Page 82 of Their Will be Done

His eyes grow hooded. Slowly, he slides his fingers off my lips. They settle around my throat, which isn’t much better for my health, but at least now I can talk.

Which means I could try to persuade him that I’m on his side.

Theirside.

It doesn’t have to be true. Fuck it, itdefinitelyisn’t true. But I like to believe I’m getting better at lying. Or, at least, warping the truth to my advantage.

But first, I need to figure out why he seems dead set on the fact that I didn’t do my job.

“I did what you said.” I keep my voice soft and low, not wanting to provoke the beast that’s only now starting to retreat. “I don’t know why it didn’t—”

“Think we give a fuck about your excuses?” he rasps. My eyes fly shut as he starts squeezing my throat. “We don’t!”

“But I did everything you said.” Despite my best efforts, frustration builds as I force my voice to stay calm. “I found the laptop under his bed, and I put the drive into the—”

“I don’t want to hear it, little girl.”

Boiling hot anger pours into me. I’ve had just about enough of everyone in my life telling me what the fuck to do. How the fuck to feel. What I can and cannot control. Which version of the truth they think they can get away with.

My father and I were never on the best terms, that’s a given. He ruled our house with an iron fist, and I always resented him for that. But I obeyed, because it’s what my parents expected from me. Because the bible said so.

Honor your parents somehow became shorthand for blindly obeying every single rule. For letting them tell you what to believe and how to behave.

They shouldn’t have treated you like that.

No, Father Gabriel—fucking Gabe—they shouldn’t have. But they did.

Everyonedid.

Everyone still does.

Will it never end?

Or has it only gone on this long because I’ve let it? Because I submitted where a normal, sane human being would long ago have thrown off their shackles and stormed the plantation?

My veins thrum with sullen rage as Zachary carries on talking, his mouth an inch from my ear. “I don’t care how you do it, but youwillget us that data, and youwill—”

My eyes fly open. “No!” I yell. “If you want it so bad, get it yourself!”

His fingers tighten even more as he grinds his hips into me. “Did you just shout at me?”

I freeze when his hard-on presses into my belly.

Oh my God. He’s enjoying this!

I almost laugh at the thought. Of course he’s enjoying this—his dick was twice this size when he wasspankingme, what the fuck am I expecting? He gets off on other people’s pain, so I guess humiliating them, torturing them, it’s all the same.

“Gabriel’s busy.” I swallow and try not to let the feel of his cock distract me. “He told me so last night. He’ll be busy this whole week.”

He rakes his gaze over my body, and then glances to the side. Curiosity, of course, gets the better of me.

It’s ten past one.

His class starts at half-past.

We both look back at the same time. He moves against me again, and this time it’s obvious he wants me to feel his erection. My heart spasms with panic while my inner thighs contract with the urgent need to close and deny him access.

Dear Lord, all he has to do is dip down, and he could be inside me. If we were both naked of course. But he’s wearing slacks, and I’m in this monstrosity of a dress, so—

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