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"More," I gasp against his ear, and he responds by changing the angle, driving deeper, harder, until I'm sobbing his name like a prayer.

One of his hands slides between us, fingers finding the swollen bundle of nerves where we're joined. The touch is electric, sending shockwaves through my entire system. I'm close, so close I can taste it, but he won't let me fall. Every time I near the edge, he pulls back, changing pace or angle until the sensation ebbs just enough to keep me hanging.

"Please," I whisper, and the word tastes like surrender on my tongue.

"Please what?" His voice is dark velvet, rough with his own need but still controlled enough to torment me.

"Please let me come."

"Not yet." His thumb circles that sensitive spot, light as a feather, maddening in its restraint. "I want to feel you break apart, want to watch you lose control completely."

He shifts again, lifting me higher against the wall, and the new position lets him go deeper than before. I cry out, overwhelmed by the sensation, by the way he fills every inch of me. His mouth crashes against mine, swallowing my sounds, drinking them like wine.

This isn't gentle lovemaking. This is something rawer, more primal. Six years of want and denial and frustrated desire poured into every kiss, every touch, every breathless gasp. When his thumb presses down on my clit at the same time he drives into me, I shatter.

The orgasm tears through me like lightning, making me arch against him with a cry that echoes off the walls of his study. Wave after wave of pleasure crashes over me, each one more intense than the last, until I'm boneless in his arms, trembling with the aftershocks.

He follows me over the edge, his release wrung from him with a sound that's half curse, half prayer. I feel him pulse inside me, hot and claiming, marking me as his in the most primitive way possible.

For long moments, we stay like that, pressed together against the wall, breathing hard and trembling. His face is buried in my neck, and I can feel his lips moving against my skin, forming words I can't quite make out.

Eventually, he sets me down, but he doesn't step away. Instead, he gathers me against his chest, one hand stroking my hair while the other traces patterns on my bare back. It's unexpectedly tender, this aftermath, and I find myself relaxing into his embrace despite everything.

"Come to bed," he murmurs against my hair.

I should say no, should gather my clothes and return to my own room, put distance between us and pretend this never happened. But I don't want to. For the first time in years, I feel sated, peaceful in a way that has nothing to do with the physical release and everything to do with the man holding me.

So I nod and let him lead me from his study to his bedroom, our clothes forgotten on the floor behind us.

His bed is massive, covered in sheets made of Egyptian cotton, soft as silk against my skin when he pulls back the covers and waits for me to slide in. He joins me a moment later, and then I'm surrounded by his warmth, his scent, the solid reassurance of his presence.

"I won't beg to stay," I tell him, because I need him to know this hasn't changed anything. Not really. Tomorrow night, I'll still watch that race with hope in my heart. I'll still believe, however foolishly, that freedom is possible.

"You won't get the chance," he replies, but there's no mockery in it this time. Just quiet certainty, and something that might be regret.

I want to argue, to tell him he's wrong, that tomorrow night changes everything. But the words won't come. Maybe because I'm not sure I believe them anymore. Maybe because, lying here in his arms, freedom seems less important than it did an hour ago.

Sleep takes me gradually, and with it come the dreams. Not the nightmares that have plagued me for years, but memories. Six years ago, in a hotel room that smelled like expensive whiskey and desperation. His hands on my skin, gentle despite the circumstances that brought us together. The way he'd looked at me afterward, like I was something precious he'd never expected to find.

I'd told myself it was just sex, just a transaction to save my father's life. But that was a lie, wasn't it? If it had been just sex,just a cold business arrangement, I would never have agreed to it. No matter how desperate I was, no matter how much dangerBatyawas in, I would have found another way.

But I'd wanted him. Even then, even under those circumstances, I'd wanted Rolan Vetrov with a hunger that terrified me. The memory comes back in vivid detail—the way he'd touched me like I was made of glass, the way he'd whispered my name in awestruck worship, the way he'd held me afterward when he thought I was asleep.

And now, six years later, curled against his chest in his bed, I can finally admit the truth to myself. I'd wanted him then. I want him now. And tomorrow night, when my horse loses and my last hope of freedom dies with it, I'll still want him.

Maybe that's enough. Maybe wanting someone, being wanted in return with this kind of intensity, is more than most people ever get.

Or maybe I'm just trying to make peace with a choice that was never really mine to make.

Either way, wrapped in his arms with his heartbeat steady beneath my ear, I sleep more peacefully than I have in years. And if my dreams are full of hotel rooms and desperate bargains and the taste of whiskey on a stranger's lips who became something more, well, that's between me and the darkness behind my closed eyes.

In my dreams, I'm twenty-two again, and he's offering me that same terrible bargain. But this time, when I say yes, it's not just to save my father. It's because I want to know what it feels like to be claimed by a man like Rolan Vetrov. It's because I want to see if the darkness in his eyes matches the darkness in my own soul.

And when I wake tomorrow, I'll pretend I don't remember dreaming at all.

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ROLAN