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,
