“I’ve decided I can’t let him find me a third time. I must never see him again.”
“What?” Blue eyes blinked at her in surprise.
“I found out he’s an escaped convict. Yes, he excites me, Chris. I’m ashamed to admit it, but there it is. But I’ve had it with bad boys. I won’t go through that again. And this situation…. It’s too frightening, even for me. The problem is, he knows where I live, he has the key to my apartment. Even if I change the lock, I think he would just break in. I need a safe place to stay where he can’t find me. And I don’t want to be alone. Can I stay with you?”
“With me? You want to stay with me?”
“If it’s too much of an imposition—“
“It’s the last thing I expected you to ask, that’s all.” He frowned. “I don’t get it. You don’t want to turn this criminal over to the police, but you don’t want to see him again either. You think you can just hide from him forever?”
“He’ll forget about me if I’m out of reach.”
Chris looked at her gravely. “I don’t think so, Xandra. No man could forget a woman like you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She bristled. “Is there something wrong with me?”
“You’re very beautiful, Xandra.”
Her jaw dropped. He had never used that tone with her before: worshipful and yearning.
“A bit insecure,” he added dryly, in a more Chris-typical way. “But beautiful. Too inclined to over think and over plan minutia, and then make a major life decision with no more than five seconds consideration, but—“
“Okay, okay, I get the idea.”
“Of course you can come stay at my house, Xandra, if that’s what you want,” Chris said seriously. “I have to be honest. I don’t know if I can protect you from this…stalker. But I swear to you, that I will try.”
* * * * *
Dr. Chris Jacobs lived alone in a four bedroom, three bath, restored Dutch Colonial, which sat on nearly two acres of emerald lawn in a posh neighborhood. The backyard included a rose garden around a pergola and a full sized outdoor basketball court. The stately but spartan rooms inside, however, begged for more furnishings. Chris claimed that work left him no time for the matter. Belying that excuse, in contrast to the rest of the downstairs, the media room, the gym and especially the kitchen had been lovingly equipped with every gadget known to man. As a hobby, Chris liked to cook gourmet meals for his friends. The bedrooms upstairs were also nicely appointed, but only because Xandra had dragged him shopping for decent drapes and bedspreads one weekend.
“You know where the guest room is,” Chris said. He paused. “Do you want me to stop by your apartment and pick up some of your things?”
“No.” She didn’t want the stalker to see Chris. “If I need to, I’ll go buy new clothes.”
Although Xandra teased Chris about his sparsely furnished house, the truth was that she didn’t have much in her apartment either. Except for a bit of indulgence in the clothing and shoe department, she handled her money frugally, preferring to invest most of her discretionary income. By now, she had a comfortable portfolio.
“Well, you have a toothbrush here,” he said. “Is there anything else you need before I start dinner? That is, if you still have any appetite left after all that pie.”
“Actually…” Xandra hated this. She knew her face must have reddened again. “Yes, I need your help with something.”
He waited.
“The, uhm.” She gestured to the general area of her chest. “I don’t know how to remove it.”
A slight smile curled his lip. He lifted an eyebrow.
“Please don’t laugh at me, Chris,” Xandra said. “I’m embarrassed enough as it is.”
“I’m sorry,” he said at once. “Shall we go upstairs?”
They closed the drapes in the guest bedroom. Then Xandra awkwardly took off her suit jacket and skirt. She unbuttoned her silk blouse. Down to her chemise, she hesitated. Once she might have changed unselfconsciously in the same room as Chris. But that wasn’t the same as stripping and standing before him naked except for titty-clamps and chains. Worse yet, ever since he had made her come while massaging her on her living room floor, two weeks ago, she had felt strangely shy of him. To buy time, she unpinned her hair and ran her fingers through it to loosen it over her shoulders.
He didn’t hurry her. She took a deep breath and let the chemise puddle on the floor. She stepped out of it and stood before Chris, naked, jingling with chains, and blushing.
Chris drew in a sharp gasp.
“God, Xandra.” He sounded strained.
Xandra guessed he was horrified by the realization that the chains from her nipples dangled all the way to dildo ring between her legs. Her blush spread.
“Let me…look at this,” he said unevenly. He placed his hands on her bare breasts. Gently, he tugged the nipple clamps this way and that to examine the mechanism. Xandra groaned and lifted her chest to him. Chris trailed his fingers down her belly along the trail of chains, until his fingers came to the ring over her clit. The motion of prodding the ring also stimulated her clit. Xandra swayed on her feet. She stifled a mew of pleasure.
“You’d, ah, better lie back on the bed,” Chris said. “And spread your legs.”
Xandra shut her eyes. “This is so embarrassing.”
But she lay on her back, as he had suggested, with her knees bent over the edge of the bed. After another moment in which she struggled with her mortification, she spread her thighs.
Chris rattled the dildo as far as he could against the chains fore and aft that secured it in her. Xandra felt the motion reverberate all the way up to her cervix. The dildo’s claw scraped to and fro against her clit. Her hips twitched.
