Page 32 of Coerced Kiss
She scoffs but pads to the bedroom. Once she’s lain down on the bed, I draw the comforter over her.
“You have my number,” I say. “This time, call me.”
She stares at me with a mixture of fear and resistance crackling in those whisky eyes.
Oh, my pretty treasure. How I’m going to enjoy taming you.
Bending down to kiss the top of her head, I say, “Be a good girl while I’m gone.”
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Anya
The minute the door shuts behind Saverio, I jump to my feet. A dizzy spell hits me hard. I pinch my eyes shut and open them slowly, waiting for the room to stop spinning before I go to the lounge and look through the street-facing window.
Saverio stands on the sidewalk, buttoning up his coat. He seems like any regular man dressed for a fancy office job, and at the same time, he doesn’t. There’s something different about him—a discerning, dangerous edge. With not a hair out of place and an undecipherable mask on his face, no one would guess what he’s been up to. You’d never say he just pulled down a woman’s panties and wrenched an orgasm from her body while spanking her. He gives the impression of a CEO leaving one board meeting for another.
The black car pulls up to where Saverio waits on the curb. He folds his body double to get into the back. The tinted window hides his face when he shuts the door. The driver hits the road, and just when he picks up speed, the window on Saverio’s sidelowers a fraction. He tilts his face up to the building, our gazes clashing across the distance as a knowing smile tugs at his lips.
I spin away from the window and lean against the wall.
What the hell just happened?
How did our dynamic go from murderous to sexual? Saverio can call it what he wants, but the spanking wasn’t a punishment, at least not one designed to hurt. Maybe his aim was humiliation. If that’s the case, he succeeded.
My face turns hot as I recall how he made me come. I don’t understand that either. I don’t know why my body betrayed me, why the sting of his palm on my skin heated me right to my core. The idea of him pulling down my underwear and punishing me as if I were a naughty girl didn’t completely repulse me. The fact that the game turned him on was clear, and it didn’t leave me unaffected. A flame of something licked my belly, something that felt a lot like arousal, and that only makes my stomach burn with shame. How could I derive pleasure from such an act and from a man like him no less?
The reason I didn’t fight him wasn’t born from perverse anticipation. It was born from self-preservation. A part of me reckoned if I just let him finish, he’d go away and leave me alone. If I learned anything about him, it’s that he likes a fight. When I give him resistance, something unsettling sparks in his eyes. It makes him more excited. Compliance gets me further. However, I never intended to go that far. I didn’t expect him to bring me to climax and then to come all over my body.
I rub my blazing cheeks, taking a shaky breath as I face the ugly truth. Saverio turned my apartment into a prison, and he holds the key. I’m not only his hostage, trapped in the web of lies he spun, but I’m also utterly at his mercy, and he made sure I understood that.
The thought sends ripples of fear through me. The cold, naked fact steals my breath.
He can do anything he fancies to me, and if I value the lives of the people in my life, I don’t have a choice but to let him.
Shit.
I’m so fucked.
Literally.
Pushing my hair out of my face, I straighten my spine.
I should have a bolt and chain fitted to the door. I can change the lock. Only, that won’t keep him out. He’ll probably break it down. But I can’t let him use me. I have to be cleverer. If I can’t beat him in strength, I have to fight with my brainpower. I must find a way of getting myself out of this mess.
The resolve calms me somewhat. Taking strength from that, I push off the wall and clean the apartment to stay busy while I rack my brain for solutions. By the time the place is squeaky clean, I’ve only come up with two possibilities.
Either I have to kill Saverio or blackmail him.
Seeing that I have nothing to blackmail him with and that I don’t have it in me to kill a bug, let alone a human being, that leaves me with nothing.
Despondent, I try not to think about what happened. Instead, I count out the money I have left, pull on a cardigan and sneakers, and go to the corner store to buy fresh pasta and basil. After cooking dinner, I deliver a plate of pasta with homemade pesto sauce to Livy, who opens the door with a strained face.
“Is everything all right?” I ask.
“This business with Frank Lewis kept me up all night.” She steps aside. “Don’t mind me. I’m just a sentimental old woman who can’t believe he’s gone just like that. Come on in.” She glances at the plate in my hand. “What do you have there?”