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I wrapped my arms around myself as a chill went through me. On one side of me I had a killer, and on the other side a man who was going to die. Gary had lied to me, but I couldn’t kill him.

  Maybe you could, my mind said. Stay unsure.

  Right. Maybe I could kill him. I tucked one arm under my head to use as a pillow. All I could smell was the leather of the couch and the dusty smell of old books. The shirt that Rien gave me was clean and sterile. When he’d touched me before, leaning over me, I had smelled his cologne. It was a delicate smell that hinted of peppermint and fresh air. I wanted to smell it again.

  I shook my head in disgust. But then I realized that I could use this for my character. The survivor. She was pretending to want him.

  Yes, I thought. I could do this. I could act as though he was attractive. I could pretend to be seduced by him. I could—

  Footsteps came down the hallway. I held my breath. The bolt on the door snapped open.

  I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. I had to calm down. My heart was pounding.

  What did Meisner say about acting like this? Transfer the point of concentration to some object outside of yourself - another person, a puzzle, a broken plate that you are gluing.

  Another object. The first thing that came to my mind was… a scalpel.

  Fine. Yes. A scalpel. I was dreaming of a scalpel. My breathing slowed as I forced myself to concentrate. I saw the scalpel in my mind’s eye. The silver blade. The small screw attaching the blade to the handle.

  The door opened, creaking.

  I fell deeper into thought. The scalpel shone in the light. I saw it turn in my hand, reflecting. I saw the blade, reflecting my face. And then, behind me, in the silver reflection—

  “Sara.”

  The voice sounded far away, from behind a curtain. I forced myself not to respond. In my mind, though, golden eyes stared at me from the mirror of the scalpel’s blade. Golden eyes and dark hair.

  “Sara.”

  Rien’s voice was close, now, and I shifted my weight on the couch, stirring even as I told myself to keep my eyes on the scalpel, always on the scalpel. But the scalpel wasn’t clean anymore in my mind. It was red. It dripped blood. My pulse grew fast again, my breaths became more shallow. And then—

  “Ah!”

  He touched me on the cheek, and I jerked awake as though I was really sleeping. My concentration was lost; I’d dropped the scalpel in my dreams.

  My whole body cringed back, retreating into the leather couch. He grabbed my wrist. I twisted it away.

  “Don’t move,” he said, grabbing my wrist again. My pulse began to thump in my ears. I wasn’t concentrating on anything but the fingers wrapped tightly around my arm.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I won’t hurt you. Don’t move.”

  I struggled to pull away, and he stopped moving. As soon as I relaxed, though, he continued to pull me upright.

  “You can fight if you want, Sara. But you won’t be able to win. I’m much stronger than you.” A whisper in the dark. A warning from the shadows. I bit my lip and let him move me like a doll.

  He slid an arm underneath me and lifted up my body into a sitting position. I couldn’t see anything; it was pitch black. All I could feel was his hand grasping my arm like a vise, the pressure of his upper arm keeping me up.

  Then I felt the pressure of his chest against my back. He was bare-chested, and he shifted his weight forward so that I could feel him. His erection was hard against my lower back. A flash of terror went through me as a new thought found itself in my mind.

  No. Not this.

  A minute ago, I had told myself that I could do this. I could pretend to let him seduce me. If it would give me an advantage. Now that it was happening, though, I realized I had no other choice. I couldn’t fight back; he would slice me open and think nothing of it. All I could do was distance myself. Act as though it was pretend. It was all pretend, wasn’t it?

  Then I thought of what he had done to me the first time and tears stung the backs of my eyes.

  “Don’t inject me with anything,” I said, closing my eyes as though it would make the darkness go away. In my mind, the syringe was coming at me in the dark. I didn’t know where it would come from. My heart pounded in my ears. “Please. No needles.”

  “No needles,” he agreed. His voice was a soft whisper in my ear. For a moment, he sounded so gentle that I forgot to be afraid of him. I was scared, yes, scared of the darkness, but not of him. His hands softened on my arms, caressing my skin. “But don’t fight me.”

