Coerce, p.23
Coerce, page 23
It’s the kind of poison that only works on the most depraved of us, men like me who have only ever known darkness.
She came along and infected me with her sweet torment, changing fundamental parts of me with nothing more than a coy smile and the scent of her arousal.
A part of me hates myself because of it. The part that still has that lingering essence of humanity knows I should have set her free. I’m too far gone for that. Willingly or in a gilded cage, Ivy will spend her life with my cock inside her pussy and my hand collaring her throat.
Shaking myself out of it, I refill my coffee cup and turn my attention back to my laptop.
I work in silence while the guys do what they have to do, all of them oblivious to the captive tied to my bed. Being this far away from her is torture. My dick hasn’t gone down since I left her and if I don’t get inside her soon I’ll lose my mind.
Fuck it. Checking my watch, I see it’s been just short of two hours. Signaling for the foreman, I tell him to round up his men for the day. Once they’ve gone, I shower in one of the downstairs bathrooms and make my way upstairs naked, not trying to hide the sound of my footsteps.
I push the door open wide and stand staring at my prize. Was there ever a greater treasure in the world than the sight of all that porcelain skin spread out before me? The rosy pink of her tight as fuck pussy begs me to thrust my cock inside it while I grip her golden hair that’s damp from tears she shed because of me.
Walking over to the bed, I stand beside her and watch in fascination as her head turns toward me, sensing someone here with her.
I trail my finger over her foot and drag it up her silky smooth leg, drawing a whimper from her that has my cock weeping in anticipation.
Keeping my touch featherlight, I tease her with little random touches so she can’t anticipate where the next one will come from.
When she starts struggling, I dip and suck a hardened nipple into my mouth and watch her body freeze for a moment before it starts fighting again. The red blush that spreads across her chest shows me she’s more than just scared, she’s aroused but she won’t give in without knowing if it’s me. I’m not ready to alleviate her fear just yet.
I move between her spread legs at the bottom of the bed and flick her clit with my tongue before pushing a finger inside her. She’s not as wet as I’d like, her fear stronger than her arousal, but that’s okay. I’m a patient man.
I slide my finger free and replace it with my tongue once more, dipping it inside her and tasting the honeysuckle that is uniquely Ivy.
Grinding my dick against the bed, I seek friction while I lick and suck and feast upon her pussy until she’s dripping and my face is coated with her wetness.
Only then do I give in, when she’s so delirious that the fight is gone from her. Climbing to my knees, I move my cock to her entrance and surge inside her.
Her screams are muffled by her gag but I don’t allow them to slow me down. I allow them to fuel me. The fucked-up side of me is punishing her for finding enjoyment when she doesn’t know it’s me, even though I set her up to fail.
With that thought in mind, something snaps and I fuck her brutally until I can’t hold back any longer. Reaching up with one hand, I grip her throat and squeeze. When her pussy clamps down around my cock, I fill her with my cum, branding her on the inside as well as with my fingerprints on the outside.
Collapsing over her for a moment, I catch my breath before climbing from the bed.
Her chest heaves in and out as my cum drips onto the sheets below her. A sense of satisfaction washes over me as I turn and head back to the bathroom and get dressed.
When I return to Ivy, she’s shaking so hard the restrains make a clunking sound against the bed frame.
True Fear. Finally.
I release her legs first and massage the ankles before reaching up and freeing her wrists. I rub them too, surprised when she doesn’t put up a fight.
Next, I remove the gag before finally removing the mask.
She doesn’t look at me, doesn’t speak to me, or acknowledge my existence. That pisses me off so I speak without thinking, wanting to get a reaction from her.
“I walk in the door and find you dripping with cum? I see my men have been busy—” I don’t get to finish my taunt before she’s flying off the bed and hurtling toward the bathroom. She crashes to the floor beside the toilet and vomits.
Something curdles in my stomach at the sight of it and it has nothing to do with the vomit itself and everything to do with my guilt.
I did this.
Moving to help her, my hand barely touches her back before she whimpers and pulls away, tucking her hands around her knees as she draws them to her chin, tears dripping from her face like a never-ending stream of rain.
“Don’t touch me,” she chokes.
“Ivy, let me help you.”
“I don’t need or want your help ever again. Stay away from me, Atlas.”
“I can’t do that, Ivy,” I whisper, getting to my knees beside her.
“I’ll never forgive you,” she whimpers, her tears flowing fast enough to drown us both.
“It was me, Ivy, I swear. Do you honestly think I’d let another man touch you?”
“I want to brush my teeth,” she murmurs as the tears abruptly stop.
She makes no move to stand, her mind shutting off the emotions that threaten to overwhelm her.
I grab her toothbrush and toothpaste and fill the glass beside the sink with water, feeling like I’ve stepped into the eye of the storm. The unnerving quietness makes the hairs on my arms stand on end as I wait for the world to rush back in and the storm of her anger to rip me to shreds.
She takes the toothbrush with shaky hands and dips it in the water before holding it up for me to squeeze the toothpaste onto.
