NICOLE
The moonlight was a pale silver ribbon on the floorboards as I paced my room. Sleep was impossible. Tokito's words echoed in my head, a relentless loop about possession and control and a man who expressed love through domination.
The four walls, once a sanctuary, now felt like a beautifully decorated waiting room.
I needed air. Slipping out into the quiet hallway, I started walking aimlessly, my socked feet silent on the polished wood. My head was down, my mind a thousand miles away, tangled in a future I didn't want.
I pulled out my phone, thumbing mindlessly through a simple puzzle game, the bright screen a futile attempt to drown out my thoughts.
I wasn't looking where I was going.
One moment I was sliding colorful blocks together, the next I had collided with something solid and unyielding. A wall of a man, his back to me. A soft "Oof" escaped me as I stumbled back, my phone flying from my hand, skittering across the floor. My glasses slipped from my nose.
"Ouch…" I mumbled, more from surprise than pain, my hand going to my forehead. I dropped to my knees, patting the dim floor blindly for my glasses. My heart hammered with embarrassment. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Then, a presence knelt beside me. A large, elegant hand found my glasses first, and then my phone. He picked them up. I could only see a blur of a dark suit and sharp, broad shoulders.
"I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking—" I started to babble, my voice shaky.
He turned. And the world stopped.
The hallway light carved out the sharp, familiar lines of his jaw, the severe cut of his cheekbones. And his eyes. Even without my glasses, I would have known those eyes. The piercing, ice-blue eyes from my nightmares and my salvation. Kenji.
My breath hitched in my throat, lodging there like a stone. My heart wasn't just beating fast; it was a frantic, wild mess against my ribs, a trapped bird feeling the shadow of the hawk.
He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the screen of my shattered phone. The game was still lit up, a pathetic, colorful display next to his stark, commanding presence. He stared at it for a few seconds that felt like an eternity, his expression unreadable.
The silence was heavier than any noise.
Then, his gaze lifted and finally met mine. My glasses were in his other hand. He held them out to me, his movements slow, deliberate. As I took them, my fingers trembling, our skin brushed for a fraction of a second. A jolt, like a static shock, shot up my arm.
He handed me the broken phone next. The screen was a spiderweb of cracks.
"You'll get another one tomorrow," he said. His voice was exactly as I'd imagined it in my darkest thoughts—deep, calm, and devoid of any warmth. It wasn't a suggestion. It was a statement of fact. A decree.
He stood up, looking down at me where I still knelt on the floor, feeling smaller and more exposed than I ever had. He didn't ask if I was okay. He didn't introduce himself.
He simply looked at me, a long, assessing look that seemed to take in every detail of my terrified form, from my messy night-time hair to my trembling hands clutching the broken pieces of my old life.
Then, without another word, he turned and continued down the hall, his footsteps silent, leaving me frozen on the cold floor, my heartbeat a deafening drum in the sudden, crushing silence.
– – –
KENJI
The silence of the hallway swallowed the sound of my footsteps. Behind me, I left her kneeling on the floor, a perfect picture of stunned vulnerability.
The image was seared into my mind. The way she'd looked up at me, her eyes wide without those glasses, a mixture of shock and raw fear. It was better than I had imagined.
She'd become beautiful. Not just the pretty girl I'd pulled from that wrecked car, but a woman. The four years had been kind, more than kind. They had been sculptors, carving away the malnourished angles and replacing them with soft, enticing curves.
That simple nightdress she wore couldn't hide the shape of her. Her thin waist and thick ass, her breast…well, it is what it is I guess. And her face… that light-skinned beauty had deepened, matured. She was exquisite. A rare piece of art I had acquired before anyone else had recognized its value.
A slow, deep sense of pride bloomed in my chest. This was my doing. My food, my security, my world had nurtured this transformation. I had cultivated this beauty in my private garden, and soon, it would be time to pluck the flower.
The wait. That was the true thrill. So many men are impulsive, ruled by their base urges. They see something they want and they grab it, fumbling and desperate. They don't understand the art of anticipation. They don't understand that the greatest pleasure isn't in the taking, but in the wanting. In the meticulous planning.
Every day she spent under my roof, becoming more educated, more comfortable, more alive, was another layer of paint on my canvas. She was building a life, a sense of self, and that would make it so much more satisfying to dismantle.
Two more years. The thought didn't frustrate me; it excited me. She would be in college, surrounded by boys who would look at her with hungry, simple eyes. They would want to hold her hand, maybe steal a kiss. They were children playing at desire.
They had no concept of what it meant to truly own someone. By the time I was ready, she would be at her peak. Twenty years old. More experienced, more confident, even more breathtaking.
More hot. More sexy.
The words felt crude even in my mind, but they were accurate. She would be a masterpiece of female perfection, and I would be the only one allowed to touch the canvas.
"I can't wait to make her lose her mind," I murmured to the silent, dark corridor. The words were a promise.
My mind supplied the image again: her, on her knees. That was where she belonged. That was her rightful place. Not in a moment of accidental collision, but placed there by my will.
The fucking things I'll make her do on those knees.
The thought was a lightning bolt of pure, dark anticipation. It wouldn't be about pleasure, not for her. Not at first. It would be about power. It would be about teaching her that her body, her will, her very breath, belonged to me.
I would make her look up at me from that position, with those wide, fearful eyes, and I would watch the exact moment her spirit fractured and reshaped itself around my dominance. She would learn to crave my command, to need my approval for everything, even the air in her lungs.
I reached the door to my study, the solid wood a barrier between the simmering violence of my thoughts and the calm order of my world. I paused, my hand on the handle, and took a slow, controlled breath.
The frantic beat of her heart, the feel of her delicate fingers brushing against mine as she took the broken phone—these were sensations I would file away, treasures to be revisited later.
The wait was a delicious agony.
I haven't had pussy in 4 years.
But I am a patient man. And the best things in life are worth waiting for. She was the best thing. My greatest acquisition. And soon, very soon, she would understand exactly what that meant.