Dominating Anna: A Fantasy Fulfilled Novella by Rachel Nixx Page A

wasn’t. “I’m fine.”
    Zee gave one last
vicious kick to Red Shirt, his heavy steel-toed boot catching the man square in
the side. Then Zee steered her into the main street and down the subway stairs,
holding her hand as if he would never let it go.
    They didn’t speak as
they waited for her train. They didn’t say a word as it swayed and jerked
toward her stop. Zee held the rail above Anna’s head, with his other arm, he
pulled her against his side. She heard his heart beating, faster than she’d
ever heard a man’s heart beat before. Tension coiled inside him, raw energy she
desperately wanted to help him spend.
    The doors opened. They
filed out behind the people carrying briefcases and backpacks. Up the steps,
two blocks south and one long block east.
    Then up the four steps
to Anna’s front door. She fumbled with her keys, dropping them with nervous
fingers. He bent to retrieve them and opened the door as if he’d done it a
hundred times. Three flights up, his tread heavy on the wood behind her.
    Inside her apartment,
it smelled like coffee and cinnamon, and faintly, of the toast she’d burned
that morning.
    What should she do?
What should she offer him?
    What did he want ?
    Was it the same thing
she did?
    Zee crossed the room
and stood at the window, looking down.
    “You looked like an
angel when I was outside that night.”
    Anna said, “I’m not an
angel.”
    “I know,” he said. “I
think that’s why I can’t stop thinking of you.”
    Faintly, she said,
“You can’t?”
    “Not for one second.”
    Anna poured two
glasses of water, set them on the coffee table, and dropped onto the couch with
a feeling in her heart that she didn’t want to name. She winced, touching the
spot at her throat where the man had choked her.
    “Jesus. Are you sure
you’re okay?” Zee moved with the speed of a cat. He touched her cheek where she
could feel a bruise blooming. “We should get you to a hospital.”
    She shrugged. “I told
you, I’m fine. Besides, it’s really my ass that hurts the most.”
    Zee paled. “Did I hurt
you too much?”
    With a laugh, she
reached around him to take a sip of her water. Heat rose from his leather
jacket, and she could smell his sweat, a sharp, heady scent. His cheeks were
red. “You’re too hot. Take this off.” She slipped her hands into the front of
the jacket and caught it as he shrugged it off.
    “You didn’t answer
me.”
    “You hurt me just
right.”
    Zee twisted so that he
sat on the floor next to her. “I told you.”
    “What?”
    “That’s what I do.”
    “You have a talent for
it.”
    He shook his head. “I
know. That’s the bitch of it.”
    “Zee. For chrissakes.”
Anna lost a piece of her patience. “You think you only hurt women?”
    He nodded dumbly. The
scar at his mouth stood out in white relief against the starkness of his
jawbone.
    “You weren’t the one
hurting me in the alley.”
    “Jesus.” He scrubbed
at his eyes as if they ached.
    “You saved me.” She
touched him on the shoulder, feeling his heat rise through his black t-shirt.
    He shook his head. “If
I hadn’t been there...”
    “It might have been
different.”
    He turned his head and
looked at her. God, his eyes were the most amazing shade of gray, like stone in
shadow.
    Then, in a move that
she didn’t expect, he touched her knee and gave a low laugh. “You were kicking
their cumulative asses, kid.”
    Anna’s hands started
to shake again. She twisted her fingers in her lap to still them. “I was.”
    “You were.”
    She had been. Goddamn,
she had protected herself.
    Biting the inside of
her lip, she stood and moved to the window, staring out but seeing nothing.
    “I’m not sure what to
do next,” she admitted, keeping her back turned.
    He’d moved without her
hearing him again, and his voice spoke in her ear. “Me, neither. I have no
fucking idea.”
    Anna kept her eyes on
a woman walking her dog. The woman paused on the sidewalk and took out her
cellphone as