Chapter 20 Annetta #2
I wait for the tears to come again, to feel anything at the memory of what happened in my sister’s room, but they don’t.
There’s only a quiet, simmering anger, suffocated by a blanket of apathy.
I thought I was the only person who could protect the memory of her, but all I’ve been guarding is a hollow box.
The girl I knew never existed.
“He told me Serafina had been lying to me. She loved Russell, and she let me get married to Frederico to be with him.”
When his expression softens with something like pity, I turn away, watching the cars.
He steps behind me and circles his arms around my shoulders, but instead of feeling comfort, I’m irritated.
“Can you tell me how you’re feeling?” he asks.
“No,” I answer sharply. I blow out a long stream of air and turn, placing a hand on Dom’s arm as my ribs distend outward from the malignant anger inside. “Tonight, I want a distraction.”
The city lights create a glittery illusion in his dark eyes.
When I’m finally sick of the sad, pitying look in his eyes, I decide for him, shouldering past him and setting off toward the stairs. “Let’s go.”
If he hesitates, I don’t turn back to check as I go to our shared bedroom, standing in front of the ottoman at the foot of his bed. I count to three and turn.
I smother the relief that sparks through me at seeing he followed. He stands in the doorway, the only light comes from the half-closed door in the bathroom, giving him the ominous shadowing of an intruder in a horror film.
He said I could tell him what to do, any day of the week—time to test that.
I nod toward the cushioned seat. “Sit.”
He doesn’t move. “I don’t think this is what you need right now. We can talk—”
“You said you’d give me a distraction if I asked for it,” I snap. “Was that a lie, too?”
“I never lied to you.”
I scoff a laugh. Everyone lies. I jerk my chin to the ottoman. “Then sit.”
His jaw ticks, but finally, he listens, brushing past me to sit on the ottoman and clamp his hands on his knees.
I slip one leg over his and then the other until I’m straddling him, my hips already aching from our workouts and his width. When my pussy presses against his cock, through all the layers of clothes, we melt into each other—the natural reaction of two people who are attracted to each other.
Dom leans back, resting his elbows on the mattress behind him, watching me expectantly in the darkness. I can’t stand the way he looks at me, like he’s seeing past my skin and bones into something deeper.
I don’t want him to discover me. I’m trying to get lost tonight.
“I want you to make me feel good.” I flick his top shirt button, and his eyes spark with interest. “And I’ll take a button off for each time you do.”
This, at least, is simple. Dom knows how to follow orders, and I know perfectly well how he can please a woman. For the rest of the night, I’m not a daughter or a wife or a sister—I’m just a woman who wants to forget herself in a man.
He lets me push his hand down until his finger brushes against my slit.
Like a switch is flipped, he spurs into action, stroking two fingers against me and slipping down enough to rub gently against my clit.
Simple, straightforward pleasure rolls through me at his soft touch.
I unbutton his top button, and he thrusts me into the air with his hips as he adjusts his seating.
Tugging my bra down, I shove my breast forward. “Suck, and I’ll take off another button.”
If he thinks I’m too demanding or cold, he doesn’t show it as he scoffs a laugh, opens his mouth, and latches onto my breast. I groan and arch against him, filling his mouth as I work down two more buttons of his shirt while his tongue laves my nipple.
“I need another finger,” I moan in his ear.
He grunts in response and slides his fingers through my slick to press into my entrance. His other hand travels eagerly along my body. Squeezing my hip, rubbing against my back, sliding down my hair. This, at least, is real—the way he makes my body feel.
“Now,” I say harshly and buck my hips up to swallow his finger. I barely remember to unbutton another button. Two more to go. “Ah, fuck. Just like that.”
He pumps into me as his hips chase the same movement beneath me, rocking me up and down like the swells of a boat on the ocean.
“I want you to work another finger into me,” I hiss into his ear. “And then go hard. I’m close.”
“Reginetta,” he says in a strangled voice.
“Don’t call me that,” I snap. I can’t meet his eye as he slows to a stop. I grind against his hand, frustrated. “Just—just Annetta tonight. Please don’t stop.”
He kisses against my neck, and I’m grateful I can’t see his expression as he murmurs without resentment, “Whatever you say.”
His confident, liquid compliance helps build the pressure mounting inside me until it reaches its tipping point. I grab his wrist, cant my hips back for more friction on my clit, and explode onto his palm.
His big, powerful arms coil around me as a hot, almost painful orgasm tears through me.
I suck, moan, and bite his neck while I ride his fingers.
The strength in his arms makes me feel like nothing could ever hurt me.
Once the aftershocks pass through me, I slump against his chest, heaving like I’ve just sprinted a mile.