Please don’t let Chris make me come again.
“The belt around your waist has a lock,” Chris said. “I’ll need to get a bolt cutter. Don’t move.”
She waited on the bed, thighs spread, for him to return. It washed over her again, that strange feeling that a man commanded her. She luxuriated in the feeling. She couldn’t tell to whom she felt surrendered—to Chris or to the stalker?
Chris returned with the bolt cutter. He stood between Xandra’s legs and looked down at her. He positioned the bolt cutter against the chain around her waist and began to work it back and forth. The dildo claw agitated against her clit again. Xandra clenched her teeth, trying her best to ignore the building sensation. Her thighs started to close.
Chris forced her legs apart again. The feel of his strong hands on the inside of her thighs almost pushed her over the edge.
“I’m almost done,” he said.
He finished cutting the belt off before she could come. She should have been glad, but it was difficult to remember that when her whole body tingled with unfulfilled need. She felt his hands inside her thighs again. He tugged at the dildo, slowly withdrawing it from her pussy. With a sigh, Xandra started to sit up.
“No. Don’t move.” Chris pushed her back down on the bed. “I’m going to insert some cream to soothe you.”
What?
A dollop of cold lotion touched her labia. She jumped.
“Shhhh,” he murmured. “Lie still.”
He slipped two of his fingers, coated with cream, into her sheath. He massaged the inner passage with long, slow strokes. Meanwhile his other hand rubbed sensuously against her clit.
Ohmigod.
“Just like last time,” he said.
Last time he had “soothed” her, she had made a fool of herself by nearly biting apart her pillow with the force of her orgasm. This time, she lay on her back, face up, while he stood between her legs, looking down at her. How would she hide her orgasm, if he made her come again? And how could she stand the humiliation of writhing in orgasm under Chris’s well-meant ministrations?
“Chris, stop.”
He kept rubbing. Desire half-lidded his eyes and he stared down at her shuddering, naked body with open lust on his face. He knew he
was going to make her come. He knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted her.
But she didn’t deserve a man like Chris. She didn’t deserve to feel this good.
“Chris, stop,” she repeated.
She prayed he wouldn’t heed her. She felt she had to tell him to stop, even though that was the last thing she really wanted. She hoped that just this once, he wouldn’t listen. He would make her come, and then he would unzip his pants and plunge his cock into her and fuck her until she screamed.
Was it possible? Did she want Chris to fuck her?
Yes.
He was her best friend, but he was also a handsome man. She had thought she could never feel any passion for him. Oh, how wrong she had been. Right now she wanted to feel his cock claiming her more than she had ever wanted any other man.
No! What was she thinking? If they had sex, their friendship would be ruined. She would lose him forever, just for a few seconds bliss.
“No!” she shouted, sitting up and pushing him away.
Chris stumbled back. A cascade of different emotions flashed across his face: confusion, anger, embarrassment, apology, shame.
Without a word, he turned on his heel and left the room.
Xandra curled up into a ball on the bed and cried.
Chapter 5
She finally dressed and went in search of him. She found him in the gym, shirtless, seated in the black chair of one of the stations, hoisting weights. Sweat rivuleted down his pecs and abs.
“Chris…”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Xandra.”
He would not even turn to look at her. He kept his concentration focused on a spot on the far wall.
Xandra bit her lip. She didn’t know what to say, although she knew she ought to say something. She wished things could be easy between them, as they always had been before. God, she had made a mess of everything, hadn’t she?
“I think we need to talk about it,” she said.
Chris blew a raspberry and eased back the weights. He still wouldn’t look at her, though he sat up and leaned forward on the black leather gym chair.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “You came here for protection against a sexual predator, and instead of providing a safe place for you, I made a pass at you. I was out of line. The thing is, I don’t think I can do this anymore, Xandra. Maybe you need to find another place to stay.”
That was the last thing Xandra wanted to hear.
“Chris, don’t be like that.”
“I’m not made of stone, Xandra.” He glanced up, his face agonized. “It’s been hard enough watching you throw yourself at losers all these years, while you treat me like an old mop, useful for nothing except cleaning up the messes they leave in your life. How do you think I feel knowing that you find more pleasure in the touch of a stranger who stalks you and ties you up than you do with me?”
“I never knew you felt that way,” Xandra said, stunned.
“Of course not. You never see me at all.”
“That’s not true. You’re my best friend. I just don’t want to ruin that with sex. If it didn’t work out….”
He looked at her for a long moment. He blew out another explosive breath.
“You’re right,” he said. “You’re right. I’d rather have you as a friend than as nothing at all. Besides, it’s obvious that sexually I can’t give you what you want.”
Her face heated. That’s not true, she wanted to say. If only you wouldn’t give up so easily. She couldn’t force the words out, though, not when they had just come so close to mending their friendship. That was the most important thing.
“So are we okay?” she asked. She strove for a tentative smile. “Still friends?”
“Yeah.” He tried to echo her smile. The twist of his lips looked more bittersweet than happy. “Yeah, Xandra, we’re still friends.”