  “I won’t,” I said. As terrified as I was, his words gave me a measure of relief. No needles. No paralysis.

  If it got too bad, I could defend myself.

  I didn’t know what he was doing, but then he wrapped an arm around me, over my chest. His chin rested against my neck and he nuzzled my hair out of the way.

  “Were you asleep?”

  He talked to me like a lover. A crazed maniacal lover who was keeping me hostage in a library, but a lover nonetheless. His voice promised honeyed sweetness with its lilting words.

  “Yes,” I lied.

  “Were you dreaming?”

  “No.”

  Rien rocked me slightly back and forth, and in the total darkness my sleepiness began to catch up with me again. My heart slowed down, no longer pumping adrenaline through my body. He brushed my hair away and pressed his lips against my neck. A long, slow thrill seized my nerves.

  “You were unconscious,” he whispered. His breath skimmed the nape of my neck.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s like death, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. The image of the scalpel flashed again in my mind and I blinked it away. “I’ve never died.”

  “Descartes said it: I think, therefore I am. When you’re not thinking, then, what are you? Isn’t unconsciousness the same as death?”

  “You’re the anesthesiologist. You tell me. Or at least, that’s what you pretended to be.” He might’ve been lying to me about that, too.

  “I am an anesthesiologist.”

  He was telling the truth. What was it about his voice that made me know he was telling me the truth? His thumb rubbed the side of my arm and I shivered.

  “You’re a murderer,” I whispered.

  “What’s the difference? I put people under. Sometimes they come out of it. Sometimes not.”

  “You torture them.”

  “I tortured you.” He hugged his arms around me a bit more tightly.

  “Is that supposed to be comforting?”

  “I don’t deal in comfort. I deal in pain and pleasure. Specifically, other people’s pain. My pleasure.”

  “But not for me.”

  “No,” he said. There was something strange in his voice when he said it, a kind of unease that I hadn’t sensed in him before. Rien, who’d been utterly confident from the beginning, sounded unsure for the first time. It drew me even closer to him.

  “What do you think?” he asked. The confidence in his voice came back as he changed the subject. “Do you lose your identity when you sleep?”

  I leaned against him so that my head rested against his collarbone. His body was relaxed. I breathed in deeply.

  “I’m not sure I’m awake now,” I said. I let myself drift off, my heartbeat slowing. “This doesn’t seem real. I might be dreaming. I might not exist right now at all.”

  “Are you a different person now than you were this morning, Sara?”

  I opened my eyes. It was dark; nothing had changed. But I felt his muscles tense against my back.

  “I’m nothing right now,” I said. “I don’t have an identity. I’m just a prisoner.” A survivor.

  His arms moved across my chest, pulling me against him. I gasped when he lay down onto the couch underneath me, pulling me back with him. His legs slid under mine, my feet grazing his ankles.

  He was under me completely. I lay on top of him, my back against his chest. The back of my h
ead rested on his shoulder.

  His hands began to unbutton my shirt. One button at a time. I lay there, frozen, unable or unwilling to move. I’d just decided to pretend, hadn’t I? But this didn’t seem like pretending. His hands hypnotized me, caressed me. I breathed in deeply, feeling the pressure of my lungs as they swelled against his chest. Then his breath came back, resounding.

  His cock was hard already. I could feel his erection pressing against the back of my thighs as I lay on top of him. Then he unbuttoned the top button of my shirt. His hands drew the fabric apart. The chill of the library air made my nipples hard. He cupped one breast with his hand, his thumb smoothing circles around the hard button.

  Was this how it felt, when my mother slept with her clients? A sick dread twisted in my mind. He was a killer. He had me hostage. But at the same time, there was an unwilling pleasure that came from my body’s reflexes. It mixed with the dread and fought it, and I didn’t know what I wanted him to do. The hard length of his cock pulsed just under my thighs, and I felt myself clench involuntarily with desire.

  How much of it did my mother hate? All of it?

