You Don't Know Me (3 page)

It was a man. Peter something-or-other. Heart beating heavily, she watched him swim the length of the pool underwater, surface, shake water from his black hair, then haul himself to the edge of the pool. Water ran down his hair and across his face and shoulders. Catching her eye, he stared at her across the rippled blue surface of the pool, absently running a hand over his bronzed, muscled chest, his gaze sliding thoughtfully over Denise’s bikini-clad body.

He’d been eyeing her all week. He was Carolyn’s “friend.” Denise had had her own share of friends in her eventful life and knew how complicated and disastrous those kinds of friends could be. Carolyn was married to Kevin, but then Denise had been married to John during the course of some of her own friendships. And Peter something-or-other had that predatory on-the-make look. His body was superbly muscled, his movements purposely sinuous, his attention focused so intently, she felt as if she were under a microscope.

“You’re that actress,” he’d told her last week when he’d first appeared at Carolyn’s swimming pool.

Denise had ignored him. She’d accepted Carolyn’s invitation to come to Houston and get away from her miserably ruined life in California because she’d needed to forget who she was. This whole year had been another disaster. The fights with John had turned from hot and passionate to cold and distant. He didn’t love her anymore, and hell, she didn’t love him. But she hadn’t been ready to give him up. And then he’d gone ahead and hired that young bitch for the part in
Borrowed Time
after explaining without much interest that he wasn’t even going to let Denise audition.

Bastard. Two-faced, smirking bastard. Let Dinah handle him. Dinah didn’t give a damn about men and John was self-infatuated enough to be really annoyed by her.

Denise chuckled to herself. Dinah had unwillingly agreed to pretend she was Denise, should anyone ask. It was the only way to maintain possession of the Malibu beach house, since John was bound and determined to divorce his has-been wife and claim ownership of everything they’d shared. Miserable, cheating, coldhearted bastard!

“Want some suntan oil?” Peter called from across the pool.

“No, thanks.” Her voice was barely above freezing.

What an unbelievable scuzz, she thought, her lips curling in distaste. Suntan oil. Good God. Peter was low enough to remind her of his despicable actions three days earlier. He’d been lounging on a chaise across from her in a pair of electric blue bikini trunks, rubbing his limbs with Hawaiian Tropic oil. Catching her eye, he’d pulled out his penis, squirted enough oil over the damn thing to start an energy crisis, then slicked it from tip to shaft while she’d watched in fascinated revulsion.

Sicko. Goddamn revolting male.

“Carolyn says you’re taking a much-needed vacation.”

She considered refusing to answer but decided it wouldn’t help. Annoyance boiled inside her, driving out her therapeutic thoughts. “That’s right.”

“Things pretty tough out west?”

“I needed a break.”

“I always liked your pictures. Especially
Willful
.”

“Good for you.”

He laughed, and there was a nasty quality to it Denise recognized deep within her marrow. That “I know you” element that men used when they were sure they had you.

A sense of inevitability cloaked her, suffocating, hot, intense. The image of a glass cage enclosing her filled her mind. You couldn’t scream. You couldn’t struggle. It was your fault for being there, for enticing them. There was no escape.

Her raft had been drifting to the center of the pool. Gently, she moved her hands through the water, pulling the raft to the opposite shore. Where was Carolyn?

SPLASH!

Denise shot to attention, nearly overbalancing herself. She struggled to reach the edge of the pool, but Peter’s dark head surfaced beside her. He lunged for the raft, shaking water from his black hair, grinning like a beast.

“Get away from me,” Denise ordered.

“Come here.”

“Get away!”

He hauled himself atop her on the raft in one fluid motion, pushing them both under, nearly drowning her. She screamed and her lungs filled with water. Coughing, she gasped for air.

“Don’t move,” he commanded.

“Get off me!”

He
was moving. Circling her hips with his, driving himself against her. She could feel his erection. She could see it in her mind’s eye, big and thick and covered with oil. Something hot beat inside her. She scratched his back, dragging skin beneath her nails. He laughed again. His hands slid between her legs. She squirmed and cried out, his thumb moving hard at her crotch, her legs opening of their own accord. His tongue filled her mouth. His hands ripped at the bottoms of her bikini, pulling it off her legs.

