His head flopped forward, his lips capturing mine again in a soul-searing kiss. His five o’clock shadow razored across my sensitive skin, but I loved the burning, loved the assault.

My back arched as one long finger entered me.

“Yes—God…”

His tongue slipped between my open lips, forcing me to kiss him back. I struggled to pay attention to the exhilarating taste of him and the eye-popping sensation of his finger rubbing my inner walls.

The tingly precipice he’d shown me that first day returned; I latched onto it hungrily.

I wiggled closer, needing more…needing something bigger, broader…I needed his cock.

He grunted as he forced a second finger inside me. The garbled noise might’ve had words strung together, but they poured unheard down my throat.

“Don’t stop.” I arched my hips, welcoming, imploring him to thrust harder.

I didn’t care I wasn’t on birth control. I didn’t care about anything but driving us out of his nightmarish world and into a new dimension.

“I can’t—you don’t—” Jethro groaned between kisses.

“Yes, you can. You can’t stop. Not now.”

His fingers froze.

I refused to let him overthink this. It was my turn to bite his lip. Hard.

He bellowed…then…he went rogue. The final barrier he’d always stayed behind shattered, and he poured his broken soul into my being.

His fingers hooked inside me, making me unbelievably wetter. His lips nibbled and ravaged, leaving me hollow of thoughts and humanity.

His free hand shot to my chest, twisting my nipple beneath the fabric of my dress while his fingers plunged harder, faster inside me.

The invasion blew my mind.

It was too much. It’s not enough.

I arched in his hold, spreading my legs wider. All thoughts were gone. All worries were dead.

I didn’t care how I looked or what would become of me afterward.

I just wanted him.

“Take me. Please.”

He stopped kissing me. His lips swollen, red. His eyes frantic with passion and affliction. His jaw tightened, and for a horrible second, I thought he’d refuse. He knew my sexual history; there was no reason to fear taking me bare. I didn’t know his, but he was impeccable in all facets of his life. Somehow, I couldn't see him sleeping around. I couldn’t see him putting himself in such a vulnerable position.

His lips crashed against mine again, his tongue tearing past my lips. I grabbed the back of his neck, forcing our mouths harder together.

His fingers disappeared from inside me, smearing my wetness onto my thigh as he pushed me ever wider. I let my legs spread shamelessly. I was beyond decency or concern. My body was flushed, acutely sensitive, and entirely feverish.

In a seamless male move, Jethro clamped my hip and pulled himself higher. The relief at finally feeling the broad head of his cock against my entrance sent me spiralling into madness.

“Shit, you feel…” His voice was a decadent purr. “You feel like…”

“Like freedom,” I breathed, taut and trembling, just waiting for him to enter me.

His eyes flared wide, dazzling me with bronze need. “Yes, exactly.”

The moment stretched for far too long, somehow turning this from fucking to something unbearably precious.

With our gazes still locked, he pushed inside me.

A breathless cry escaped me as discomfort blazed. I squirmed beneath him, trying to find relief from the pinching, consuming pressure of him filling me.

I’d been terrified once of taking him. Horrified at his huge size, so sure he would never fit, but inch-by-inch he stretched me, changing my whole perception.

My core rippled around him, welcoming and rebelling against his invasion.

He was perfect.

Utterly perfect.

Our foreheads crashed together as he sank deeper and deeper. Only once he was completely sheathed did he close his eyes and kiss me again. Pleasure seeped from the one place where we were joined—the only place we were naked.

It was carnal, lewd, and fit my salacious need better than any position.

I reached up to kiss him back, diving my fingers into his sweat-misted hair. His body radiated heat, trembling above me as I sucked his tongue into my mouth.

He didn’t stop me. He didn’t try to control me. He gave that part of himself, so gently and sweetly, my heart cracked with unknown joy.

I rocked my hips, grinding myself on his thick cock, seeking the solace from the overbearing need to explode. My mind scrambled with the primitive instinct to fuck, to claim, to drive each other until we burst and this intolerable hunger would be sated.