  I suppose she must have hated it. She was a stronger woman than I was.

  Rien rolled my nipple idly with his thumb. The other hand moved down, his fingertips dragging across my skin. In the total darkness, my lips parted. I breathed in. The pads of his fingers were smooth. Long fingers. A surgeon’s hands. I winced, thinking about his hand holding a scalpel, slicing open skin. He paused for a moment, and I let my breath out.

  I could hear his breathing, too, right at my ear. He lay almost perfectly still underneath me, and I could feel the rise and fall of his chest as I rose and fell with him. Then he hooked the waist of my panties with his thumb.

  I breathed in at the same time as he did. His chest swelled against my back, broad and warm. With his arms around me in a bear hug, he arched back against the couch, pulling down his underwear and my panties to our knees in one smooth motion.

  I gasped as his bare cock twitched between my thighs, hot against my skin. To my embarrassment, I was already wet. I clenched my thighs together but he didn’t even try to pull them apart. Instead his hands went back to my body. One hand kneaded the side of my hip just above my hipbone. The other hand moved back up, caressing my breast, moving across my stomach. I lay there and did not fight it, did not move.

  Who was I now? Was I a survivor? How could I possibly be a survivor? I liked this. No, more than liked. I needed it. When he kissed the back of my neck, his tongue licking slow circles at the top of my spine, I moaned in pleasure. It had been long, too long, since a man had touched me so possessively.

  He was hot underneath me and the air was chilly above. He drew down one side of the unbuttoned shirt and kissed me on the shoulder. I shivered.

  “Do you like that?”

  “Yes.” The word was a whisper that could have been a scream. It was taking all of my energy not to touch myself. I ached for him, wanted him so badly.

  He kissed me again, running a line of kisses along my shoulder and up my neck, then back.

  “You fit perfectly in my arms, do you know that? Just the right size.”

  My lips parted when I felt his cock pulse again. It slid between my thighs, unbelievably thick. I whimpered as he adjusted his position under me. I was wet, oh god, so wet. It was easy for him to thrust upward between my thighs. His length ran along my folds but did not enter yet. I put my hand down between my legs and felt his tip poking out from between my thighs.

  “Not yet,” Rien murmured. He rocked back slowly, his whole length grazing me so lightly that it made me want to scream. How could he do this to me with his body? I was no survivor. I was nothing in his arms. I was only his.

  Then he rocked forward, and again I felt his tip slide close to my entrance, wet with my juices. Then again. And again.

  “Please,” I said. My voice was hoarse with want. I might have been faking at first, but there was nothing fake about the agony that trembled my body right now. My body was a hollow core that needed him to fill it. Tears rose to my eyes as he slid closer, then backed away again. “Please.”

  “Tell me what you want.”

  “I want…”

  I couldn’t say it. Damn me. I couldn’t speak the words.

  “Tell me.”

  “I can’t…” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “I can’t…” I reached down, touched his cock. He tilted his hips up, letting me guide him inside of me. As his tip went in, his hand brushed mine away. His fingers slid down over my clit. I breathed in sharply as he wet his fingers with my juices. Then he pressed down against my swollen clit and I cried out aloud.

  In an instant, his other hand was around my neck and he thrust upward, piercing me with his cock. I screamed, and the hand around my throat tightened, cutting off my breath.

  “Open your eyes,” he whispered. I gasped, staring upwards into the darkness. Then he released the pressure, rocking back.

  Before I could catch my breath, he did it again. The long fingers around my throat took away my air, and in the pitch black I saw stars flash before my eyes. I twisted against his grasp, but he had me pinned against his body with both arms. My hands clutched at his hand around my throat, but I could not tear him off.

  “Ohhh,” he groaned, thrusting upward into me, and the rumble of his voice made my body shiver deeply. I gasped as he released my throat, but he still held me tight. He rocked into me again, and I cried out in pleasure, my cry fading only when his hand came around my throat. But this time I was ready. I had taken a breath. When he thrust up, I closed my eyes.