I watch her as she brushes her teeth, her focus on a spot over my shoulder, before she spits down the toilet and takes the water from me to swill before passing it back to me along with her toothbrush.
“You can go now,” she tells me in a robotic tone as she lies her head against her knees and waits for me to leave.
“I’m not going—”
And just like that, the quiet shatters, showering us both with anguish.
“Just go!” She screams, the sound tearing strips from my soul. “Please, just leave me alone,” she begs, her voice breaking over each word.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“Fuck you. You can’t? More like you won’t. Are you happy now, Atlas? Do you feel like a big man now you’ve brought me so low? I’ve worked two jobs, drove a piece of crap car, lived in a shitty neighborhood, and skipped meals because I couldn’t afford to eat but I have never felt like trash until right now. So congratulations, Atlas, I hope you choke to death on your self-righteousness.”
With a growl, I grab her, scooping her up even though she fights me tooth and nail. I step into the shower with her despite me being fully clothed. I turn on the shower, holding her tightly as she squeals under the freezing temperatures.
“I hate you,” she gasps as the water finally heats up and she dissolves into body-wracking sobs.
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” Each word slices me open. I never wanted this, even though I knew it was inevitable. I tried in my way to be a good guy for her but I set us both up to fall. She fell in love with a man who doesn’t exist and in turn, I punished her for loving him.
She fell for a facet of me that’s nothing more than a myth, greedily drinking down my lies as if my venom were the sweetest nectar. Now the illusion is shattered, she wants to run. I can feel it in every taut muscle of her body.
I tricked her, played games with her glass heart, knowing when I held out my hand she’d walk willingly into the trap I had baited.
But I didn’t just trap her, I trapped us both. If I want her to ever be more than just my prisoner I need her to forget the man and love the monster instead.
I hold her until her sobs subside and the only sound is from her ragged breathing as she tries to calm herself down.
I let her go and strip out of my ruined suit. I dump it in the base of the shower with my boxers, leaving myself naked.
She watches me warily, backing up when I reach to grab her, but I can’t let her retreat from me any further or I’ll never get her back.
“I’m not gonna hurt you, Ivy,” I soothe, pulling her to me once more.
“You already did,” she whispers.
She’s right, I did. I can justify the means of my actions all I want but it doesn’t change the damage I caused her.
“I know.”
“I thought it was you,” she chokes out, making me pause.
“I thought I recognized your touch and the way you felt but then you told me it was one of your men and—” She sucks in a deep breath.
“It was me, Ivy, I promise you that.”
“And I’m supposed to trust the man who just did that to me? I have to put my faith in a man who might as well have taken a knife to my chest. I’ve only been with one man, Atlas. You. I gave you that gift and you just shit all over it by implying you could so recklessly throw it away. If your master plan was to make me fearful of the stalker outside these walls then you fucked up because the only man I’m scared of right now is the one standing in front of me.”
Thirty-Three
Ivy
I stare at the rain as it lashes against the window. The storm, relentless in its attack, has been raging for days now. But it has nothing on the turmoil raging inside me.
As if sensing where my thoughts have gone, Atlas’s arms tighten around me, denying me my freedom even in his sleep.
Things have changed between us since that day. We still have sex because my traitorous body capitulates to his touch every single time. But there is a detachment between us now, a part of my heart and mind I guard from him. And Atlas fucking hates it. It brings desperation to our lovemaking, an imploring on both our parts, him for forgiveness, me for freedom. But neither of us is willing to yield to the other.
His once peaceful home has become a battlefield, a ceasefire only being called in the dark hours of the night when we can pretend beneath the veil of shadows that everything’s okay. That we’re just husband and wife, not captive and jailer.
It reminds me of that fairytale, the one where the young girl is kidnapped and held captive by a beast. She eventually falls in love with him and her love softens his edges, making him less beast and more man.
The difference in our story is that I willingly walked into my prison, already in love with the man. But instead of being his savior, I became his downfall, our warped love twisted and frayed, turning him into a monster.
He won’t let me leave, and I can’t stay.
It’s not about how I feel about him, it’s about how I feel about myself. I don’t want to be that woman who loses herself because of a man. The one who slowly suffocates under their smothering actions that they dress up under the guise of protection when really it’s all about control.
I might be young and naïve, but I’m not stupid. I know if Atlas gets his way he’ll break me down just to reshape me into the woman he wants me to be.
Call me crazy, but I’m not down for that.
“I can hear your thoughts.”
“I doubt it. If you knew what I was thinking you’d sleep with one eye open and a knife under your pillow.”
He chuckles, sliding his hand up to cup my breast and tweak my nipple, which responds to his touch by hardening.
“Always so feisty,” he groans before biting my ear. Moving his hand from my breast, he lifts my leg and pulls it back over his, opening me up to him. When I’m where he wants me, he grabs his cock and lines it up just right before pushing inside me.
“Fuck. Always so tight. It always feels like you’re strangling my cock,” he grunts, his hand back on my breast, his lips on my neck as I melt into him. I learned that resisting is not an option because nobody does sexual torture like Atlas. He might not hurt me physically, but he spends hours reducing me to a pathetic, quivering mess without letting me come. He keeps me on the precipice, making me throw my pride over the edge where it shatters among my begging and pleading.
