Obsession (Forbidden #2) (30 page)

Once we’re inside the dimly-lit corridor he grips my hand a little tighter and pushes me back against the wall, his mouth on mine before I can stop him. But once the kiss starts I know I don’t want to – I don’t want him to stop, but that realisation also brings back an element of fear. Out here, I’m not in control of the situation. Inside that private room I’m totally in control. Because I know
he’s
watching.

‘Where is he, Kira?’

I run my fingertips over his mouth, watching as they touch his lips, and he takes hold of my hand to stop me from doing that.

‘Where is he?’

‘Do you care?’

He laughs quietly and lets go of my hand. ‘No. I don’t. But I think
you
do.’

I rest my hand against his cheek, cocking my head as I look into his eyes. ‘I need to know, Jon. If there’s anything still there.’

‘It’s still there, Kira.’

‘You already know that. I don’t. And
I
need to know. Because I can’t move anywhere until I do.’

‘And you think sex is gonna sort all that out, huh?’

‘You don’t want to fuck me?’

He takes hold of my hand again, his face hard as he stares at me. ‘This isn’t you, Kate…’

‘Don’t call me that…’

‘This isn’t you. I don’t want to fuck the escort, y’hear? I had her, and she was good; she was great, but I don’t want her anymore. Because that isn’t
you
. I want my girl back. I want my Kate. I want to make love to
her
.’

‘Then you’re going to be disappointed.’

I start to move away but he grips my hand tighter and pulls me back, and his eyes are still hard, but the determination behind them is almost terrifying.

‘Just let the fucking guard down, princess. Let
us
back in.’

I shake my head, and I hate that he’s doing this, that he’s wearing me down, and I know I need to get inside that room now. I need to claw back the control I’m rapidly losing here.

‘Take me as I am, Jon. Or don’t take me at all.’

He lets go of me and steps back, holding his hands up in surrender, and I’m struggling to understand what’s happening now. ‘Then I’m outta here, darlin’. I’m gone.’

He turns and starts to walk away and for a second I can’t move; I can’t do anything, because I wasn’t expecting this. But, I’m free now, aren’t I? He’s walking away and that leaves me free, to be with Neal and know that that’s exactly what I want. Except, I don’t know if it is. Not anymore. I know I don’t want him to walk away, and an almost suffocating panic suddenly takes over, but I still feel like I’m frozen; numb. Like I’m rooted to the spot and I can’t move a muscle.

He doesn’t turn around, he continues to walk down the corridor and I feel something so strong rip through me, a fear so raw and so brutal I can’t ignore it, even though I’m scared of its consequences.

‘I can’t give you Kate.’

He stands still, but he lets a couple of beats pass before he turns around to face me.

‘I can’t give you her. Because she doesn’t exist anymore, and you really need to start accepting that. Kate is dead, but Kira is alive. And she wants you, Jon. She really wants you. Kira Hardy, not Kira Blu. The woman, not the escort. But Kate, she’s gone. And if you really can’t accept that then it’s probably best you keep walking.’

He stays where he is, doesn’t move an inch, and my stomach lurches so low I almost can’t breathe.

‘You can’t have Kate. But you
can
have
me
.’

He walks slowly back towards me, and for the briefest of seconds I’m thrown right back to that day when all of this started; when that kiss we’d tried so hard to avoid happened and a spark was lit that refuses to be extinguished.

‘Kira Hardy,’ he says quietly, and he’s in my space now, so close I’m breathing him in. ‘That’s your name, huh?’

But even
she
isn’t real, and I know that. I’m Kira Blu. I’ll always be Kira Blu. I can’t
be
anyone else. I can’t
let
myself be anyone else.

‘Kate Reynolds is gone, Jon. And she’s never coming back.’

He rests his hand against my cheek and tilts my face upwards, and I close my eyes as his mouth touches mine until I’m drowning under the weight of his kiss; of the memories it’s resurrecting.

‘Come on,’ I whisper, pulling back slightly and taking his hand as I head for the room Neal told me to use. And yet, there’s a brief second when I contemplate using another one, but what would be the point? He has cameras in all of them. This is going to happen, whether I’m one hundred per cent happy with it or not.

Pulling him inside I close the door behind us and slide the sign to
In Use
before I back up against the wall.

‘You can take what you want now, Jon.’

He stands in front of me, his eyes boring into mine and all I can think about is how different this feels. With Neal there’s this intense attraction, this burning need to be with him. When I look at him; when he touches me the atmosphere’s electric. But this is different. This is calmer. This has the overwhelming feeling of familiarity; of safety. This is something I’ve known before, something I never really stopped wanting. This is tearing at my heart in a way I knew it always would, if I ever saw him again. This is too fucking real.

My breath hitches as he reaches out to touch my cheek with the back of his hand, trailing it over my skin, and his eyes are still locked with mine. I can’t break the stare. He’s looking at me and touching me and I’m slowly being cast back to a time when this was all I wanted. Him. Time together. Time to plan an impossible future but talking about it was a beautiful escape we both craved.

‘Do you like doing what you do out there?’ he asks, his palm now resting against my cheek. ‘Do you like taking it all off in front of so many people? Do you like fucking another woman while men like me watch? Does it excite you, knowing you help us create dirty, depraved fantasies we ache to live out?’

