Chapter 18: Corporate Servitude
Dayne’s hand, still tangled in Zariah’s hair, went perfectly still. The federal paperwork wasn’t a surprise; his lawyers had warned him it was coming, but the timing felt like a deliberately cruel punchline. He unmuted the conference call, his voice dropping to a deadly calm. “Gentlemen, something urgent requires my immediate attention.” He ended the call, his eyes meeting Zariah’s wide, fearful ones as he tucked himself away and zipped his fly with a sharp, final sound.
The sharp scent of his cologne couldn't mask the salt-tang of sex still hanging in the air between them. "Fuck," he breathed, the word a ragged admission as his thumb traced the curve of her flushed lips, still wet from him. "The Feds are here for the paperwork on Matthew, and they'll want to see you, too." He pulled her to her feet, his grip firm but not unkind, smoothing her skirt with a rough, pragmatic hand. "Clean yourself up," he ordered, his voice low, "and meet me in the conference room in ten minutes looking like you weren't just choking on my cock."
She obeyed immediately, slipping into the adjacent private bathroom without a word. The cold water she splashed on her face did little to erase the swollen redness of her lips or the feverish glint in her eyes staring back from the mirror. She finger-combed her curls, straightened her blouse, and took a long, steadying breath that did nothing to calm the frantic beat of her heart. "You look exactly like a woman who was just fucked in the ass," she muttered to her reflection, the crude truth a grounding slap. Then she squared her shoulders, the movement causing a faint, telling ache deep inside her, and walked out to face the consequences.
Then she squared her shoulders, the movement causing a faint, telling ache deep inside her, and walked out to face the consequences. The two agents waiting by Margot’s desk were a study in contrasts: one young and sharp-eyed, the other older with a weary grimace, both radiating an institutional coldness that made the opulent office feel suddenly cheap. Dayne stood between them, his posture relaxed but his knuckles white where they gripped a sheaf of financial reports. He didn't look at Zariah as she approached, his gaze fixed on the older agent. "This is Zariah Hayes, our lead consultant on the Vector Health merger," he said, his voice a flawless blend of courtesy and detached boredom, the same voice that had purred obscenities into her ear minutes before.
Hayes," the older agent said, his tone neutral but his eyes missing nothing, "we'd like to speak with you privately." Dayne gave a curt nod, his emerald eyes flashing a silent warning to her as he turned toward his office. They led her to a sterile conference room where the younger agent gestured for her to sit, the click of the recorder between them obscenely loud. "What can you tell us about Matthew Vance's day-to-day operations before his disappearance?" he asked, his pen poised. Zariah folded her hands over the subtle swell of her stomach, her voice steady as she replied, "Mr. Vance was a good boss who trusted his department heads; I handled marketing, not accounting, but I'm happy to answer what I can."
“That’s not an answer, Ms. Hayes,” the younger agent snapped, his pen tapping an impatient rhythm on the notepad. The older one leaned forward, his gaze dropping to her throat where a fresh bruise was deepening beneath her blouse collar. “We have statements placing you in Matthew Vance’s office the night he vanished, and financials showing unusual transfers you authorized.” Dayne’s silhouette appeared in the glass wall behind them, a silent, looming shadow. Zariah’s mouth, still tender and stretched, went dry as the older agent slid a photograph across the table—a grainy security still of her leaving Matthew’s building, her face pale with fear.
She studied the grainy image, the fear on her own face a foreign country, then lifted her gaze to meet the agent’s. “Yeah, I authorized those transfers after they were approved by Matthew,” she said, her voice cool and even, “and I’d like to add that if this is a conversation that could potentially lead to me being indicted, I’d like to have my lawyer present.” She smiled, a small, cold curve of lips that knew the taste of both fear and Dayne’s come. The younger agent’s jaw tightened, a muscle jumping in his cheek as he snapped his notebook shut. Through the glass, Dayne’s approving smirk was a dark promise she felt in her bones.
