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Her eyes, glazed over with desire, fluttered open.

“This is going to hurt,” he warned her.

“I know…” she murmured. “I’ve heard Lady Wendell talking about it after she came back from the country with the Viscount…”

“I wish there was some other way to spare you the pain,” he muttered hoarsely.

She shook her head. “You have already shown me so much… Daniel… let me do this for you…”

He groaned and kissed her again, his leg nudging her thighs apart as her words pierced through his soul.

He was going to take her. Takeallof her as she had asked him, never mind that he would end up corrupting this bright creature of innocence and light, tainting her with his darkness.

He nudged at her opening, carefully watching her face for any signs of pain or discomfort. He had never bedded an untried maiden like Evie before, and he feared that he would not know how to be gentle with her, not when his desire for her raged in his veins.

“I trust you, Daniel,” she told him softly. “Make me yours.”

He groaned and surged into her, her words reaching a part of him that he had long thought was nonexistent.

Beneath him, Evie gave a soft cry, stiffening slightly as he slid into her tight channel.

Bloody hell, she is so tight!

It took all of his self-control not to tear into her like the beast that he was. She deserved so much more than the base rutting he had indulged in in the past.

Evie was different. She wouldalwaysbe different. Special in that wonderful way that only she could be.

She relaxed into him, and he slid deeper inside her, his muscles straining as he held himself from plunging into her. When he finally reached her maidenhead, he stopped.

Her eyes, which had been shut, opened in confusion. “Is something amiss?”

“No, nothing,” he ground out harshly. “Everything is…”

Exquisite. Perfect.

She was all of these things, and he would be damned if he ruined everything for her tonight.

“This is going to hurt, darling,” he warned her.

She nodded and licked her lips. “I am ready.”

He watched her intently, watched the shadows play across her face in the final moments of her innocence. After tonight, after he claimed her, she would be a woman.

Hiswoman.

The knowledge filled him with such pride, and he surged into her, tearing past her maidenhead to sink fully into her.

Evie’s sharp cry of pain lanced through him as surely as if someone had stabbed him with an actual dagger. He truly wished there was some other way—at least one that would not cause her so much pain.

“I am so, so sorry, Duchess,” he murmured, raining soft kisses on her sweaty brow. “Oh God, I am so sorry…”

He gathered her into his arms as he let her adjust to his size. There was nothing that he wanted more than to pump into her until they were both spent, but she needed him to rein himself in. Trusted him as much.

She was so frail and so small, so delicate in the face of his rampaging desire.

“I-it does not feel so bad,” she managed with a slight smile.

“Does it still hurt?” He looked at her with concern.