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Bryony’s back lifted from the bed as I worked my fingers deeper and found the place that made her cunt close around them.

Her thighs pressed against my shoulders. I held them open, sucked her clit and fucked her slowly with my fingers. Every sound grew louder. I watched pleasure strip away the control she kept around everyone else.

Her body tightened. I kept the same rhythm until she came against my mouth, shaking hard enough to pull at my hair.

I gave her one last slow lick and rose over her.

Bryony dragged me down for a kiss. She tasted herself on my mouth and made a quiet sound that stiffened my cock. Her legs closed around my waist, pulling me against the heat between them.

I positioned myself at her entrance and held still. Bryony rolled her hips, taking the head of my cock inside her.

The tight heat nearly broke what remained of my control. She rolled her hips again, and I sank deeper until her body held all of me. Her nails pressed into my back, the small pain slowing my first stroke.

I drew back and thrust again. Bryony met me without hesitation. The bed shifted under us as I found a pace that tightened her legs around my hips. I held her thigh high with one hand, braced the other beside her head and watched every response.

My name left her rough and breathless. I thrust harder, and she clenched around me, her nails digging into my back again.

On the next stroke, I lowered my mouth to her neck and let my fangs touch her skin. Her pulse raced against my lips.

“You want to bite me,” she whispered.

“I want everything.”

She tipped her head, exposing the place where her neck met her shoulder.

I caught the soft skin where her neck met her shoulder between my teeth. She cried out and tightened around my cock. I didn’t pierce her. I gave her the pressure of my fangs and the scrape of my tongue while I fucked her faster.

Bryony’s hand slid between our bodies. I caught it, laced our fingers together and pressed it into the mattress beside her head. Then I moved my other hand between us and rubbed her clit with my thumb.

She came again within seconds. Her body locked around me, and the force of it tore a curse from my mouth. I held her through every pulse and kept moving until my own release hit.

I buried my face against her neck and came deep inside her. Pleasure ran through me without a chain cutting it short. For the first time in a century, nothing iron dragged me away from the woman in my bed.

Bryony’s arms closed around my shoulders. I stayed over her until my breathing slowed, then shifted my weight and drew her against my side.

“That was worth opening the room for,” she said.

“The house doesn’t get credit, especially when its walls are smug.”

She laughed and pressed her face against my chest. The sound eased a tight place inside me that sex hadn’t touched.

I cleaned us with a warm cloth from the bath, pulled the sheet over her and returned to the bed. Bryony settled with one leg across mine. Her fingers traced the edge of the raven tattoo where one wing wrapped from my back across my ribs, then stopped at the red band around my wrist.

“Does it feel different in here?” she asked.

“The restraint?”

“Being back in your rooms.”

I looked at the fire, the closed door and the woman lying against me. “Yes. It doesn’t feel like the room I lost.”

“Good different or bad different?”

“Good.” I covered her hand with mine. “You’re here.”

Bryony lifted her head, red hair starting to dry around her face. “When the blood cuffs come off, you’ll be able to leave this estate whenever you choose. I don’t expect a promise because we’ve had sex, but I need to know you’ve thought beyond tonight.”

“I’ve thought about little else. I want to leave because I choose the direction, not because Adrian opens a gate to use me. I want to see what has changed outside these walls. None of that means leaving you. If the restraints vanished now, I’d kill Adrian and come back to this bed. The rest of the world has waited a century. It can wait another night.”