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“I’m serious. I couldn’t bear it if you regretted this.”

Of course, he would be serious about this. She should hate him, not welcome him into her body. But for a moment, brief as it may be, she wasn’t alone.

“I won’t regret this,” she whispered.

His brows furrowed the barest amount, as though he heard the thoughts and fears spiraling in her head. He kissed between her brows, her lips, firmly. “Then stop thinking.”

He kissed her for a moment longer, his tongue battling hers, before dragging his mouth down her neck. She moaned and shivered, arched to give him more of her. He cupped her breast, plumping the heavy flesh as he laved his tongue over the puckered areola through the thin linen. She spread her thighs wider, and her shift bunched at her waist, exposing her most intimate place to him.

He kissed her neck again, rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger as he ground his erection against her. She hooked her thigh around his waist and dug her heel into his lower back. “More, harder.”

“Christ,” he hissed. “Of course you’d be demanding.”

“I wouldn’t have to be—” she sank her nails into his shoulders when he abandoned her breast to stroke down her side, “—if you’d only…”

His hand was between her legs now, thrumming the slippery, sensitive bud. His laugh was soundless, and it made her grind her teeth together. “If I’d only what? What were you saying?”

“Put that mouth to good use,” she grunted.

He kissed her, his mouth slanting over hers with a hunger that heightened her own. Kissing him shouldn’t be so pleasurable, and he shouldn’t kiss her like this, like he had nothing to lose, like their world wasn’t—quite literally—crumbling around them. Her mind was heavy with arousal, dizzy with the pleasure building deep in her lower belly.

He slid his first two fingers inside her slick heat, and she groaned, bucked her hips into his touch, greedy and desperate. “I shouldn’t be touching you,” he said against her temple. He withdrew slowly, circled her sensitive entrance, and thrust again. “But you’re so beautiful like this.”

“Don’t stop.” She could hear how wet she was, and it drove her desire wilder. “Yes, that,” she gasped. “Oh, God…”

Her climax sparked at the deepest place his fingers reached and spread in a conflagration across her abdomen, down her arms and legs and into her fingertips. She arched and cried out, blinded by the pleasure stealing her breath.

When sensation returned to her extremities, she blinked her eyes open.

He was smirking.

“I hate that you’re good at that.”

His lip twitched into a half-smile. “It didn’t look like you hated it.”

She grabbed for his waistband, pulling and shifting until she could fumble with the buttons holding his fall in place. He lifted his hips to accommodate her actions but made no move to help her. “We’ll see if your arrogance is deserved.”

He caught her seeking hand and stilled it. “Bridget…”

“I won’t be in your debt.” She pressed her palm to his length and grasped it roughly, earning a broken groan. “You’d never let me hear the end of it.”

“That doesn’t… Wait.” His voice was tight, likely because she was trying to free his cock.

“I’m not a stranger to the act, so you don’t need to be precious with me.” She sighed in relief when she had the trouser flaps open, and her fingers wrapped around the hot, stiff flesh.

His eyes closed, the tendons in his neck straining. “You need to listen⁠—”

She stroked him hard, and his breath caught on a choke. “If you’re about to lecture me about my morals⁠—”

He wrapped his hand over hers and met her gaze. “This isn’t an argument. There doesn’t have to be a winner here.”

But that wasn’t true—how could it be? Whenever they found their way out of Ashveil Manor, one of them would have what they wanted, and the other would be empty-handed. She had far more to lose, and yet here she was, demanding pleasure from him. And he seemed all too eager to give it, which confused her even more.

He leaned closer, kissed her softly. “Whatever we do tonight is for both of us, equally. I wouldn’t hurt you.”

He caught her gust of skeptical laughter with his lips.

“I wouldn’t hurt you with this,” he clarified. “You must believe me⁠—”