Page 69 of Cruel Dominion

I felt his cool fingertips as his hands burrowed under my hoodie, wrapping around my waist. They lingered there for a long time. Both of us listening to the sounds of the sea washing over the shore, just being here. In this moment. Away from the vastly different circles of hell we resided in.

Soon, his touch turned from light and thoughtful to something else. He slipped his palm against my skin, gripping my waist until I felt him shudder.

I took the invitation to throw my leg over him, straddling his body. He was long and lean. His arms muscular from his mechanic job.

“What are you doing?” He cocked his head, staring up at me with banked coals in his stare and tension in his jaw. I could feel him beneath me. That hardness through his dark denim jeans.

I angled my hips to grind into him, rolling them over the bulge with my lower lip caught between my teeth.

A small sound escaped his mouth and his hands tightened around my waist.

“Anna, you shouldn’t?—”

“I…”

He looked up at me with a question in his eyes.

“I-I brought condoms.”

He stared at me, silent. Was that horror in his stare?

My mouth went dry, but I stayed where I was.

They never say no.

“I want it to be you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

My brows knitted. This wasn’t what he was meant to say. He was meant to rip my clothes off and ravish me. My confidence began to fall like a plane shot out of the sky, spiraling down, down, down.

“Well, I do. I’ve thought about it,” I swallowed. “A lot.”

His jaw clenched.

“I can’t take it back if you change your mind.”

The coals in his stare turned to straight fire.

He wasn’t going to deny me. I could tell. I just needed to push him a little more. A little harder.

I settled heavier against his erection, making my skirt bunch up around my hip as my satin panties pressed against him, making his fingers dig harder into my waist.

“Fuck, Anna,” he hissed, throwing his head back.

I grinned wickedly.

“If you don’t want me, then just say it,” I pressed, giving my hips another roll that made his legs shift, pressing into the sand beneath the blanket.

“Stop doing that,” he said between his teeth, and something in his tone brought me out of the haze of my lust. I froze.

“I thought… you really don’t want to…oh my god, just—just forget I said anything.”

Tears stung my eyes as I moved to get off him, already knowing I might never recover from this, but he didn’t let me move more than an inch, holding me in place.

“Before,” Carter blurted, staring at me with a madness in his gaze bordering on insanity. “Before, you said you wanted to wait. You said you wanted to save yourself?—”

“Forget what I said. I changed my mind.”

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