The conference room door opened without a knock, and Waltz, Dayne’s attorney, stepped inside with the weary authority of a man who billed by the six-minute increment. “Unless you’re arresting my client today, and you’re not,” he stated, dropping his briefcase onto the table with a definitive thud, “you’re done here.” The younger agent began to protest, but Waltz cut him off, his voice cold and final. “You have no more evidence than what we’ve already disclosed, which means this fishing expedition is over.” Outside the glass, Dayne’s smirk hardened into something like triumph, and Zariah felt the tight coil in her gut unravel into a sharp, liquid rush of relief.
The agents left with a warning about not leaving town, the heavy door sighing shut behind them. Zariah sat perfectly still until the echo of their footsteps vanished into the elevator bank, then let her head drop forward, a shuddering breath finally escaping her lungs. She stood on legs that felt boneless and walked out, not toward the main bank of elevators, but to the discreet, keycard-locked door marked ‘PH’, the private roof floor Dayne had shown her in a quieter moment. The elevator opened directly into the minimalist lounge, all soft grays and silent, thick-paned glass overlooking the city’s frantic grid. She went straight to the wet bar, poured cranberry juice with a hand that trembled only slightly, and knocked it back.
The sharp, sweet tang of the juice did nothing to cleanse the memory of his taste from her tongue. She set the crystal tumbler down with a definitive click, the sound echoing in the sterile silence, just as the private elevator chimed its arrival. Dayne stepped into the lounge, his earlier corporate mask gone, replaced by a raw, simmering intensity that scanned her from head to toe. He crossed the space in silence, his footsteps swallowed by the plush carpet, and stopped close enough for her to feel the heat radiating from his body and smell their shared scent on his skin. “Tell me what they said,” he commanded, his voice a low gravel that scraped over her nerves.
“They showed me a picture,” she said, her back still to him, fingers tracing the condensation on her empty glass. “Me, leaving the office that night.” She turned, letting him see the fear she hadn’t shown the agents. “Then they slid a financial ledger across the table.” A hard, hollow laugh escaped her. “They asked why I approved those suspicious transfers.”
He pulls her close, his hand sliding around the nape of her neck, his thumb pressing into the pulse hammering beneath her jaw. "Because I told you to," he growled, his voice a dark confession against her temple. "And you always do exactly what I fucking tell you to do." His other hand found the hem of her skirt, pushing it up her thighs with a rough, possessive urgency.
His fingers dug into the bare skin of her thighs, hiking the fabric higher. "Open the ledger on the bar," he ordered, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper against her ear. She obeyed, her movements stiff, the polished mahogany cool beneath her palms as she laid the thick financial document flat. He spun her around to face it, bending her forward until her cheek pressed against the column of expenses, his body caging hers in. "Now tell me," he growled, his hand shoving her panties aside, his fingers sliding through her wetness, "whose orders do you follow?"
"Yours, sir," she gasped, the words muffled against the vellum paper, her spine arching as his fingers plunged deeper into her soaked cunt. "My pussy is so wet for you, sir." He rewarded her raw admission by driving two thick fingers knuckle-deep inside her, curling them to stroke that spot that made her vision blur. "Prove it," he snarled, withdrawing his wet fingers and unbuckling his belt with a sharp, metallic rasp. The heavy drop of his slacks was the only warning before the broad, insistent head of his cock replaced his fingers, and he pushed into her dripping heat with a single, devastating thrust.
He paused, his entire body locking at her ragged plea, his cock buried to the hilt inside her gripping cunt. “That’s not how you ask,” he growled, his voice thick with a dangerous edge as he pulled almost all the way out, leaving just the tip inside her. He leaned over her, his lips brushing her ear. “You fucking beg.” She shuddered, her breath fogging the financial paper, and whispered, “Please, sir, fuck my pussy.” He snapped his hips forward, slamming back into her with a force that stole her air, and began a ruthless, pounding rhythm.
Each brutal thrust rocked her forward, her fingernails scrabbling for purchase against the slick ledger pages as the numbers blurred into meaningless streaks under her cheek. "Harder," she gasped, the plea ripped from her throat as he hammered into her with the exact punishing force she craved, the muscles in his thighs slapping against the back of hers with a wet, rhythmic smack.
He released her hair, his palm cracking down hard on the curve of her ass with a sharp, stinging slap that made her gasp and clench around him. “You want it harder, you filthy girl?” he grunted, his voice ragged, landing another smack on the opposite cheek as he pistoned into her. “Then take it.”