Just as Xandra exhaled in relief, she caught sight of a shadow moving the garden outside. French doors opened from the gym onto the garden. She stiffened.
Surely it couldn’t be….
“Xandra? What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I thought I saw something.” She shivered. “I must be getting paranoid.”
It couldn’t be the man in black. He couldn’t have followed me here.
Chris frowned. “You’re shaking.”
He stood up and walked toward her, his back to the French doors.
This time the silhouette in the glass was unmistakable. A man all in black, including a black ski mask, lifted his arm. He smashed the glass with the butt of a gun.
Xandra screamed.
The next instant, the stalker burst through the shattered door.
Run, her mind screamed. Call the police.
The stalker reached her before she could coerce her aching limbs to answer her mind’s scream. He yanked her up by one arm and shoved her up against the wall. Something about him had changed. He had never been so brutal with her before. He seemed colder, harder, meaner. She had feared him before, yet never so much as now. There was an edge to him now that she had not sensed in their previous encounters.
“Leave her alone, you asshole!” Chris shouted. He took advantage of the stalker’s momentary distraction to pummel the stalker in the face with a few good punches.
But the stalker outweighed and outbulked Chris. Recovering from the blows, and without releasing his grip on Xandra’s arm, he rained down one-handed bitch-slaps with the gun on Chris. Chris buckled beneath the onslaught. Utterly relentless, the stalker forced Chris to his knees and smacked him with the butt of he gun so hard across the jaw that Chris fell to the floor. Then the stalker smashed Xandra back into the wall and commenced to wrench off her clothes. The poor blouse and skirt she had worn to work were never going to be wearable again.
“Please,” Xandra said, peering into the stalker’s brown eyes, trying to re-establish the paradoxical sense of trust she had felt in his presence before. Brown eyes? She could have sworn they had been blue. “Don’t hurt Chris. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“I’ll do whatever I want, and the good Dr. Jacobs will watch.” He laughed.
Even his voice sounded off, Xandra thought. Deep and gravelly yes, but with a slightly different timbre. Or was it just the hint of hysteria present now that had not been there before, that made it sound strange?
“And when I’m done,” the stalker said as waved his gun in her face, “I’ll kill you both.”
This was not a game of pleasurable domination. It certainly wasn’t one of Xandra’s fantasies. He meant it.
Oh, Chris, I am so sorry I dragged you into this. She could not stand the thought of his death, and all because of her own stupidity and twisted lust. Why had she never seen it before? Why had she endangered the one person she cared most about in the world?
She was in love with Chris Jacobs.
And now, because of her, the nicest man in the world might die at the hands of a depraved sexual psychotic.
“I said leave her alone.”
Chris lifted himself from the ground. His voice had deepened, his muscles bulged and a feral gleam raged in his eyes. It was Chris and yet more than Chris. It was the Hulk without the green skin.
The stalker swung around to aim the gun at Chris.
“Watch out!” cried Xandra.
Chris barreled forward and tackled the stalker in an attempt to wrest the gun from his hands. He half succeeded. The stalker lost his grip on the gun, and the weapon clanged and rolled across the stone tile floor of the gym room. Too engrossed in their conflict to retrieve it, the men wrestled hand to hand. The stalker grabbed a fistful of cords from one of the gym machines and tried to choke Chris. Chris roared like a wild animal and ducked out of the noose. Each man yanked on the cords in a vicious tug-o-war.
The cords snapped like a packet of firecrackers. Five hundred pounds in barbells slid down the rail into a resting position over the stalker’s chest. Given his superhuman strength, the weight did not crush him to deat
h as it might have another man, but it knocked him unconscious and pinned him in place.
Chris-the-Hulk now turned the full brunt of his attention to Xandra.
“Chris…?” she said uncertainly.
“I’m finally free of that prison called ‘Chris,’” Chris said with a demonic grin. His icy blue eyes and lowered voice fit what she remembered of the stalker who had come to her apartment. “I’m finally free to do what I’ve always wanted to do to you, Xandra.”
He advanced on her. Xandra, self-conscious of her semi-undress, clutched at the feeble shreds left to her clothing.
“You have Hyde Syndrome,” she said.
Chris bent and picked up the gun off the tile floor. “You finally figured it out.”
“It was you before…not this other man.” She gestured to the stalker trapped beneath the weights.
“His name was Stephen Paige. An ordinary guy, until he contracted Hyde’s Syndrome.” Chris laughed, inappropriately. “He escaped the hold in our research facility. Tried to rape Harriet, one of our scientists. I interfered. He was too strong for me—back then, when I was weakling Chris—and escaped, but not before he scratched me and infected me with the disease. It was shortly after I developed the symptoms of the syndrome that I took you for the first time.”
“Why me?” asked Xandra. “Why didn’t you just try to rape the first woman you saw, like Stephen there?”
Chris looked at her with burning eyes. “I only wanted you, Xandra. Always you. Only you.”
Naughty Doctor Page 4
