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“I don’t like the sound of what you’re describing. Either you’re lying, little princess, or a man did something to you.”

“N-nothing happened,” I stammer. “It was my fault. I...I...oh.”

While I’m busy protesting, Alex kneels, shoves layers of silk up around my waist, and shoulders between my thighs.

He wrenches aside the panties and puts his mouth on my sex.

My vision hazes. I’ve never imagined anything as vulgar as his tongue parting my folds in my entire life.

I realize now how limited my imagination has been.

Girlish ideas, as insubstantial as a dandelion’s puff.

This desire is raw and real. I’m not frightened of it. This need makes me feel strong. Feral with want. It’s altogether different from what I thought it would be.

Alex licks my dripping sex with abandon. I clutch the throne with one hand and my skirt with the other. I submit to his torment with relief, with joy, with total abandon.

“Come for me, my queen.”

I drop the silk and grab his hair. Smooth locks slide through my satin-clad fingers. He locks his arms around my thighs and attacks me with his tongue. Pressure builds until I can’t take it anymore, I’ll explode, I?—

Fall into nothingness. Every muscle in my body locks tight. Alex’s tongue dips into my passage as it tries and fails to clench around him. He slips away, leaving me as hollow as ever.

“The man who touched you will die.” He sits back on his heels with me all over his face and an ember of fury glowing in his eyes. “Who was he, Elsie? The man who took your innocence and gave you nothing in return?”

My jaw drops. To hear what Tremaine did to me described so bluntly shocks me into speaking the truth.

“I…No one. He was nothing to me.”

“A footman?”

I shake my head. “Why does it matter, Alex?”

“Because someone is going to lose his favorite body part for what he’s done to you.”

He lunges forward, trapping me in the chair. I should resist. At a minimum, I ought to be concerned about his abrupt shift in tone. Yet after years of no one standing up for me when I was on the receiving end of daily abuse, I find his protectiveness thrilling.

I twine my arms around his neck as our mouths clash in a desperate, claiming kiss.

He finds my breasts and eases each puckered nub over the cup.

The chill in the air tightens them to the cusp of pain.

Alex clamps my arms against the wood and trails kisses down my throat and over the tops before seizing one in his searing mouth.

I arch, fighting his restraining grasp as much as I’m straining to meet him.

“Stay still, princess,” he grits out, abandoning one breast in favor of the other. “I’ll give you what we both want if you hold still.”

I don’t have it in me to obey.

Inaction is forever entwined with fear and pain. What I’m experiencing now is agonized desperation. I’ve never felt drunk with desire like this before.

Despite the froth of silk skirts, I manage to lock my legs around his waist. His gaze meets mine.

“I need you, Alex. Now.”

“You’re mine. You know that, Elsie? This is not for one evening.”

I won’t waste time arguing. I am nearly out of time. He won’t feel the same way if my magical gown melts away and leaves me standing before him in rags. I can’t stand the thought of being humiliated twice in a single evening.

One night of pleasure was all I asked for, and it’s all I’ll ever have.

He releases me and shrugs out of the jacket, pushing my legs away easily as he tosses it aside. From there, he makes quick work of his trousers, freeing his cock with a jaunty bob. I hide my smile behind my hand.

“You think it’s funny.” He gives me that lopsided smile that melts my insides.

“Amusing. Not quite the same thing.” Seeing him, I’m starting to regret my decision. If being with Tremaine was that painful, how much worse will this hurt?

“He’s very interested in making your acquaintance, Elsie.”

He takes my hand and curls my fingers around his shaft. Gently, I squeeze. A barely-audible rumble of delight vibrates in his chest, akin to a lion’s purr.

“I’m happy to meet him.” I shift closer, inching down the seat in an attempt to bring him closer to my entrance. “I think I’d like him as a closer acquaintance.”

Another rumble of enjoyment. Alex’s musky, masculine scent carries hints of cedar and bergamot, a familiar and an expensive fragrance I recognize from my father’s old clothes. I close my eyes.

“Please, Alex,” I whimper. I need his closeness, if nothing else. Letting him do this means I’ll have chosen a man, and he’s chosen me, too.

He stills.

“I’d rather take my time.”

We don’t have time. Each precious second that ticks by puts me in greater danger of discovery and humiliation.

“I can’t stay all night. I must go, and soon. If you don’t take me now…” I trail off, letting him fill in the blank. He’s confused enough to be wary despite the way his cock burns against my inner thigh.

“You know what to say to appeal to a man’s ego.”

He tips his hips forward to bring the blunt head into contact with my sex. I brace, waiting for the pain.

“Relax, princess.”

“I can’t.”

“You said you wanted this.”

“I do. It’s only that you’re very large, and it will hurt.”

“Sunshine.” He cradles my face between his palms. I wiggle, trying to impale myself on him, but I’m so wet I slip off him instead. “You have my word. The man who hurt you will die. Painfully. Slowly. Soon.”

“That isn’t what I want.”

If I never have to think about what Tremaine did to me again, it will be too soon.

I certainly don’t want to be reminded of it now.

No matter how much I enjoy his feral protectiveness.

Tonight is a game. Nothing is real. We are strangers lying to one another and with one another, pretending this fire won’t burn us both to ash. Lying to ourselves, most of all.

Yet I want to believe him.

“I will not hurt you,” he declares fiercely. “You shall have nothing but pleasure from me.”

He thrusts without ceremony. Pain tears through me. Every muscle in my body tenses at once. Blindly, I stare at the ceiling, gripping his shoulders with my nails. It takes all my strength to breathe.