Page 8 of Coerced Kiss

When I reach for her arms, she steps away from me.

The sound of a doorbell comes from downstairs.

“Take off your dress, Anya. I won’t tell you again.”

She looks at me as if I’m the muck on the bottom of a slimy river as she turns her back on me before removing the cardigan with trembling fingers.

“Give it here,” I say, reaching for the garment.

In a pitiful act of defiance, she drops it on the floor. My patience is endless. I didn’t get as far as I did in the business for being short-tempered or impulsive. That’s Giorgio.

Smiling to myself, I let the cardigan lie there. I was going to fold it for her, but this looks more authentic.

She toes off her shoes and hovers barefoot in the corner.

“Need help with the zipper?” I ask.

I meant it in the best way possible, seeing how much her hands are shaking, but the scowl she directs at me from over her shoulder is cutting.

My attention snaps to her movements as she reaches behind her and pulls down the zipper. The edges of the dress fall open, revealing the milky skin of her narrow back that appears all the more pale against the black lace of her bra. Right in the middle, crossing over her spine above the band of her bra, red scrapes mar her flesh.

The action of reaching out is instinctive. Before I can stop myself, I brush my fingertips over the broken skin. She jumps as if I branded her with a red-hot iron.

“Relax,” I coax. “I said I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

Goosebumps run over her arms as I trace the lines drawn in blood. The sharp edges of the bricks must’ve cut her when I pushed her against wall.

“I didn’t mean to be so rough.” It wasn’t my intention to slam her so hard against that wall. I would’ve softened the blow with a palm behind her back if my hands weren’t full. “We better disinfect these.”

She hollows her spine and steps away, escaping my touch.

“Carry on,” I say in a gruff voice that leaves no room for argument.

I study her with undivided attention as she pushes the dress down her arms and over her hips. A lacy black thong matches the bra. The fabric of her dress pools around her ankles, revealing a perfectly proportioned body from the dip of her narrow waist and the flare of her hips to the firm globes of her ass and the toned calves of her legs.

It’s impossible to hide my reaction when she turns around. If her back is perfection, her front is paradise. Her tits are round and pert, spilling over the cups of her bra. Peachy nipples are contracted into hard little points, teasing me from beneath a veil of black voile. Her hips are just wide enough for my hands to find purchase while her stomach is slightly rounded exactly like I prefer. Flat stomachs turn me off. If I’m going to burymy fingers in a woman’s flesh, I prefer her soft and ripe like a succulent fruit, not hard and rigid like an ironing board. The cherry on the top is that she doesn’t shave. The trimmed curls that show through the lace triangle between her legs are natural and womanly. That’s how I like it. I don’t want to feel as if I’m fucking a plucked turkey, or worse, a child.

The bulge in my briefs is proof of the effect she has on me. That, in itself, is a mystery, because these days, I only get hard for tall, topless blondes in strip clubs. As in the street, my untimely arousal catches me by surprise. Let’s face it, those platinum-haired beauties put in a lot of work before they get me hard enough to fuck them. This short little redhead does what they’d only achieve with a lap dance and a lot of cock sucking with nothing but the drop of her dress.

She’s staring pointedly at my groin, no doubt coming to her own conclusion. I can write it off to being a man—any man who doesn’t get hard for her must either be blind or dead—but I don’t want to play these games with her. If she holds power over me, she deserves to know it. I’m not going to demean her effect on me by telling her it’s straightforward biology, a man’s natural reaction to any female body in a state of undress.

“Go,” I say, my voice rough. “Get into bed.”

She wets her lips in a nervous reaction. “Why?”

“Didn’t I make myself clear? I’m not going to force myself on you.”

“Then why?—”

The ringing of the doorbell cuts her short.

“Into bed,” I say, my command soft but harsh. “Now.”

She glances between me and the door. I can almost see the gears turn in her head as she contemplates a cry for help and an escape.

There’s no way out of this for her.

My smile stretches slowly. “If you step out of line, this night is going to end very unpleasantly for both you and the person behind that door.”