And she was just freaked enough to kill him, he realized. Her hands were trembling so badly she only had a fifty-fifty chance of hitting him, but he didn’t like those odds. If he moved any closer, she’d shoot him.
“Do you want to kill me, Ji-chan?” His voice was low, calm. “I’m your best chance at staying alive, but maybe you don’t want to stay alive. Maybe you want to take the coward’s way out.”
The gun was still shakily trained on his chest, and he knew it could go off at any minute. She’d managed to get the safety off the first time, in the heat of the moment, she could easily do it again. “Put the gun down,” he said. “Or use it. One or the other.”
She froze. And he moved, onto the bed, crawling toward her, and took the gun out of her hand. He set it on the nightstand, safely within reach. He sat back on his heels, looking at her. Watching her as she tried to retreat back behind the wall of blankness.
“Then we’ll have to try it this way,” he said. “Turn around.”
At first he thought she’d ignore him, but a moment later she turned her back on him, her shoulders hunched over, shutting him out. Giving him a view of her narrow, elegant back, the ridiculously erotic nape of her neck, the zipper that ran the length of the black corset Kyo had brought for her.
She jumped when he put his hands on her, but she didn’t move away, and he placed one hand on her shoulder as he began to unzip the corset. He could feel her tremble beneath his touch, but she didn’t protest, didn’t move.
Another man might have had trouble with the complicated corset, but it came apart easily in his hands, and he tossed it to one side, so that she was sitting with her back to him, in a mound of fluffy skirts and fishnet stockings and nothing on top. And he couldn’t help himself—he leaned forward and put his mouth against the nape of her neck.
She shivered. A tiny shimmer of reaction, dancing across her skin. He unhooked the skirt, the two layers of crinoline. She’d been obedient all day—how long would it last? “Take off your skirts, Ji-chan,” he whispered.
For an endless moment he couldn’t breathe, waiting for her. And then she rose on her knees, her back still toward him, and pulled the layers of skirts over her head, leaving her in a pair of frilly bloomers and a black lace garter belt holding up her fishnet stockings.
It was his turn to groan. She was supposed to panic, come back to life, fight him. She wasn’t supposed to do what he told her, strip off her clothes and wait patiently for him to touch her.
He couldn’t do it. He knelt there, looking at her vulnerable back, hard enough to get off just watching her, and he couldn’t do it. It wasn’t fear of Taka, it wasn’t even fear of her thinking it meant more than a fuck, a simple release of tension.
He just couldn’t do it to her.
He climbed off the bed and went to the closet, pulling out one of the yukata that came with the room. When he turned back she hadn’t moved, and he put the robe over her shoulders, helping her put it on, resisting the impulse to even look at her breasts, because he was hard enough as it was.
She let him tie the belt. “You need to sleep, Ji-chan,” he said, pushing her back gently onto the bed. “Get under the covers.”
She was obedient again, sliding beneath the covers. Despite her height she looked very small in the king-size bed.
Her hair was in her face, and he pushed it out of her eyes, gently. She blinked. And then she closed her eyes, shutting him out.
He picked a hell of a time to grow a conscience, he thought as he moved back into the sitting area of the suite. He couldn’t remember a time when he needed the release of sex so badly, and whether he liked it or not, he wanted Summer’s sister. Had wanted her from the moment he grabbed her in Taka’s house. Hell, wanted her since he saw her in Peter Madsen’s garden two years ago. And he could have her, right now.
He stripped off the rest of his clothes and stretched out on the sofa. It was too short for his body, but it would have to do. If someone wanted to get to Jilly, they’d have to go through him, and for now he could let himself sleep.
She must have made some kind of sound, because he was just coming awake when she screamed. He moved quickly, on top of her before the second scream could erupt from her throat, covering her mouth with his hand. “Hush, Ji-chan. It will be all right. I promise you.”
She was fighting him, struggling, and he caught her flailing arms and imprisoned them between them. “Calm down. If you scream again, it will bring too much attention.”
She shoved him, pushing him off her, and he let her go, watching her out of hooded eyes as she scrambled off the bed, backing against the wall like a cornered animal, panting with fear.
“Make it stop,” she whispered. “Make it go away.”
He shook his head. “Ji-chan, I don’t know how to do that.”
“Yes, you do.” She looked at him through the darkness, and her eyes were glittering with unshed tears. “Make it go away.”
He came off the bed, moving toward her, giving her time to change her mind, to panic, to retreat. But she didn’t move, waiting for him.
He hauled her up, pushing her against the wall, and brought his body up against hers, so she’d know exactly what she was asking. “Are you sure?”
She was frantic, her fingers digging into his shoulders, trying to bring him closer. “Make it stop, make it stop, make it—”
He lifted her up, pressing her against the wall, and tore open the yukata. She was still wearing the garters and the bloomers, and he slid his hands up her thighs, flicking the garters open with his thumbs. The stockings stayed up anyway. He slid his hands up and tugged at the white cotton bloomers, drawing them down her long legs, only to realize she was wearing a tiny black lace thong.
He was going to kill Kyo. He was going to buy him a case of sake. He sank to his knees in front of her and pressed his mouth against the tiny scrap of fabric as he pulled the bloomers over her feet and tossed them aside. As if she wasn’t torment enough, she was a walking sex dream, and his last shred of conscience disappeared.