Chapter 178/Pinned Against His Exposed Chest

Chapter 178: 178/Pinned Against His Exposed Chest

Chapter 178:

Vincent’s POV

The raw terror bleeding from her eyes spoke volumes, requiring absolutely no translation. Pure, unadulterated disgust at my touch flared in her widened pupils, her entire body flinching away from me with a desperate, frantic rejection as if I were a walking plague coming to tear her apart.

I took my time watching the rapid, panicked flutter of her eyelashes, her delicate features contorting in deep, suffocating distress. This girl was a walking contradiction right before my eyes one second throwing fierce, suicidal rebellion from her tongue, and the next, completely succumbing to the violent trembling of her submissive body.

She looked exactly like a shivering bird caught in a torrential downpour, yet she possessed a reckless, fatal streak of audacity that drove me completely insane.

Desperately trying to claw her way out of the suffocating trap she had dug herself into, she took a single, halting step back.

I watched the hard, painful swallow travel down the smooth column of her throat before she choked out in a cracked, fragile whisper, "You... you aren’t a bastard. I only hurled that out in a flash of blind rage... I didn’t mean it. Not at all!"

A dark, freezing smirk pulled at the corners of my lips. Without a single fraction of a warning, I violently wrapped my massive, heavy hand completely around her throat. The searing heat of her soft skin radiated against my palm, her pulse tearing inside her neck like a caged bird violently slamming against its bars. I leaned in, my voice dropping into a low, quiet, and lethal murmur. "There is no scratching it out or begging for a goddamn rewrite now, Miss Miller. The words have already been spit out and verified. They cannot be erased."

I tightened my iron grip, cutting into her airway. Her eyes dilated with true, unvarnished terror and shock as she clawed for a desperate lungful of oxygen. "What the hell are you doing?!" she choked out in agonizing pain. "You lunatic!"

I pinned her under a harsh, completely ruthless glare. "Where the hell did ’Mr. Vincent’ disappear to so quickly?"

She pulled against my grip with weak, pathetic struggles, whispering in absolute helplessness, "Get away from me!"

I choked her a fraction harder, my eyes devouring every line of her distressed face as I dropped my voice to a dead chill. "You don’t get to issue orders to me, Miss Miller. Not now, not ever. You don’t hold a single shred of leverage here."

I wanted to terrify her. I wanted to violently shatter the fake, arrogant pride masking her eyes and show her with absolute clarity who the solitary master was within these goddamn walls. But deep inside me, buried in a pitch-black abyss I couldn’t comprehend, something strange and unreadable was slowly taking root.

Something that violently refused to let her go, making me crave her presence, wanting to keep her locked right beneath my breath at any goddamn cost. It wasn’t just a simple, calculated urge to break her for scratching my dignity with that office slap; it was a definitive line crossing into territory I couldn’t even define.

She looked straight into the depths of my eyes with a weak, dying streak of defiance, hot tears pooling in her dilated pupils as she whispered hoarsely, "Are you seriously going to choke the life out of me with your own hands right here?"

My breath collided with her ragged, scorching gasps. I answered with a low, dead hiss, "Killing you would be a massive mercy, a grand fucking gift, Miss Miller. It would put a swift end to your torment and terror a luxury you don’t deserve."

I squeezed her windpipe tighter. Her small, soft hands flew up, desperately clawing at my massive, warm palm in a pathetic, weak attempt to pry my fingers off. I fed my sadism, leaning into the cruelty of the moment. "And I don’t give a single shit about your comfort. I want to see you beg in absolute humiliation and brokenness for my mercy without ever receiving a single drop of it."

Her throat hitched on a broken sob, a single scalding tear breaking free and burning down her cheek. "Please... stop."

My smirk widened with pure, triumphant satisfaction. "Beg harder. I want to hear the words clearly."

She squeezed her eyes shut in bitter, absolute defeat, her lips trembling violently as she whispered, "Please... Mr. Vincent."

The erratic quiver of her pink lips and the terrified swallow of her throat brushed provocatively against the palm of my hand, grating on my nerves in the most intoxicating way possible. I dropped my head lower until my lips were a mere fraction of an inch away from her shivering mouth.

My eyes scanned her completely surrendered features. "Are you going to keep begging me with that submissive little tone... or are you already exhausted from trying?"

"I am... I’m begging you," she breathed out, her voice a faded, dying whisper against my lips. "Please, just leave me the hell alone."

Suddenly, a sharp, authoritative, and agonizingly familiar voice violently shattered the lethal silence, exploding from the threshold of the open living room.

"Dominic! What the living hell are you doing?!"

My entire body locked up instantly. I dropped my hand from her throat with lightning-fast, defensive speed, taking two long strides backward. I forced my features into a mask of calm, quiet surprise, confidently reaching down to yank the edges of my damp, black silk bathrobe together. I securely fastened it over my broad chest, instantly piecing my detached composure back together. Turning around slowly toward the intrusion, I forced my voice into a rigid, unshakeable clip. "Mother... What the hell are you doing inside my house, especially at this hour?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Stephanie stumbling backward on shaky, uncoordinated legs toward the edge of the leather sofa. Her fingers trembled violently as she frantically adjusted the collar of her rumpled clothes, standing there in a state of absolute, lethal panic, her humiliated eyes glued to the floor in pure terror.

My mother advanced with commanding, confident strides that completely dominated the room. Her sharp, aristocratic gaze swung like a pendulum between my damp, half-naked body and Stephanie, who looked as pale as a goddamn corpse. She analyzed the entire scene with meticulous, calculating precision before her face contorted into pure, unadulterated disgust and rejection.

Her voice sliced through the air like an absolute weapon. "Is this the exact reason you’ve been dodging Claire, using business and endless meetings as an excuse this entire time, Dominic?! Because you’re running a dirty, hidden little affair with this girl inside your own house?!"