I understand arousal. I have felt it many times before.
But what I don’t understand is feeling aroused in front of my kidnapper. He terrifies me. He took me from my brother, frommy hidden room. I hate him almost as much as I hated my father for taking my mom away from me.
So, why am I feeling this?
“I won’t ask you to take your bra and panties off,” he says. “Not yet anyway. We’ll leave something for another day. Put the dress on I gave you.”
I have to bend down to pick it up and it makes Alek tower over me with his strong, intense presence. Quickly, I stand back up and put the dress on. It’s a little wrinkled from having landed on the floor but it’s still beautiful. Sophisticated. Classy. Elegant.
Alek gently takes my shoulders and turns me to the full length mirror near the closet.
I look like a real woman instead of a young girl playing dress up. Alek stands behind me, keeping his hands on my arms, dominating me even with that simple touch. For a moment, we look like a married couple. Like we’re sharing a moment together that only a couple would share.
But I immediately push that thought from my mind. Alek is the enemy. I can’t get distracted by his handsome face and dominating personality.
I just want to return home to my room where I know I’ll be safe.
“Now that you’re in this dress, you can wear it to the party I’m throwing tonight. I have some guests coming over. They all want to meet Dimitri Ivanov’s secret sister.”
My heart pounds against my chest so hard it hurts to even breathe. “Who are these people?”
“Friends of mine. Co-workers. Now that you’re mine, I should show you off, shouldn’t I?”
“I’m not yours,” I whisper.
He brings his lips to my ear and goosebumps spread across my skin. “You are mine, Katya. You just don’t realize it yet. But you will help me beat your brother in this war. Trust me on that.”
“No. I love my brother. I would never do anything to hurt him.”
“Even though he kept you in that room?”
“I told you: he never held me captive.”
“Maybe not. But it seems that he enabled you. Allowed you to stay in that room when you should have left. Denied you the chance to live your life as a woman. Doesn’t that make you just the tiniest bit angry?”
I can’t deny that it does. Dimitri did enable me. He built me that room when I was a little girl instead of getting me into therapy. When I got older, I realized that I could have used therapy to help me deal with my mom’s death. But by then, I was already in my room and didn’t want to leave.
And when Dimitri finally starting urging me to get out more – after he married Sofiya – I was too used to my room. Too scared to leave.
Now, Alek has forced me from my room and I doubt I’ll ever be able to return to it. Alek is showing no signs of bringing me back home to Dimitri anytime soon, if ever. I never even got to say goodbye to my room, the one place in this entire world that brought me comfort.
“Katya?”
“I don’t have to tell you what’s on my mind.”
He skims his fingers along my temple. It makes my head tingle. “Should I spank it out of you?”
“No!”
“Then tell me what’s on your mind.”
I hesitate before I speak. “It’s complicated. My feelings for my brother. My feelings for my hidden room. That is all.”
“All right then. Well, I am offering you the chance to become your own woman now. You will join me for the get together I’m hosting tonight. My friends will see who you are. This is your chance to be a woman. Not a little girl. Trust me when I say:when my friends see you in this dress, they won’t be able to think about anything else.”
“I don’t want this,” I whisper as a couple of tears slip down my eyes.
He only wipes them away without commenting on it. “I know you don’t but I think you’ll find you need this.”
