Page 55 of Gilded Locks

“Ash…” she whispered his name like a prayer, a plea that he be careful with her delicate heart.

“I’ve got you.”

Stone showed her where pleasure and pain blurred into something transcendent and terrifying. Ash blurred something far more dangerous. He was teasing her with intimacy and fake acceptance. He was pretending he cared. And her battered heart had been through so much, she was falling for it, even while consciously recognizing that it was all an act.

But the way he held her went beyond courtesy or surface concern. It felt sacred.

She was too emotional for this. Too vulnerable. Stone had taken her apart with surgical precision. Stripped away every defense, every pretense, until she was nothing but raw need and desperate submission. He’d pushed her to places that should have frightened her, places where her mind went quiet and her body became an instrument for him to master.

Beautiful. Necessary. Dangerous.

But what Ash was doing seemed worse.

Stone left her in pieces, and Ash was collecting all the scattered, sharp edges to put her back together again.

She tried to pull away, but his palm pressed her back down to his chest. “Not yet.”

Was he getting something out of this as well?

She feared he might get aroused, but there was only one way to find out, and she wasn’t going there. He had to have something to gain, some ulterior motive for treating her so gently when it was apparent none of them trusted her.

His touch stayed steady, grounding, while her psyche knitted itself back into something resembling wholeness. She must have drifted off in his arms, because she stirred when she felt him slip out from under her body and try to replace himself with a pillow.

Leaning up on an elbow, she looked at him through blurred eyes. The glass in the tall windows was now dark. How long had she slept?

He returned to the bed with a glass of water. “Thirsty?”

She actually wasn’t since Stone had made her drink so much to stay hydrated, but she sat up anyway. When she reached out with shaky fingers, he gently brushed her hand away and pressed the glass of water to her lips, supporting her head. The cool liquid soothed her raw throat, each swallow a small act of reclamation.

“Good girl.” The praise wrapped around her like warm silk, different from Stone’s cutting approval but no less potent. “Such a good girl for us.”

Fresh tears burned her eyes. The thrill of his praise was quickly tinged with shame. She couldn’t mistake their possession as softness or affection. These men wanted to harm her. They were not her protectors.

But the tears wouldn’t subside. They weren’t from pain or fear, but from the overwhelming vulnerability of being seen like this. Trembling. Needy. Cracked open and spilling over with emotions too big for her body.

“Let the tears come.” Ash’s thumb traced softly across her damp cheek, the gesture impossibly tender for hands that could snap her neck without effort. “You were so strong for him. So perfect. But you don’t have to be strong right now.”

More permission. What was wrong with her that his authorization intensified her feelings? He had no power over her mind, yet his words gave her the freedom to feel every emotion honestly.

“Let it out, printessa.”

His words broke something loose inside her. Sobs wracked her frame, ugly and cathartic, while Ash held her through each one. He murmured praise in Russian and English, voice a constant rumble that vibrated through her bones. His hands never stopped moving—stroking her hair, rubbing feeling back into sore limbs, tracing soothing patterns that pulled her consciousness back into her body.

“I don’t understand why I’m crying?”

His soft laugh was teasing. “No? You’ve been through quite a bit.”

“But I’m not a crier.” She wiped the embarrassing proof of her fragility away, only to have more tears fall. “It’s infuriating.”

“I’ve watched men three times your size break down far worse from far less. It’s the paradox of playing with strong power dynamics. The rougher the play, the softer the landing needs to be.”

Was that it then? This was all a result of what Stone had done?

He hadn’t just played with her body, he toyed with her mind, scattering her psyche like dandelion seeds into the wind. She hadn’t shed a single tear while he put her through the motions, but his abandonment afterwards and Ash’s attentive care were her disgraceful undoing.

“It’s perfectly natural to feel emotional.”

She accepted his reasoning and nodded. “Thank you.” Ugh, and now she was thanking him?