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But he doesn’t laugh.

Instead, Ambrose drags his gloves off one finger at a time, methodical, eyes never leaving mine. Like stripping himself bare is an inconvenience, not an invitation.

“You think I don’t see what you’re doing,” he murmurs, voice gone quieter now, rougher at the edges. “Letting Caspian’s lust bleed into you. Letting it twist you into something wanton and desperate.”

He drops the gloves onto the nightstand.

Then steps to the foot of the bed, looking down at me like he’s deciding which part of me he’ll ruin first.

“You’re not desperate for me, little sin,” he says. “You’re desperate because of him.”

I hold his gaze. “And yet I’m here.”

His jaw ticks, just once, like that admission cuts deeper than I intended. But I meant it. Every word. Because whatever lives in my chest for Caspian, Elias, Riven, Silas… it doesn’t change what I want from Ambrose.

It doesn’t soften it.

If anything, it makes it worse.

He studies me like he’s reading a playbook written in blood.

Then, slowly, deliberately, he unbuttons his coat and drapes it over the chair.

“You’re here,” he echoes, voice low. “Naked. Spread for me.”

He unfastens his cuffs, rolling them back one fold at a time. Each movement feels like a fucking ceremony.

“And you know what that means.”

I swallow, throat dry. “Tell me.”

Ambrose moves to the side of the bed, kneeling—kneeling—on the mattress beside me. His fingers trail down my thigh, featherlight, making me shudder.

“It means you’re mine tonight.”

His hand slides up, deliberate, pausing at my hip.

“And I’ll make sure you don’t forget it.”

Then, without ceremony, without pretense, he leans in and drags his mouth over the inside of my knee—up, up, until I’m shivering beneath him.

But he doesn’t give me more. Not yet.

Instead, he lifts his head, voice quiet but sharp enough to carve me open. “But understand me, Luna.”

I blink, breathing ragged now.

He smiles again—cool, devastating.

“This is not mercy.”

Then he moves like a man coming to collect a debt. And I—wanton, wicked, already undone—let him.

He moves over me like inevitability, every shift deliberate, every inch of him a controlled weight pressing me down without even touching me. He cages me beneath him, knees planted firm at my hips, his gaze dragging over my body like possession and violence stitched together. He doesn’t touch—not yet. He just looks, dark eyes devouring, calculated and cold, until I’m burning beneath it.

When he moves, it’s without hesitation. His hand skims the inside of my thigh, fingers sliding firm and unrepentant,spreading me wider like I belong open for him. There’s no tease in the way he handles me. No question. He touches me like I’m inevitable too.

“This is what you wanted,” he murmurs, voice slow and devastating, like velvet dragged across a knife’s edge. His fingers ghost against my hipbone, casual, proprietary. “To be nothing but a vessel for everyone else’s craving.”