Dom chuckles. “Feeling good?”
Against my languid body, his soft, muscular chest under mine is a familiar comfort. I’m tired and sated, but when a low buzz of thoughts of Serafina, of Frederico, returns to swarm into my mind, I sit up straight and unbutton his last two shirt buttons.
“Take your clothes off now.” I need to be so exhausted that I’ll pass out after. I can’t think right now. I don’t want to.
I step off of him less gracefully than I would’ve liked, with sex-drunk balance, but he doesn’t seem to mind as he tears the stitching on his shirt to yank it off.
He stands suddenly, looming over me with a single movement as his hands reach for his belt. His pants and boxers drop, and his heavy cock springs forward, foreskin drawn back over the almost purple head. My mouth goes dry. For tonight, his body is a promise of pleasure and safety I can sink into.
His dizzying height disappears as he kneels before me. He presses his mouth against my panties, and I would’ve stumbled if it weren’t for his hands supporting my weight.
“Can I take these off?” he murmurs, his voice muffled. He rubs his face against my pussy with a dangerous sincerity of affection, and right now, it feels so good that I don’t care. I need what he’s offering.
“Please.”
He hooks into my panties and throws them to the floor with the same eager violence he used to tear off his shirt.
But he’s tender when he slides his fingers under my feet, lifting them high enough so he can kiss the ball of each foot with so much reverence that I have to grit my teeth together and look up to the ceiling so I don’t cry.
I’m on the cusp of demanding he stop. Then the pendulum swings back to ferality as he scoops up my panties off the ground, crushes them to his nose and mouth, and inhales deeply like it’s a hit of his favorite drug.
“Fuuuuuck,” he groans.
Heat plunges through me. I barely manage to get my bra off before he’s standing and lifting me into his arms. I wrap my legs around his waist and we’re kissing—fast and brutal. I can’t remember ever being so hungry for a man.
“Lie on the bed,” I whisper.
He groans and strokes himself once before sliding onto the bed, the mattress dipping under all that glorious weight. His muscled thighs and wide belly invite me to sit.
I crawl over him, swinging one leg over his thighs. His hands move to my hips, his thumbs tracing over the bones there. We’re mismatched, but I’m glad for it now, glad for the promise of forgetting anything that isn’t the burning stretch when I take him in me.
I lower myself until his thick cock’s pressed between my thighs, and the point of our connection is molten hot.
The tendons in Dom’s neck are harsh lines before they disappear into his beard.
I avoid his watchful, piercing gaze as I reach down for his length and press it against my entrance.
Taking several deep breaths, I drop onto him, taking him into me faster than I have before.
Dom’s fingers press against the underside of my thighs, slowing my descent.
“Hands above your head,” I say.
“You’ll hurt yourself.”
“Should I go get in a fight with someone, instead?”
For a moment, we’re locked in a silent standoff in the dim light of the bedroom.
Of all the people in my life, Dom should understand why I need this right now—why I don’t want to think about all the hard decisions in my life and how little they meant to the people I loved. How little I meant.
Just as a fight sounds like a good alternative, right when I decide Dom won’t listen—like always, he surprises me.
He stretches his arms above his head, joining them as he grabs his right wrist with his left hand, and watches me with a taunting look behind his half-lidded eyes.
That familiar thought crosses my mind—how can a person be so strong and vulnerable at the same time?
“Thank you,” I murmur.
“Anything you want.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and lean down to lie across his broad chest so he can’t see my face as I work him into me. He’s good—he’s been so good to me, but it hurts to believe that right now.
I squeeze my eyes shut as I grind against him, crowding out my thoughts with the heat building inside me until I hit the right point, and the first wave of my orgasm crashes through me.
His belly flexes under me, he jerks his hips up, and his cock twitches as he comes, filling me up with his hot seed.
I forget, for a moment, that tonight is supposed to be about the physical act—his desire is thrilling, it’s always sublime.
I can’t help but get carried away with the heightened pleasure of our orgasms until we’re both curling forward into the other, gripping and squeezing like we’re fighting a rising tide to stay together.
As the pleasure recedes, I come back into myself, curling against his chest and staring at the far wall. Dom drops his arms to stroke a lazy path up my spine, the movement relaxing enough that my eyelids grow heavy.
His fingers trail down my arm and brush against my wedding ring. “You know I’m here for you.”
At the edge of consciousness, I don’t make a sound. He can think I’m asleep.
Whether he believes that or not, he continues talking. “When I saw you with… when I saw you in the bedroom, crying, I was scared. I don’t ever want to lose you, Annetta.”
My heart fills with misery as he squeezes me gently to his chest.