‘It’s who I am now.’

He smiles and laughs quietly, pulling his hand away from me. ‘You really aren’t the woman you used to be, are you?’

‘You knew that the second you found me. You knew that when you agreed to pay me just so you could be with me. You knew who I was, Jon. This shouldn’t be a surprise.’

‘You gave me no choice darlin’. I paid you, or I didn’t see you. You held the power, and you used it. You knew I couldn’t walk away.’

‘You always had a choice, Jon.’

He touches me again, his hand resting lightly against my neck. ‘You were so detached, when I fucked you in those soulless hotel rooms. You were distant; cold, even…’

‘I had to be.’

‘You did a great job of keeping it up for all those years.’

‘When you do something, day after day, night after night, for as long as I did it becomes second nature.’

His fingers brush my collarbone, dropping lower as he slowly starts to loosen my shirt. ‘But your guard’s dropping now, Kira.’

He pulls my shirt open and covers one of my breasts with his hand, pressing lightly, and I feel my nipple harden against his palm as his mouth almost touches mine.

‘You make it so every man who sees you out there wants you. They watch you, doing what you do, and they want a part of that. A piece of you. All those years as an escort, kid, they weren’t wasted.’

‘I’m good at my job.’

‘You’re not at work now.’

But I am. He thinks I’m not, but I am. Kira Blu is out to play.

I take hold of his wrist and pull his hand away from my breast. The line that separates work from reality in my world is so blurred now there’s no distinction, but I chose to have it that way. And maybe the real reason I like that line so blurred is because I always knew
this
would happen; that he’d find me again and mess with my head and make me think I still want something I could never have.

I move away from the wall and he turns to face me as I back away, his hands in his pockets, and I glance down at the familiar tattoo of an eagle on his left forearm. I’d been with him, the day he’d got that tattoo. I remember laughing when he’d winced with pain, and I told him to stop being soft; told him I’d tell everyone how he’d cried like a girl when the needle first hit his skin. We’d been nothing but friends, back then. Simon was supposed to have gone with him, but he’d been called away on business by his father so I’d gone with him instead. And we were still nothing more than friends, at that point, but we were friends who were starting to realise they wanted to be more than that.

His eyes drop as I slide my short leather skirt down over my thighs and step out of it, kicking it away, and all I’m wearing now is the shirt and the boots and I watch as he rakes a hand through his messed-up hair, his eyes slowly moving up until they finally meet mine.

I shrug the shirt off and move my legs a little further apart, sliding a hand between them, touching myself, sinking into my own wetness. And then I pull my hand away and touch my breasts, first one, then the other, circling my nipples with my wet fingers and I hear him moan quietly, but he doesn’t move. Not yet. But it’s working. I’m reeling him in, giving him no option but to enjoy the show, and forget that I’m anything other than the escort I became to escape everything my old life ever was. Everything it
never
was. Everything it could have been.

‘Kira…’

‘Ssh,’ I whisper, walking over to him and placing my fingers against his slightly open mouth, and he takes my hand and kisses my fingers before yanking me to him, his hand on my bottom pressing me against him as he kisses me long and hard and deep. His tongue touches mine, his hand splaying out on my bottom and I can feel his cock, rock hard and throbbing against my hip. And I want him, so fucking bad it terrifies me. ‘It’s time to play.’ I smile, and he laughs, and he lifts me up and carries me over to the couch in the corner, laying me down and I stretch out, opening my legs wide and he groans again. But I’ve got him, right where I want him now. He’s stopped talking about reality and just who I might or might not be anymore; he’s playing, too.

I close my eyes and pull my legs up, arching my back as I touch myself again, but within seconds I feel him pull my hand away and replace it with his own, and I gasp as he touches me, as his fingers sink into me. But I keep my eyes closed. I don’t want to look at him yet, I need to keep them closed. Just for a few more minutes.

And then I feel his other hand start to work its way up my thigh, stroking my skin in touches that alternate between feather-light and firm as he moves upwards, and I know it’s him now. I know this isn’t Neal, it doesn’t feel the same. Neal feels different; exciting, new and beautiful. This feels warm and familiar – and safe. And it’s that feeling of safety that overwhelms me as he continues to stroke my clit and caress my skin and when his mouth meets mine in the softest, most gentle kiss I feel the mask start to slip as tears stream down my face.

‘I love you,’ he whispers, and still I keep my eyes closed because if I open them something’s going to happen I can’t control. ‘I love you, Kira.’ And as he pushes inside me I feel everything I managed to become when I ran from my old life shatter around me. What I thought was unbreakable is now falling down around me as he kisses me and holds me and I wish with every beat of my heart that I could find that detachment I managed to hold on to for all those years; why can’t I be that woman now? Why is this so different? But it is. I can’t push aside what I still feel for this man. I’m trying to picture Neal, trying to pretend it’s
him
inside me, but it doesn’t feel the same.

I bury my fingers in his hair as the kiss deepens, and the tears are still falling as he continues to thrust into me, slowly and gently and I pull my legs further up around us, keeping him close to me. His skin’s warm against mine, his smell so familiar, a mixture of musky cologne and stale cigarettes, the taste of him intensifying that feeling of safety sex with him has instilled.