Page 84 of House of Cards

Ducking down, I inhale the air between us. Blood. Sweat and cum—hers and mine.

My voice could have belonged to a stranger. Hoarse, breathless, dangerously low.

“I’ve just rewired your nervous system, kitten. After tonight, you’ll never be able to deny how much you fucking want this.”

I hear something that sounds like the first frantic blubber of a sob, but when I lean back to look at her face, her jaw is clenched, eyes wide and fierce, already trying to lie to herself about what just happened.

My thumb swipes over her mouth, where her lip’s begun bleeding again. I have to lock down every muscle in my body to stop myself from ducking down and tasting her.

Why do I keep fighting something that feels so good?

I climb off the chair, shoving my cock back in my pants. She flinches when I touch her legs, but all I do is push them closed, patting her thighs as I crouch down and study her at eye level.

“Run as far as you want, fight as hard as you want, but you’ll always submit to me, Zoey.” I tuck a wayward chunk of hair behind her ear. “Now that your body knows who it belongs to, you won’t have a choice.”

She glares at me, but her expression crumples a moment later.

I know it’s coming, but still my stomach clenches when she drops her head and starts sobbing.

Smith

I’ve killed men for less than what Rich is suggesting.

“Did you see how she fought back?” I’m surprised Rich isn’t fucking drooling.

“I saw.” Troy seems unaffected by his enthusiasm. Then again, he usually is. Desperate for a more receptive audience, Rich makes the mistake of turning to me.

“That bit where she started grinding against your leg?” He fists the air, whooping. “Purefuckinggold. That video’s gonna double our subscription rates, easy.”

I listen to him, trying to emulate Troy’s clinical detachment. But I barely paused in that dressing room long enough to grab a warm, damp towel from the tray before leaving Zoey to clean herself up, and I cansmellthe blood on my skin.

Not just blood.

The more I wipe my face, the darker the stains on the towel.

And that just reminds me of the way Zoey’s face contorted before she spat at me. The vicious hatred in her eyes.

A hatred that shifted into something desperate and fervent when she came.

Christ, the sounds she made.

The self-loathing in her eyes when she had no choice but to rub up against my leg for release.

The disgust when she swallowed my cum from my finger.

“Delete it.” My voice sounds strange even to my own ears.

Hollow. Distant.

Rich spins in his chair, his excitement morphing into confusion. “What?”

The Labyrinth’s control room looks nothing like the one I left earlier tonight. That security room was all business, camera feeds monitored by professionals. It’s obvious this room was built for voyeurs. Rows of monitors on one concave wall, a keyboard and mouse on the desk beneath it. A large projector lights up the canvas along the other wall. Sofas, a dry bar, coffee tables, barely illuminated by discrete ambient lighting.

A single chair, bolted to the floor, plays out on the projection screen. So still it could have been a photograph.

“I said delete it.”

“But this is exactly what we?—”