She thrashed, choked, and bit. He slapped her hard. She tasted blood. Then he shoved himself full-length inside her. She ceased to struggle, knowing what would happen if she did. Instead she endured his laughter, deep-throated and knowing. And then . . . and then . . . no, no, no! Her treacherous body began to respond!

“Carolyn told me,” he gasped, pushing himself deeper and deeper inside her. “You want it this way. You always want it this way.”

Denise didn’t have the strength to argue.

 

 

She awoke suddenly, heart pounding, tears streaming down her cheeks. Above her was a faded gray Texas sky, beneath her lounge chair, the plastic rungs soaked with her sweat. Her body was aflame.

“You okay?”

Denise started, realizing the man lounging on the chair beside her was someone she’d never seen before. Heat swarmed up her skin, staining her neck and cheeks. Had she been dreaming? Oh, no. No. Peter couldn’t have been a figment of her imagination.

Could he?

It had been a dream, she realized vaguely, miserably. A dream mixed with reality. He hadn’t raped her just now, but he had displayed his wares earlier.

She’d been the one who’d let the scenario unfold in her mind. And now her body was alive with shame and desire.

It was her fault. It was always her fault.

“You all right?” the man asked again.

“I’m sorry . . . ?” What had he heard? What had he
seen?
Had she been squirming away on the lounge chair? God. He would think she was some kind of pervert. “I’ve—I’ve lost track of time. Is it noon yet?” Denise asked, her voice shaking.

“Six o’clock,” he answered, staring at her.

“Tuesday?”

“Friday the thirteenth.”

“Oh, right.” She laughed uneasily, grabbing her towel. “Wow, what a dream.”

She scurried toward the poolside door, stepping through the marble bathroom and running down the hall to the back stairs of Carolyn’s fabulous home. No one knew she was here, not even Dinah. Friday the thirteenth? She’d seen Peter at the pool—literally seen Peter, as a matter of fact—on Tuesday the third. What had happened to the ten days in between? And who was that man?

She ran up the back stairs to her private room, locking the door behind her. Each bedroom had its own bath, and in the privacy of hers she washed away the sweat and memory of her nightmare. God, her imagination was vivid. She could practically feel his hands still on her. Her skin crawled. Grabbing a washcloth, she twisted it into a rope and bit down on it as hard as she could to keep from screaming.

It was worse this time, much worse. Ten years of steady regression had taken its toll; her last therapist had told her that sterling bit of information. Denise gazed dully at her reflection. Reality. That was her problem. Difficulty distinguishing dreams from reality.

“You suffered great trauma as a child,” one of the therapists had intoned gravely.

“Your dreams are of a sexual nature because you’re reacting to some base, primal inner torment.”

“You have yet to come to terms with the problem.”

“This may take some time.”

Removing the washcloth, Denise dared to really look at herself in the bathroom mirror. She was still naked from the shower, sleek as satin, firm, youthful, and seductive. Her hair was blond. Her eyes were such an unusual shade of aquamarine, she’d been accused of wearing tinted lenses. She was—in truth—staggeringly, remarkably, unforgettably, drop-dead gorgeous. Even more so than her twin because Dinah refused to wear the least bit of makeup, refused to do a damn thing with her hair other than twang it back in a rubber band, refused to wear anything but the most ill-fitting sweats in the hopes of hiding her to-die-for figure, refused to be anything like her hopeless, helpless, loony, ridiculous twin.

Denise had tried it Dinah’s way, but she hated being overlooked. There was the problem. She
wanted
male attention in the worst way. Craved it. Lived for it. Especially the wrong kind of attention. She wanted it even if it meant sleeping with her best friend’s husband. She wanted it even if it meant cuckolding her husband, whom she’d once loved with every ounce of her being.

