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He lifts me onto his lap. The boat sways harder, and I grip him like my life depends on it.

“And if what you crave is silence…” His mouth brushes my ear. “Then let me be the darkness you disappear into.”

A knot inside me slowly unravels. He understood what I was asking for when I barely understood it myself. Usually his darkness feels like something I could lose myself in. Right now, it feels like the safest place I could hide.

His hand slides up my chest to my throat, thumb brushing my jaw as he turns my face and pulls my mouth to his.

I missed this.

The way his touch quiets everything. The way he can give me the illusion of being chosen, even when I know better.

His kiss steals my attention while his fingers travel up my thigh, gathering my dress inch by inch and exposing more skin to the cool air. I can’t see how much of me is bare, and the not knowing makes it feel more dangerous.

A slow, possessive touch slides between my legs and sends a shudder through me. I’m trapped in his arms, helpless, but the darkness smooths fear into longing. Here, no one can see me.

Two fingers slide beneath my panties and right inside me, and the sound that leaves my mouth spills straight into his. It echoes off stone and water without holding back, but he kisses me deeper, swallowing every moan.

“I’m going to ruin your purity,” he says in my ear when he lets me take a breath. “Drag your halo through the fucking mud.”

He moves his fingers faster. The wet, lewd sound of my arousal gives me away, and heat floods my face even in the dark. But I don’t close my legs.

Sitting on his lap, I spread wider. Baring myself to the emptiness.

That sparks something in him.

He tears at my panties until the cotton rips, leaving no barrier for him. He cups between my legs to feel how hot and wet I am while his other hand grabs at my breast through my dress.

The last thin veil of chastity slips away. In the dark, Edwin can ruin me. He can sink his fangs in and fill me with his venom.

I’m not the good girl everyone thinks I am. I know that now. My body craves the release his fingers promise in the filthiest of ways.

When he finds my clit, I grip his forearms, feeling the strength in them as he drives me higher.

This time it’s only about me. It’s not a test. He’s drawing it out, letting me fall apart. And I lean into it. I don’t stop myself from moaning or whimpering, even when the sounds come louder than they should. Above us, bats flutter, disturbed by my outbursts.

I clench around Edwin’s fingers, needing something more, something bigger. His hardness at my back becomes a reminder of what I could have. But it’s too late.

The pressure builds too fast, too much, and then I’m breaking apart with a cry amplified by the cave. My clit throbs through the release, and I cling to him, desperate for his closeness.

When it fades, I slump back against his chest. He drags his fingers slowly over my slick skin as faint pulses still flicker through my clit.

My mind is swimming, and I let myself believe that this darkness is a doorway instead of a hiding place. That we’ve moved beyond him using me for the Trials.

I allow myself to bask in the way he holds me against him. His arm stays firm around my waist, his breath warm against the side of my neck.

I sink into it. Into the dangerous possibility that maybe he brought me here because he wanted to give me something instead of take more from me.

Maybe he feels the weight of this too.

Then his hand withdraws.

He lifts me from his lap and settles me carefully back on my seat.

And then I know.

This can only happen here. In the dark. Where the world can’t see. Where I’m not real, only a flicker of light he calls an angel. Divine enough to worship in shadows, but never to hold in daylight.

I turn my face away as the boat carries us back towards the mouth of the cave. When sunlight returns, I close my eyes. I can’t bear what daylight turns us into.