  I could only breathe when he let me, and my gasps began to come in time with his rhythm. His thumb rolled over my tender clit, flicking it with every thrust. His swollen cock worked its way deeper and deeper into my core.

  Rien was rough, but as his hands worked on my body, I felt a deeper pleasure begin to surface. This was a desire that I could never have admitted to myself. He was moving my body so that it would pleasure him perfectly. He was using me as a sex toy, his thrusts completely disregarding my cries. Nevertheless, I started to move along in his rhythm. As he thrust, I rocked my hips backward, meeting him as our bodies crashed.

  My breaths came faster, even with his fingers held tight around my neck. He slid me up and down over his body, and his sweat and mine mixed with my juices so that every motion was slick. He rolled his hips upward and I felt the pressure inside of me rise and rise. With every roll of his hips, a gasp of pleasure escaped me. With every motion, he carried us both higher and higher. The rhythm of his thrusts grew faster, and now I could hear his heartbeat. It was pounding fast, and it matched my own.

  I clenched around his swollen cock, needing it. Needing him. Using his arms as leverage, I rocked against him, riding his steel-hard cock.

  Then his body tensed, his arms gripping me with a sudden pressure, and my orgasm ripped through me at the same time as his. The stars in the darkness turned into fireworks that splashed brightness across my vision. The pulsing ecstasy tore through me again and again, and I screamed aloud, riding him hard into another climax.

  He shuddered upward and my body clenched, milking him, draining him completely. He breathed hard, his chest thudding against my skin with the pulse of his heartbeat. Inside me, his cock still throbbed in time with his heartbeat. If his body had been warm before, now it was so hot that I could barely stand to lean my head back against his shoulder.

  We lay like that for a minute, our breathing calming down together.

  Was this real? This was what I’d been looking for, every time I’d slept with a guy. This brutal possession of my body. The almost supernatural way he knew how I would react to his touch. The way he sent me reeling with wave after wave of orgasm. None of it was for show. We were in the dark. But he’d just given me the most pleasure I’d ever known.

  This wasn’t pretend. This wasn’t what my mother had known. I was sure of it. His attention had been entirely on me th
e entire time, like he could read my mind.

  I shifted, and he slid out of me. He helped me sit up, and a wash of dizziness passed over me. I lay back against the couch cushions. He stood up and pulled his underwear back up.

  It was only when I heard the door opening that I spoke.

  “What was that?” I asked. He paused, and even though the lights were off, I could see the expression on his face darkening.

  “A character study,” he said, finally. “I was having a hard time getting to sleep.”

  “Oh,” I said, disappointment edging my voice. I don’t know what kind of answer I was expecting. I don’t know what kind of answer I wanted. I only know that at his words, a shiver ran through my body and it was all I could do to keep myself from going to him and throwing my arms around him. Stupid me. Stupid imagination.

  “I hope you sleep better,” I said. I tried to make my words cold, but I couldn’t. In the dark, he had taken me completely and then given me back to myself. I choked back the sentiment. He obviously didn’t share it.

  “I should be fine now,” Rien said. “Thank you—thank you for not fighting too much. I hope you enjoyed it. Whether you were pretending or not.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Rien

  I sat at the head of the operating room table. Gav was sitting at the other end with one of his own number eleven scalpels, making little cuts into the bottom of Mr. Steadhill’s feet.

  “I don’t know what to do with her,” I said, running a hand through my hair. Gav poked the blade between two of the toes¸ and Mr. Steadhill made a nice squealing noise. Gav always knew the right buttons to push.

  “She in there?” He waved the scalpel at the secret door to the library.

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I meet her?”

  “No. You want her to see your face, too?”

  Gav yawned, covering his mouth with his fist.

  “No, I guess you’re right. You can’t just, you know?” He drew his finger across his neck.

  “She’s innocent. I can’t kill an innocent person.”

  Especially not someone like her. I didn’t know how to say that, though. There was something strange about her. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. And other things, not so strange, that I could put my finger on. God, her body was delicious.