But the bastard had slept around on her, too, hadn’t he? She still wanted to rip out the throat of that whiny redhead who’d written him all those love notes. And what about that new starlet who was spending all that time with him on location for
Borrowed Time?

Dinah. Dinah would take care of everything. Dinah was good and smart. Dinah would make John pay for all the pain he’d inflicted on her bat-shit crazy twin sister.

“Denise?” A knock sounded on her bedroom door.

It was Carolyn, her host. Wrapping a towel around her torso, Denise cracked open the door.

Carolyn Lenton was into helping others. At least into helping the privileged. The sick, twisted privileged who possessed oodles of money to spend on their recovery. Denise had originally wanted to consider her a friend, but had learned Carolyn was too whacked out to trust. Almost as whacked out as she herself was. Carolyn had invited Denise to recuperate at her Houston home, then had offered everything from cocaine to Dom Pérignon to Peter’s everready wanger as a cure.

“Larry said you ran away from the pool as if you were spooked or something.”

“Larry?”

“Larry Cummings. I introduced him to you yesterday.”

“What happened to Peter?”

Carolyn’s penciled brows lifted and a smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Shame on you,” she said in a singsong voice. “I knew you’d like him. He’s still around. I could have him back here by eight o’clock, if you like. He’s a real fan of yours, you know.”

“He doesn’t have a Texas accent.”

“Well, of course not. He’s from L.A. Of all the things you could say about him, that’s it?”

Denise felt herself tighten up inside. “Did Stone call?”

“Uh-uh. Should he have?”

“I had an appointment I missed. Last Wednesday.”

“You didn’t miss it. You went.” Carolyn looked puzzled.

A terrible sensation engulfed Denise. An anxiety attack. She couldn’t breathe. Then memory returned in a wash of regret and annoyance as she realized the last ten days were there, a haze of sunshine, Perrier, and wasted hours, with maybe a few recreational drugs thrown in.

“Stone was preoccupied,” she remembered.

“You said you asked him for a date.” Carolyn laughed.

“I’m sicker than I thought.”

Patting her shoulder, Carolyn started for the door, then stopped, examining Denise with eyes that saw far too much. “Maybe you should call him.”

Dr. Hayden Stone. Her shrink of the hour. The man would listen for weeks on end as long as the meter was running.

But he was good-looking.

“Maybe I will,” Denise choked out.

“Baby, is there something wrong?”

“Nothing more than usual. Thanks.”

Alone again, Denise listened as Carolyn’s footsteps receded down the upstairs hall. Drawing a breath, she collapsed on the bed. Somewhere inside herself a thousand wings had begun to flutter. More anxiety. Deeper still, she sensed something dark and evil reach upward, its malignant fingers grabbing harder, closer. Someday they would grab her soul and squish it like a grape.

Self-hypnosis, she thought, panicked. Let the poisons collect in the center and then push them out. Push them out.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on John. Her powers of concentration sometimes astonished her because it felt so real. He was there. John Callahan. Her lover and husband. John, whose maleness enveloped her; John, who turned her to melting fluid.

“Make love to me, John.” She reached for him beseechingly, but he stared down at her dispassionately. Unwrapping the towel, she placed his imaginary hand on her breast.

“I tried, Denise. I’m not going to try anymore.”

“John, John, John.” Her hands climbed up his torso and she rubbed against him like a kitten. Soft, smooth, tactile. The sweetness of love.

“What do you want this time, Denise?”

“Just the lead in
Blackbird.
That’s all . . .”

He grabbed her hair in a tangle, pulling her head back, glaring at her. He stared at her so long and hard that her pulse rocketed. He was going to give in this time. He couldn’t resist. His hand slid down her back, over her hips. She was wet and waiting for him. She guided him down to the bed, until he was sprawled atop her, his mouth like fire kissing her all over.

She squirmed deliciously.

The vision changed. It wasn’t John. It was someone else. Someone who wanted to hurt and punish her. “Please,” she moaned. A black, buried memory rose instead, smothering her. She cried out and sat bolt upright, fully awake, drenched anew in sweat.