The rawness of being laid bare, of being full to the brink and taken so thoroughly, pushed me to the edge of an orgasm.

My knuckles turned white as I anchored myself on his waist. My mind swirled with vertigo as the first scrumptious rock annihilated my world.

There was no shame or shyness.

This was beyond that.

This was the first true thing that’d happened to me in my entire life.

My gaze locked with his, unable to look away.

In that moment, he owned me. I’d do anything he wanted. And he knew it.

He rocked again, sending spindles of fireworks in my blood. The smell of our desire laced the room, a seductive mix of wrongness and right.

My nipples pebbled as he drove into me again; my breasts throbbed, heavier than they’d ever been.

This was what I’d wanted, what I’d fought for. Every time we’d duelled, I’d wanted to possess him, to climb on top of him, and impale myself on his aristocratic cock.

“Fuck,” Jethro groaned, driving hard, rocking his hips to an uneven rhythm.

His back was granite beneath his t-shirt, his skin a rippling volcano of heat.

I gasped, flexing around him as he thrust once, twice.

“More. Please, more.”

Somehow this had turned from war to intimacy. We’d both stepped over the line, and I had no clue how to go back.

His gaze was turbulent as he drove again. I knew he struggled with what I did—sensed he was just as ruined and destroyed as me. We’d been fighting against each other, but ultimately, we’d won and lost.

Eye-to-eye, skin-to-skin, there was no room for bullshit or lies.

And it was perfectly petrifying.

I opened wider, taking more of him.

He sucked in a loud breath, stretching me exquisitely.

There was no way any other man could ever compete with the elegant chilliness of Jethro. He was exactly like the iceberg he favoured, only in different lights, more truth shone. Some bright and light and blinding, others black and deep and terrifying.

But it didn’t matter, because in that moment, I was in the heart of the iceberg, and all I found was passion.

Our rhythm lost its sedateness, straining toward a frenzy to mate. To dominate.

His pace picked up, bruising me in all new ways. “Fuck, I want to come.”

My neck arched, rising off the mattress. “Then come.” Searing pleasure split me in two as he drove explicitly hard.

A gleam of masculine smugness filled his eyes, knowing he had me completely in his control, completely submitting.

He groaned as my core rippled around his cock.

Then, he lost it.

His lips descended fast and hard on mine as his hips surged upward, driving my spine deeper into the mattress.

My mouth popped open as every nerve-ending zeroed to my womb, to the melting liquid coating Jethro as he claimed me.

Then, pain.

Glorious, furious, mind-numbing pain as he thrust harder and harder, faster and faster.

Every inch I screamed with agony. He was too big, too long, too damn much. Even with the slow acclimatization and gentle welcome, I wasn’t wide enough, long enough, prepared enough.

I cried out as he drove never-endingly into me.

There were no more walls, no more locks or secrets. This was him. Caught up in lust—both sexual and savage. He gave me what I wanted. He gave me himself with nothing hidden.

His lips opened beneath mine as he thrust again, hitting the entrance of my womb. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. His incessant need to take never ceased, his kisses never stopped.

Sweat sprinkled my skin as he drugged me body and soul. The room fogged with the sounds of skin slapping against skin and heavy breathing.

But then, the pain disappeared, switching into exquisite pleasure.

My body deliquesced, adjusting to his huge invasion.

My hips arched to meet his.

His heart thundered against mine.

We drove again and again and again, our grunts and moans and groans plaiting into one angry battle.

I scraped my fingernails down his back, grabbing his behind, driving him harder still.

I didn’t think I’d survive it. I worried we’d end up killing each other before we finished.

The pleasure was too much!

The dark promise of finding a satisfying ending seemed an impossible task.

A curling, unfolding orgasm barrelled from nowhere. I tensed, moaning beneath his invasion.

My legs stiffened as he took me ruthlessly, never stopping his angry thrusting.

I couldn’t control my body. I didn’t want to.

