Dominating Anna: A Fantasy Fulfilled Novella (10 page)

Tugging her coat
around her even tighter, she looked at him. Silence, for the space of a breath.
And another one.

“Okay. I’m going. But
Zee?” She put her small hand on the front of his jacket and kissed him lightly
on the mouth. “You’re going to have to let it go someday. Whether it’s with me
or with someone else, you don’t deserve to punish yourself like this.”

When she turned the
corner, walking out of his sight, Zee had never felt more empty. But she was
wrong. He did deserve this. Exactly this.

The steps Anna took
away from him were torturous. She walked quickly, but at the same time, she
wanted to feel his hand on the back of her arm. Zee would stop her. Any minute
now. Right?

At the top of the
subway steps, he finally caught up to her, touching her elbow. She turned, the
smile already halfway to her lips.

But instead of Zee,
she was face to face with a different man. Much smaller than Zee, he wore an
ill-fitting suit and a bright red knit hat that matched his scarf. He was much
too coordinated for a mugger. He looked like a banker who’d been on a bender
for the weekend. He was moving too close, too fast, and Anna stepped backward
naturally, not wanting to be in this guy’s way.

But the man grabbed
her by the upper arm and spun her around so that she faced him. He gripped her
tightly. Another man she hadn’t noticed until then came in tight, shielding
them. The first flashed something metallic from his pocket. He did it too
quickly, and she couldn’t tell if it was a knife or a gun, but whatever it was,
it was enough for her to know what was going on.

“Your purse.”

Fuck
. She hadn’t been robbed in years. And she had
her laptop in her bag.

She managed a shaky
smile. “How about my wallet? I have about sixty bucks in it.”
Keep the
laptop.
She had a set of plans she hadn’t saved to her backup drive yet,
plans that would take her hours to redraft.

“
C’mon
, bitch.
Hand it over.”

Anna reached into her
bag.

“The whole thing, you
cunt.” The second guy shoved her in the shoulder so that she ricocheted hard
into Red Scarf.

It was one thing for
Zee to call her a cunt. He made it sound like an endearment, the name dripping
from his lips. It was another for this asshole to do it.

“Fuck
off
,” she
said, bringing her fist up into the second man’s solar plexus.
 
The move felt urgent. Instinctive. With
her left foot she kicked at Red Scarf’s legs, but she missed and slipped on the
wet pavement.

“Bitch.”

With their arms
grasping hers, they spun her farther from the subway entrance, farther from
potential assistance, and pressed her to the wall of a narrow alley. They
cornered her then, pushing her against the brick, hands reaching, grabbing, for
anything in reach. They ripped her bag from her grasp, and then patted her
down. One of them shoved his arm against her crotch. Red Scarf leaned so close
she could tell he was hard. She could tell he wanted her to know.

Anna held her breath.
She folded in her shoulders to make herself small.
A mouse. Invisible.

She closed her eyes.

Then she took the
biggest gulp of air her lungs could take and came out flying.

She was a banshee. A
wildcat. Something primal tore from her vocal cords and she gave the sound all
the air she could spare. When Red Scarf grabbed at her arms, she twisted away
and scratched at his eyes. When the other man kneed her in the gut, she ignored
the pain and kicked harder, her limbs flying. They couldn’t hold her.

She
fought
,
without regard to pain.

Even if they won, even
if they took her to the ground and beat her—or worse—Anna would
know she had fought. A deep scarlet burst of pride blended into the pain.

Red Scarf finally
pinned one of her arms and with his other hand squeezed her throat. Anna saw
black spots dancing at the edge of her vision, but she managed to bring her
knee up sharply into his groin. He twisted away with a curse.

Anna heard a roar
behind the men’s heads. Then, as if they’d been hit by a passing truck, the men
flew away from her, one followed by the next. Red Scarf bounced off the brick
and came back full force at Zee who almost filled the space with his bulk.

With another bellow
that echoed down the street, Zee hit Red Scarf with an wide uppercut, sending
the man’s head into the brick with a dull smack. The other man released Anna
and windmilled at Zee but was unceremoniously tossed like a bag of flour into
the fire escape behind him.

Zee put both hands on
Anna’s shoulders and fixed her gaze with his. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Anna said. No,
she wasn’t. Thank god, she 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 her dog sniffed a tree. Anna didn’t say anything. Somehow, though,
the silence was comfortable. She leaned back into Zee’s chest, and his arms
came around her.

She felt him rumble as
he spoke into her hair. “Usually, if I were in this position, I’d push you up
against this glass.”

Her breath caught.

“And then,” he
continued, “I’d hold your hands in place over your head and pull down your
panties with my other hand.”

He pushed his face
into her hair, nuzzling for one wonderful second at her neck, his stubble
creating a shiver that ran down her spine all the way to her toes.

“Then what?” she
asked. Her breath fogged the glass.

“Then I’d lift your
shirt. Play with your tits. Pinch your nipples till you wriggled backward
against me. Yeah,” he laughed. “Like that.”

Zee still wasn’t
touching her except for where she leaned back into him. He kept his hips pulled
back so she couldn’t even feel his hardness.

“Then what?”

“I’d spank you for a
good long time, until you couldn’t think enough to count the blows anymore.
Then I’d fuck you from behind. I’d ram my cock into you so hard you’d wonder if
you could take any more. And then I’d give it to you harder. I’d make you keep
your eyes outside, on whoever walked by. If anyone looked up, I’d make you lick
the glass.”

“Jesus,” she
whispered.

“But you know what?”
He spun her in his arms so that she faced him.

God, he was so big. So
tall. But when he tilted his face down to hers, she swore she could see right
through him, into his soul. “What?”

“I want you in your
bed.”

He swept her up into
his arms. She’d only ever seen a man carry a woman like that in movies, and
she’d always thought it would be awkward. But with Zee, it wasn’t. He moved
smoothly, easily, making his way through the doorway without bumping any part
of her, depositing her on the bed gracefully, following her down onto the
mattress. “I want you here.”

His hands moved over
her. Slowly. As if he had all the time in the world. He unzipped her dress and
lifted it over her head before laying her back down. In just her bra and
panties, she watched as he stripped off his shirt. Lord help her, the muscles
on his torso were roped, leading down, down, into the top of his jeans, which
thank god he was shucking. Yep, the muscles went farther down. His enormous
cock sprang up, bouncing against his flat stomach. Anna reached forward, but
Zee smiled that crazy-big smile, and said, “Wait. Just a minute. I want
to—”

He lay next to her,
his hands gentle as they tested her bruises, the ones the men in the alley
placed on her. He traced each mark with his fingertips, cursing low under his
breath. Then he kissed each one, so lightly she could barely feel it. Heat
flooded her as he drew his lips and tongue down the inside of her arm. He
licked her palm, tickling her with his breath.

Then, so slowly that
she ached, he brought his mouth to hers. His lips were everything she needed,
and she drank from his tongue as if she were crawling parched through a desert
and he was a flash of water. Their tongues played against each other, met,
raising each other with every touch, every nip bring up the temperature. Zee
bit her lower lip and then licked it carefully, as if he was learning her,
memorizing her.

Anna felt his hand at
her waist.

“Roll over for me,” he
said in a low voice.

Lazily, she rolled,
stretching out along the bed. Zee slipped her panties off, and then undid her
bra band. He ran his fingers gently down her back, down her legs. “You have
welts.”

Thrilled, Anna said,
“I do?”

He lowered his mouth
to her skin, kissing her, following the marks. As he touched each with his
lips, she felt again the sting of the whip he’d used followed by the heat that
now rose through her. Her clit pulsed, and she pushed her hips into the
bed.