shakes as tears sting my eyes anew. “And I didn’t tell the FBI about you. I didn’t ask for their protection, even when I had the chance. So here we are, in this fucked-up situation, and it’s all my fault. So I guess on some level, I must’ve wanted this, right? To lose my freedom and be with you no matter what the cost? I had a choice, and I made the wrong one. I made all the wrong choices, and that’s why I’m here instead of in the FBI’s protective custody, why I’m with you instead of leading a normal life.”
As I speak, the hard silver of Peter’s gaze darkens, and then he does reach for me, one arm looping around my back as his other hand slides into my hair, arching me against him. “Oh, ptichka,” he mutters thickly, and my insides clench at the savage hunger on his face. “You couldn’t be more wrong. You think you had a choice? You think there was a chance in hell I would’ve let you go?”
My throat swells with something indefinable, the tears in my eyes threatening to spill over as my hands come up to clutch his sides. “You wouldn’t have?”
“No.” His eyes glitter darkly as his fingers tighten in my hair. “I’d have come after you. There’s no place on Earth they could’ve hidden you from me. You’re mine, Sara, and you’re going to stay mine no matter what it takes. No matter what I have to do to keep you.” He bends his head, and I feel the warmth of his breath on my lips as he whispers, “No matter who I have to kill to retrieve you.”
I shudder in his grasp, my lids drifting shut as his lips touch mine. What he’s saying is horrifying, psychotic, yet my body aches at his nearness, my sex filling with liquid heat as his hard cock presses against my stomach. It’s as if some perverse part of me wants this from him, as if it revels in the depths of his obsession.
Just like, on some level, I felt relieved when the needle pricked my neck.
Peter deepens the kiss, his tongue invading my mouth, and I let him. I let him because the fire burning inside me is too strong to fight. I tell myself I’m giving in because I have to, because the phone call with my parents is at stake, but deep inside, I know the truth.
I’m giving in because I want to.
Because in some ways, my sickness is as far gone as his.
11
Sara
Peter carries me upstairs, and I hide my face against his shoulder as Ilya walks into the kitchen below. I don’t want to know what Peter’s colleague thinks about this madness, don’t want to think about anything at all. I bared my soul to my captor because I wanted him to forgive me, but now that I have, I feel raw and broken, a mess of shame and need, rage and desire. I hate myself for what I’m feeling, and at the same time, I can’t stop myself from clinging to him, from wanting him as much as he wants me.
When we get to the bedroom, he deposits me on the bed and begins to undress, and I watch him through half-closed eyelids. I feel strangely out of it, as if I’m still drugged, but I know it’s just the need he awakens in me, the dark, potent desire he evokes in my body. My yearning for him is all-consuming, stealing away all reason and common sense. I want him to hold me and touch me, to take me and possess me. I want his darkness and his twisted love, and most of all, I want him.
I want everything from him, no matter how much it terrifies me.
He’s coercing you into this. It’s a tiny voice of sanity whispering in my mind, reminding me that I’m doing this so Peter wouldn’t cut me off from contact with my parents, that I opened up to him for that same reason. My tormentor is too perceptive; he would’ve known if I’d lied to him or pretended to have feelings I don’t have. The truth, in all its pathological complexity, was my best bet, only now I can’t shut the spigot off, can’t cover up its ugliness with the opaque veil of denial.