“I wish I was strangling something else,” I snarl even as I push back into him, meeting him thrust for thrust.
He chuckles, his breath skating over my skin, leaving a blaze of goosebumps in its wake.
His movements speed up, his grip on me tightens, and although I’m loath to admit it, I like it when he holds me like this. It feels safe, which is the biggest crock of shit ever.
“So wet for me, sweet Ivy. You love my dick inside you, don’t you?”
I don’t answer, which makes him thrust harder.
“Answer me, Ivy, or I won’t let you come.”
“Ahhh!” I cry out after a particularly brutal thrust.
“Yes, I love your dick inside me. Now shut up and fuck me already.”
“As you wish.”
He flips me onto my hands and knees, grabs my ass, and thrusts inside me.
His fingers dig into my skin, bruising me just the way he likes it as he fucks me harder and deeper than before.
There’s some pain. There always is. He’s big and not afraid to wield the weapon God gave him, but the sharp pang enhances the sweetness of the pleasure coursing through my body.
Leaning over me, he slips a hand between my legs and plays with my clit until I know I can’t hold on any longer.
“You want to come, Ivy?”
“Yes, god yes.”
“Tell me you love me.”
I ignore him but know it’s futile. This is his new favorite game, stripping me emotionally bare and leaving my brain as raw as my pussy.
“Fuck you.”
“Oh sweetness, you know I can do this all day,” he taunts, and he will. It’s what he does. He puts me back together just to break me all over again.
“Atlas!”
“Tell me you love me.” He punctuates each word with a punishing thrust of his hips, making me sob out the answer he needs to hear.
“I love you,” I whisper.
“Yes, you do!” Thrust. “Come!” he orders. “Come all over my cock.”
His words act as a trigger and I come with the speed of a bullet, losing my ability to do anything but scream as he erupts inside me.
“Good girl,” he praises as I come down from my high and the brief moment of bliss is replaced with anger.
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t. You might want to but you can’t because I’m in your fucking veins just like you’re in mine.”
I don’t answer, fearing he’s right. The longer I’m here, the more I start to question who the real monster is. The man who commits the sins or the woman behind him that justifies them.
“Come on, time to shower and get dressed. I told Miles you were sick but he needs to talk to you so he’s coming today. He’ll be here soon and I’d rather you were wearing more than just my cum when he gets here.”
Hope blossoms for a second in my chest but I must give myself away because his easy expression turns sharp.
“I don’t want to fight you every second, Ivy, but it doesn’t mean I won’t. You’ll behave when he comes because if you don’t, that cushy little job I relocated Marvin to will suddenly disappear. Not that it will matter so much when his brake cables get cut.”
“You’re not a murderer.” I shake my head but his lips twitch before they form a sardonic grin.
“Monster, remember?”
“You were the reason he left?” I should have known. His words fill me with hopelessness because I know he’s not joking.
All those comments he’s made while we’ve been together have me questioning myself and what I truly know about the man.
“Ah, you understand now.” He smiles, brushing the hair from my face.
I nod because I do understand now. He tried to tell me all along, I just refused to see.
He would kill, cheat, lie, and steal to get what he wants.
There is literally nothing Atlas won’t do to keep me here.
“Mr. Monroe, Mrs. Monroe.” The detective shakes our hands before we all sit on the dark gray sofas in the living room.
“I’m glad to see you looking so well. Married life seems to agree with you. Congratulations, by the way.”
Jesus, maybe I missed my calling as an actress. “Thank you, detective.” I smile sweetly at him. Atlas’s hand slips over my thigh, squeezing it lightly in warning.
“Atlas said you needed to talk to me.”
“Yes, well, I’m not sure how much you might have already heard, what with your wedding and being sick.”
“I’m sorry, detective, but heard about what?” I question, confused. I feel like I’ve missed part of the conversation.
“Henry Smith committed suicide just over a week ago.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “What? Why?”
“Seems he had recently gone through a brutal divorce. His wife wiped him out and so he turned to drugs and prostitutes to numb the pain,” he tells me softly.
“Henry? From Flex, Henry? Are you sure it was him? The guy was a raging asshole but he doesn’t exactly scream hookers and blow, more like textbooks and pocket protectors.”
He chuckles lightly and I flush, realizing I’m talking ill of the dead. I won’t be crying over his absence but I didn’t wish this on him.
“I’m sure. A positive ID was made.”
“And it was definitely suicide?” I question quietly as Atlas squeezes my leg once more.
“You’re not a suspect, Ivy, if that’s what you’re worried about. But yes, it has been ruled as a suicide. There’s more though.”
He looks between me and Atlas before swallowing.
“Did you and Mr. Smith ever have an intimate relationship?” I stare at him for a second before devolving into fits of laughter.
Just when I think I have it under control, I start again.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…if you knew how much we disliked each other you’d never ask. There was mutual loathing on both parts.”