With a scream, I came so fucking hard I almost passed out with vertigo. Ecstatic spasms of bliss undid my world as surely as threads from gossamer. My mind fluttered like a flimsy ghost, deprived of its old home—decimated by euphoria.

The room swam. I felt sick and overjoyed and ruined.

Jethro cupped my throat, linking his fingers through my diamond collar as his eyes shot black. His jaw locked as he witnessed me falling apart. I held his gaze, even though I wanted to look away and hide just how shattered I was.

I was possessed, enraptured.

Another wave of paradise shuddered through my core, making me jerk with spent muscles.

Jethro didn’t stop. The minute my pussy stopped clenching around him, he gave himself permission to follow. I moaned as his hips pounded unforgivingly into mine, punishing me with heavenly corruption.

The tip of his cock hit the top of me with every lunge, bruising me, ensuring I would feel the ache of his possession for days afterward.

With every thrust, he grew in size, throbbing hotter, thicker, harder, driving toward the finish he craved. His face etched with danger, his eyes positively beastly. His self-control was non-existent as he hurled himself over the edge.

He orgasmed with a primitive snarl of feral ecstasy, his release splintering him into pieces.

“Shit, shit, shit!” His voice echoed with ferocity and vulnerability at coming completely undone. Pulling out, he grabbed the base of his cock and fisted himself as ribbons of white liquid shot through the air and splattered against my pubic hair and lower belly.

His stomach rippled as spurt after spurt drained him, marking me with musky threads of semen.

Breathing hard, he looked down at the mess he’d made—the evidence of our betrayal to hatred, family, and debts.

We couldn’t deny what’d just happened.

It wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t just lust.

It was something more.

I expected him to leave. To hate me.

But he folded over me, planting his slippery cock against my belly, smearing the now translucent mess until we stuck uncomfortably together.

My core cramped and trembled from such abuse, but I’d never felt so languid or tranquil.

Slowly, hesitantly, I brushed my lips across his, comforting him.

He didn’t say a word, nor did he kiss me back. His head fell forward, nuzzling his damp face into the curve of my neck.

I froze as his strong arms wrapped around me, crushing me against him.

Tears raced into being as my heart twisted and pulverised. I couldn’t handle him holding me like that—especially after what’d happened. I needed him to be cool and aloof if I had any chance at keeping my soul in one piece.

Liar.

It was already shredded, like shards in a breeze.

Jethro’s heart hammered against mine, beating hard, slowing its drumming the longer he held me.

We stayed like that for a long time. Too long. Both of us acknowledging wordlessly what we would never be able to do with conversation.

We were stripped. Naked. Exposed.

Woefully defenceless against each other.

With every second that passed, I tried to repair the damage he’d done. I felt him trying to do the same, gathering the pieces of his façade, gluing them unsuccessfully back into place.

Moment by moment, our connection drifted, slipping us further and further away.

My skin turned to goosebumps, exchanging sweaty lust for aftermath regret.

Finally, Jethro pulled away, climbing off me, tainting any illusion of togetherness. Not making eye contact, he whispered, “What just happened can never happen again. If it does, they’ll see the truth, and I won’t have any power to keep you.”

His powerful neck convulsed as he swallowed. “We’re fucked, Nila Weaver. Well and truly fucked.”

GODDAMMIT.

I needed to get out of there.

I needed to fix myself, find my ice.

I need to destroy the camera footage.

No one must know. No one.

Not looking at Nila, I grabbed my jeans off the floor and jerked them on. I couldn’t get a grip on my breathing. Everything inside me had switched upside down, and just the thought of walking away from her, after something so life changing, brought me to my fucking knees.

But I had no choice.

My mind replayed sinking inside her—hearing her moans, feeling her clench around me as she shattered.

Fuck.

Go.

Before it’s too late.

Before she sees.

Before he sees.

Before everyone sees the goddamn truth.

Dragging a hand through my hair, I glanced at her once out of the corner of my eye. She sat dishevelled and used. Her dress bunched around her waist, her broken knickers discarded on the floor, and her lips swollen and red.