Page 8 of Cruel Dominion

She bucked as I wrapped my hands around her hips with a bruising grip, letting out a little whimper of pain even as she wiggled her ass into my abdomen, silently begging me to move.

Hissing, I withdrew halfway and slammed back into her. Harder than before. Hard enough for her whole body to jerk from the movement.

With each thrust, I drew her to me, making her pretty pussy take me over and over again. The slap of our bodies joining grew louder with every second, almost loud enough to rival her panting cries as I lost all sense of decency and ravaged her greedy cunt.

I pistoned in and out of her, hating her for kissing me. Hating that she wasn’t Anna. That none of them were Anna.

That they would never fucking be Anna because she was gone.

A ghost who definitely wasn’t building fucking homes for the less fortunate in Malawi. I’d checked. I’d scoured the earth for her and still came up empty-handed.

I let it take over, the monster, the creature. I dug my fingers into her ass, fucking her like I hated her. Relentless, even when she squirmed. Her muffled moans against the bed turned me on. I went faster, fucking her through her orgasm, even as her wet cunt tried to force me out. I fucked her until stars exploded against my eyelids, every muscle coiled and jerking with my release.

Sweat poured down my temples and soaked through my crisp white button-down. I never got naked with the women I had sex with. One more thing too intimate for what we did together. Too revealing. No one needed to see what hid beneath the layers of cotton and ink.

She collapsed afterward, shuddering, her breathing uneven and ragged as she drew her knees in and pressed her forehead against them in an attempt to calm her body while I straightened myself back up.

“You should use the spa while you’re here. Charge everything to the room,” I offered, unlocking the cuffs with slow, measured movements, the mask of the professional businessman back in place.

“You’re leaving?” she asked. “Will you come back?”

I reached into my wallet and drew out its cash contents, unworried that there was close to a grand in large bills between my fingers as I pressed them into her hand.

“Have a safe flight home.”

3

ANNA

When someone knocked at my bedroom door the next morning, I squeezed my eyes tighter shut beneath the covers. My exhaustion-addled body had mostly recovered from the trip but my mind still craved silence and darkness. Solitude.

The door creaked as it opened, showing just how little use this room had while I’d been away. Dad wouldn’t tolerate a creaking hinge in his home for long.

“Anna?”

My eyes shot open and I tossed the covers off, pushing myself up. The last time I heard her voice she was telling me I was lucky I got her nose and not my father’s. Always preoccupied with meaningless things. The material. The objective.

“Mom?”

My mother stood in the doorway of my room holding a tray.

Her lips twitched up into something close to a smile as she strode into the room.

“Hello, darling,” she said, setting the tray down over my knees. “You look terrible.”

I laughed. Of course that would be the first thing she said to me after all this time. But my laughter morphed to tears, washing the bitter edge to our reunion away. I slipped the tray from my lap and kicked my way out of the covers, putting my arms around her.

She looked the same somehow. Still the glamorous middle-aged woman that I left behind, with maybe just a few more units of Botox and filler. Despite the unnatural tautness of her skin and the several layers of makeup, she actually looked better if that were possible. Not in the objective sense, but somehow deeper.

Her green eyes glowed bright and she looked dignified in her cream slacks and ivory blouse; the combination was her version of a casual at-home look. She looked alive. More or less alert.

When I’d left, I didn’t say goodbye to her. She was at her worst then, with the pills and the booze. I doubted she’d have been present enough to even understand me. She would’ve said what she always did when I spoke. That’s nice, darling, and sent me off with a pat on the back.

Her marriage to my father was miserable. She came from a rich, property-owning family so the natural next step was to marry into a rich political one, true love and happiness be damned. I’d always been taken care of by housekeepers and nannies, my mom only poking her head into my life whenever she surfaced from her stupor. And even then usually only to point out some flaw or tell me I should listen to my father.

Was she off the meds? I hoped so. She brushed my hair back and pulled a couple tissues out of the box on my vanity, handing them to me.

“When did Dad tell you?” I asked, dabbing my eyes before giving my nose a quick blow.

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