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Marco leans closer. “Aria.” His fingers graze my cheek so gently that I feel my lips part in a gasp. “I could recognize you anywhere. I knew it was you the moment I saw you again today. Your scent. Your eyes. The expressions on your face…”

His body cages me now, his arms on either side of my head. He towers over me, his six-foot-three frame blocking out the light, making me feel small and trapped, but I don’t flinch.

He brings his face close to mine, and I can smell the whiskey on his breath. “Did you enjoy making a fool of me?”

“I didn’t…” I stammer, my heart hammering against my ribs from how close he stands, from how my body reaches for him without permission. “I was trying to?—”

He cuts me off with a finger to my lips. “You know what happens to people who lie to me?”

I nod slowly. Not out of fear. But because I want this. I want him to want me—desperately, violently. I want him to take me like he did the first time, when we were strangers tangled in shadows and heat, nothing but skin and need. Not feeling him since then has been its own kind of torture. I’ve dreamed of this moment for so long. Craved it in the quiet hours when sleep wouldn’t come. I don’t want mercy. I want him to own me. To brand every inch of me with his name until there’s no doubt I’m still his. To leave marks I can feel even when he’s not there.

He watches me for a beat, his expression unreadable. Then he asks, ever so softly, “Is this what you want, Aria?”

I shiver at the way he says it, and his grip tightens.

My pulse is thunder in my ears. My body is already giving me away, and without thinking, I reach out and clutch his shirt between my hands.

“I…” I breathe. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I didn’t mean to fall into your world.” My voice drops to a whisper. “But I’m here now. I choose to stay.”

He leans in, his hand curling around my waist, pulling me into him like gravity.

“I want you,” I whisper, trembling.

“I… I tried to forget.”

My eyes find his, searching for something—permission, forgiveness, maybe even hope.

“But all I’ve done is ache for more.”

“I don’t know how to do this… but I trust you.” I look up at him, breath unsteady. “Show me what it means to be yours.”

A muscle ticks in his jaw, as if he hadn’t expected me to admit it out loud.

“And if you want me to stop?” he asks.

The question floors me. It sobers the heat blazing inside me just enough to prove this isn’t some fever dream.

“Then I say it. I tell you to stop.”

His mouth curves, and the next thing I know, his mouth crashes against mine, not a kiss but a claiming. His teeth nip at my bottom lip hard enough to sting, and I gasp, giving him the access he wants. His tongue invades my mouth, dominating, exploring, taking what belongs to him. Because in his world, that’s what I am now—a possession. A debt to be collected.

He breaks the kiss only to whisper against my ear. “You remember that night I fucked you senseless and you were moaning like a little whore beneath me?” His words are crude, disrespectful, but they send a shameful heat pooling between my thighs.

“I remember,” I say, knowing I shouldn’t lie anymore.

“Good,” he hisses, and his hands find the neckline of my dress. With a swift, violent motion, he tears it down to my waist, the sound of ripping fabric echoing in the quiet room. Cool air rushes against my exposed skin, raising goosebumps across my chest.

I cry out, covering myself out of instinct, but my hands stop moving halfway. He’s watching with such careful detail, and I want to see all of his anger, all his retribution, so I let my hands drop to my sides and stare right into his eyes.

His eyes darken, and he inches closer, catches my wrists, and pinsthem above my head with one strong hand.

“You can stop this anytime,” he reminds me, voice low, close to my ear. “Say it now if you want me to stop.”

“I don’t want you to stop,” I whisper.

His free hand cups my breast, gentle but possessive.

“Look at you.So proper and innocent in front of everyone else, but I know the truth now, don’t I? I know how you like it when I’m on you.”