Chapter 96: Swallowing Pride***
The vibrations of Zara’s orgasm milked Ryan with a crushing, rhythmic pressure, dragging him dangerously close to the edge.
Her core clamped down like a vice, her thighs squeezing his ribs so hard the breath rushed out of his lungs.
He gritted his teeth, his jaw locking. He couldn’t finish yet. He wanted the absolute, total dismantling of her pride.
He stopped moving, holding perfectly still while the aftershocks racked her frame.
Zara sobbed against the freezing glass, her forehead resting against the condensation her own breath had created. She was completely spent, her muscles turning to water.
Ryan loosened his grip on her thighs. She slid down the glass, her bare feet hitting the carpet with a soft thud.
Her knees immediately buckled. She would have collapsed entirely if Ryan hadn’t kept a fist tangled in her hair.
He stood over her, his chest heaving, his cock jutting out, thick, slick, and violently hard.
"Down," he ordered.
Zara blinked up at him, her dark eyes confused, swimming in the haze of post-orgasmic exhaustion.
Ryan tugged her hair, pulling her gaze directly to his groin. "On your knees."
The command bypassed her exhausted brain and wired straight into her newly awakened submissive instincts.
New York’s highest-paid face dropped to the carpet without a word of protest.
The plush rug scraped against her bare knees.
The blue silk dress hung off her body in ruined, sweat-soaked wrinkles, the straps dangling uselessly around her elbows. She knelt in front of him, staring at the thick, throbbing length of him.
"You want to know how the others do it?" Ryan murmured, his voice a dark, velvet scrape in the quiet suite.
He stepped closer, the tip of his cock brushing her swollen, saliva-slicked lips. "You want to know why they get my attention?"
Zara’s breath hitched. Her hands hovered uselessly in the air before settling on his thighs, gripping the fabric of his slacks to anchor herself.
"Open," Ryan demanded.
She parted her lips, and Ryan guided himself in.
The heat of her mouth was a stark, immediate contrast to the freezing glass.
She took him clumsily at first, her teeth grazing the sensitive ridge, but the sharp hiss that escaped Ryan’s lips made her adjust instantly.
She curled her lips over her teeth, flattening her tongue, and took him deeper.
"My assistant doesn’t hesitate," Ryan said, looking down at her. He placed a heavy hand on the back of her head, locking his fingers in her hair. "She drops to her knees the second I look at her. She opens her throat and takes every inch without gagging."
The comparison hit Zara like a live wire.
The kink flared, a dark, venomous surge of competitive jealousy incinerating her exhaustion.
She pushed forward, swallowing him deeper. Her nose brushed his stomach. She forced her throat to relax, taking him past the natural barrier, a soft, muffled gag vibrating against his shaft before she suppressed it entirely.
"That’s it," Ryan praised, his hips rolling forward in slow, deliberate thrusts. "Show me you can keep up."
Zara’s eyes watered. A stray tear leaked down her cheek, but she didn’t stop. She bobbed her head, establishing a frantic, sloppy rhythm.
She sucked hard on the upstroke, her cheeks hollowing out, creating a vacuum that dragged a heavy groan from Ryan’s chest.
She used her hands, wrapping her fingers around the base, twisting and pulling in tandem with her mouth.
It wasn’t the practiced, flawless technique of someone who had done it a hundred times, but the sheer, desperate enthusiasm—the frantic need to prove her worth, to outdo a woman she had never even met—made it lethally effective.
Ryan rasped, his thrusts accelerating, pushing past her lips to hit the back of her throat with heavy, blunt force.
Zara moaned around him, a wet, filthy sound. She sucked harder, her tongue swirling around the sensitive frenulum, her nails biting into his thighs.
She was competing with ghosts. She was fighting for territory in a hierarchy she hadn’t even known existed three hours ago.
The pristine supermodel was kneeling on the floor of a luxury box, choking on his cock, completely desperate for his approval.
Ryan’s control shattered.
The pressure coiled at the base of his spine snapped, a white-hot flood of pure, agonizing heat rushing upward.
"Swallow it," Ryan growled, his fingers tightening in her hair, holding her head firmly in place. "Take every fucking drop."
He drove his hips forward, burying himself entirely in her mouth, and erupted.
Zara’s eyes flew wide behind her dark lashes. The thick, hot pulse hit the back of her throat with bruising force.
She choked, a reflexive gag attempting to reject the sudden, heavy flood, but Ryan held her head rigid.
"Swallow," he commanded.
She closed her eyes, her throat working convulsively. She swallowed. Then again. Drinking down the heavy, viscous load as he pumped the last remaining drops into her mouth.
Ryan held her there for a long, heavy moment, his chest heaving, the adrenaline slowly draining from his system.
The muffled, chaotic noise of the stadium below slowly filtered back into his awareness.
He finally loosened his grip on her hair and took a step back, slipping free from her lips with a slick, wet pop.
Zara slumped back onto her heels.
Her chest was heaving, the ruined silk dress clinging to her sweat-soaked skin. Her lipstick was entirely gone, her mouth swollen and shining.
A thin, viscous string of saliva and semen coated her bottom lip.
She looked up at him, her dark eyes dazed, her breathing ragged. She ran her tongue over her lips, cleaning the mess, and swallowed audibly.
"Did I..." she started, her voice a wrecked, scratchy whisper. She cleared her throat, looking up at him with a desperate, naked vulnerability. "Was I better than them?"
Ryan looked down at her. He looked at the wreckage of the icon, kneeling on the carpet, asking for a grade.
He didn’t give her the satisfaction of a clean victory. The power lay in the imbalance.
He reached down, brushing his thumb across her cheek, wiping away a smear of mascara.
"You’re learning," Ryan said quietly, a slow, dark smile curving his mouth. "You’ll get there."
Zara let out a shaky breath, closing her eyes, her body trembling with a mix of exhaustion and the lingering, addictive sting of the degradation.
Ryan turned away, walking back toward the mahogany bar to grab his discarded shirt.
As he buttoned the crisp white cotton over his bruised ribs, the cold reality of the world outside the glass box began to bleed back into his mind.
He had dismantled the untouchable Zara Osei. He had pushed his Power and Reputation stats higher, bleeding the System for every drop of leverage it offered.
But the clock was still ticking.
The image of the Italian man with the cigar flashed behind his eyes. The matte-black submachine guns. The steel briefcase.
Zara was sitting on the floor, fixing her dress, preparing to reconstruct her armor before they walked back out into the flashing cameras.
She had no idea that her reputation, and the very video that would destroy it all were currently sitting in a mafia stronghold downtown.
Ryan poured a fresh glass of bourbon, the ice clinking loudly in the silent room.
He downed it in one swallow, the burn grounding him.
The game in the arena below was ending.
Ryan’s was just beginning.