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“I ache for my freedom, to be as far away from you as possible.”

He moved, then, to the foot of the tub, and I allowed myself a short breath. But then he unbuttoned his shirt, his eyes remaining fixed on me.

“What are you doing?” I held out a hand. “Do not even dream of getting in this tub. I will tear your manhood clean off.”

“Don’t worry, beloved.” He tore the shirt sleeve from his arms and discarded it on the floor. “I have something much better in mind.”

“Get-” The rest of the sentence was torn from me as a strangled scream bubbled out of my mouth. It was smothered by the bath water as Azriel yanked me by the legs, throwing them over his shoulders. I was still caught in the wild tangle of bubbles as his mouth descended on me, heat shooting through my core at the feel of his tongue.

I gripped the edges of the bathtub, hauling myself out of the water, gasping for breath. Azriel’s dark head of hair was buried between my thighs, and he licked and sucked like a man starved. My hands shook as I struggled to stay above the water, my heart pounding against my ribcage.

“Stop,” I breathed, trying to clench my thighs together.

Azriel lifted his head, smiling that devilish smile, my arousal coating his lips. “I knew you’d taste like heaven, Evie.”

“Stop.” Even I could hear the fight leaving my voice. His hot breath washed over my sensitive skin, every nerve tense and wanting. “Please, I can’t-”

Azriel wrenched my thighs apart and resumed his ministrations. My head fell back in the water, and I cried out, desperate to stay afloat and not drown while he continued to kiss and plunder the most intimate parts of me. His mouth covered me thoroughly, and while my head was swimming far too much to even know where and what and how he waskissing and sucking and probing, one emotion screamed through me. One emotion that made me hate him even more, hatred upon hatred, wishing he would burn in hell and be flayed by Lucifer himself for this. The one thought that I could not escape while heat flared in every single cell -God, this feels good.

Perhaps it was true what they said, that love was not a necessity in the bedroom. I had thought they meant for the case of procreation, but perhaps they had also meant for pleasure. I could hate Azriel Caine and also welcome his tongue lapping at my bud, eliciting moans so loud I was sure Mary would come running in at any moment to see what was the matter.

I thrashed in the water, my arms becoming weak, my hands slipping.

“Azriel,” I gasped, my legs trembling violently either side of his head, a panicked whimper echoing off the ceiling above me as the first wave rolled through me. “Azriel!” This time it was almost a scream, a prayer, a plea, I’m not sure which. He groaned loudly against my flesh, his trembling fingers digging into my thighs. Then the waves took over, crashing through me with the force of a hurricane.

My whole body convulsed, shock after shock sending my limbs jerking, before they went languid, and with a moan I collapsed into the water, floating on its surface like one deceased. Gasps burst from between my lips as I struggled to fill my lungs. Azriel lowered my legs from his shoulders, then stood over me, gazing down at me with a look of satisfied awe.

He sank to his knees, lifting me into a sitting position, curling me against his chest.

“So beautiful,” he murmured, kissing my forehead in a way that I did not welcome. It was too sweet, too soft, too much like something a lover would do. Something stirreddeep within me, like a faint breeze through a barely-opened window.

“I’ve been dying for that. Dying to know what you taste like.” His lips traced along my jaw, and I could smell the scent of my arousal on his skin. “You’re even sweeter when you’re about to come.”

I realised with a startled jolt that I was laying against him, my hand resting on his bare skin. With an outraged grunt, I pushed him away, clutching to the side of the tub, the only thing that was now between us, and I gripped it even harder as I willed it to protect me from him.

“Get out.” I fixed him with a glare, my breath still shuddering in my lungs as I tried to regain some sense of equilibrium. “Get out of here this instant, you vile fiend.”

He laughed, rising to his feet. Horror coursed through me as I saw his cock protruding from his trousers, half spent and covered in his seed. He was soiled with it, which did not seem to bother him at all as he buttoned himself up and hid the mess he had made.

“Do you see now what you do to me?” He asked as he retrieved his shirt from the ground. “How much I desire you? Simply eating your cunt is enough to have me spent on the floor.”

“I said, get out.” I could not look at him anymore, leaning over the edge of the tub and clenching my eyes closed as he finished dressing.

His footsteps sounded across the floor, and then came to a stop.

“I must say, I do like you screaming my name as you come.” His filthy, delighted snigger was lost as he opened the door and disappeared from the bathroom.

I gulped for air like a fish stranded on the shore, my body still entangled in this awful, wonderful feeling of what he had done to me. The words of the nuns, my governesses, everypriest I had ever encountered, rang through my head -Pleasure is the way to madness. Through Sin, you will lose your mind.

That place I had never been allowed to touch, that I had not even dared stray a finger near for fear of going mad, of ending up in an asylum, had now been assaulted twice by Azriel. Perhaps he had not meant to drown me in the bath while feasting upon me, but his intention truly was to drive me mad.

I’d said I wouldn’t let him do it to me again, and I had. I knew he would continue to take, and take.

I would simply have to refuse to give.

I rose from the now-cold bathwater, and met my own reflection with a determined stare.

He will never do that to me again. Control yourself. Do not let him have that. He will not drive you mad.