Her palm slides up his chest, feeling the fabric of his collar twist between her fingers. She pulls. His mouth crashes into hers—not gentle, not testing, but a claim that steals the air from her lungs and the purpose from her bones. She kisses him back with everything she's buried for years: fury, want, the terrifying truth that she doesn't know if she's still playing a role. His jaw is rough beneath her fingers, his breath hot and uneven where it should be steady, and the taste of him—salt and coffee and something darker—floods her senses until she forgets why she came.
His hands find her hips, hauling her against him, and the impact drives her back until she feels cold marble against her bare arms. The wall. The foyer. The house that's supposed to be a cage and a stage all at once. She bites his lower lip—hard enough to hurt, hard enough to prove she's still in control—and tastes copper. The sting makes him groan, a sound so raw it cracks something open in her chest. She feels it in her teeth, in her throat, in the sudden wet heat between her thighs.
She came here to destroy him. But right now, with his teeth at her throat and his fingers digging into her waist, she doesn't know who's devouring whom.
His mouth traces down her jaw, and she feels the scrape of stubble, the press of his tongue against her pulse point. Her head falls back, hitting the marble with a soft thud, and she doesn't care. His hand slides up her side, thumb brushing the curve of her breast through the black silk of her dress, and she shudders—a full-body tremor that betrays her completely.
She should stop this. She should remember her father's face, the humiliation, the years of waiting. Instead, she curls her fingers into Damian's hair and pulls him closer. He makes that sound again, low and broken, and presses his hips against hers. She feels him, hard and aching through his tailored trousers, and a sound escapes her—not words, just need.
His hand finds her thigh, sliding beneath the hem of her dress, and his palm is hot against her skin. She feels the calluses on his fingers, the strength in his grip, and for a moment she forgets her own name. He stops at the top of her thigh, his thumb pressing into the sensitive skin, and lifts his head to look at her.
His gray-blue eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, and there's something in them she's never seen before. Not hunger—she expected hunger. Something rawer. Something that looks almost like hope, if hope could be carved from stone.
"Tell me to stop," he says. His voice is rough, scraped clean of its usual control. "Sofia. Tell me."
She should. The word is right there, sharp and cold on her tongue. She came here for revenge. She came here to destroy him. But his thumb is tracing circles on her inner thigh, and she can feel how much this costs him—the restraint, the question, the vulnerability he's showing her because he knows exactly what she is. What she came to do.
She doesn't tell him to stop.
Instead, she pulls his mouth back to hers.
His mouth finds hers again, and this time there's nothing careful about it—his tongue slides against her lower lip, demanding entry, and she gives it because she's already lost, already falling. The taste of copper lingers from where she bit him, and she feels the sting of it in her own mouth now, as if the wound belongs to both of them. His hand moves higher, palm sliding up her inner thigh with deliberate slowness, and she feels the heat of his skin through the thin fabric of her panties before he even reaches the hem.
She gasps into his mouth, a sound that's half-protest and half-plea, but her hips shift forward of their own accord, seeking his touch. He answers by pressing his palm flat against her, the heel of his hand grinding against her through the silk, and a shudder racks through her so violent she has to grip his shoulders to stay upright. He breaks the kiss to look at her, his forehead resting against hers, his breath ragged and hot on her lips.
"Sofia." Her name, again. A warning, a question, a prayer. His thumb presses against the wet heat of her through the fabric, tracing a slow circle that makes her knees buckle.
She doesn't answer with words. She reaches between them, her fingers finding the waistband of his trousers, and she feels the hard line of his cock straining against the wool. His breath catches, a sharp hitch that cuts through the silence, and she watches his eyelids flutter before he catches himself. The control. The beautiful, infuriating control.
She wants to break it.
Her fingers work the button of his trousers—clumsy, impatient—and he doesn't stop her. He watches, gray-blue eyes dark and hungry, his hand still pressed between her thighs. She gets the button free, then the zipper, and she slides her hand inside, finding the heat of him through his boxers. He's hard, steel wrapped in silk, and the sound he makes when she wraps her fingers around him is broken in a way that makes her feel powerful and terrified all at once.
"Sofia." His voice is raw, scraped clean of pretense. "If you keep doing that—"
She tightens her grip, just once, and his head drops forward against her shoulder, a shudder running through his entire body. She feels his hand move, fingers hooking into the edge of her panties, and then he's sliding them down her thighs, the fabric catching on her hips before he pushes them past her knees. They pool at her ankles, a dark silk circle on the marble floor.
The air is cold against her bare skin, but his hand is hot when he finds her again—no barrier this time, his fingers sliding through the slick heat of her, and she cries out, a sound that echoes in the empty foyer. His thumb finds her clit, circles once, twice, and she's so close, so fucking close, that she bites her lip to keep from begging.
He lifts his head, meets her eyes. "Please," he says. Not a demand. A request. "Let me hear you."
She shakes her head, but the denial is weak, and when he presses his finger inside her—just one, just the first—the sound that tears from her throat is everything she's been holding back for years. He groans against her neck, his finger curling inside her, finding that spot that makes her see stars, and she's gone, falling apart against the marble wall with his name on her lips.
She doesn't know if it's surrender or victory. She only knows she can't stop.
She comes back to herself in pieces. First the cold marble against her shoulder blades, then the scrape of her own breath ragged in her throat, then the weight of his hand still pressed against her, his finger curled inside her like a question she hasn't answered yet. Her hips are trembling, the aftershocks still rippling through her in waves she can't control. She opens her eyes—when did she close them?—and finds him watching her, his gray-blue eyes dark and unreadable, his jaw tight.
He doesn't move. Doesn't withdraw. His thumb rests against her clit, still and warm, and she feels the faint pulse of her own blood against his skin. The intimacy of it—the stillness after the storm—is worse than the wanting. At least the wanting she understood. This is a territory she has no map for.
"Sofia." His voice is low, scraped raw. He says her name like it's the only word he remembers. "Look at me."
She is. She can't look away. His thumb traces a slow, almost absent circle against her, and she shudders, a fresh wave of heat pooling low in her belly. She should tell him to stop. She should push him away, straighten her dress, remember why she came. But her body is still singing with the release he gave her, and her mind is a white static of confusion.
"That was real," he says. Not a question. A statement. His eyes search hers, and she sees something flicker in them—not triumph, not satisfaction. Something like fear. "Tell me it was real."
She opens her mouth. The lie is right there, sharp and ready. Of course it wasn't real. I'm using you. I hate you. But the words won't come. Instead, she hears herself speak, her voice barely a whisper: "I don't know what that was."
His breath catches. A tiny, broken sound. He pulls his hand out of her slowly, deliberately, and she feels the loss like a wound. His palm rests on her hip, steadying her, and he leans his forehead against hers. They breathe together, the same ragged rhythm, the same air.
"I've been waiting for you to touch me," he says, echoing what he told her earlier. "But I didn't think—" He stops. Swallows. "I didn't think you'd let me touch you back."
The truth of it hits her like a blow. She came here to destroy him. She planned every move, every smile, every carefully placed hand. But when he pressed his finger inside her, when he curled it just so, she forgot the plan. She forgot her father's face. She forgot everything except the taste of copper and the sound of his groan and the way he said her name like a prayer she didn't deserve.
She doesn't know herself anymore. The woman who walked through this gate two hours ago is gone, replaced by someone who came undone in the arms of her enemy and can't bring herself to regret it.
Damian pulls back just far enough to look at her. His thumb brushes the corner of her mouth, smudging the red lipstick she wore like armor. "Stay," he says. "Not because I'm keeping you. Because you want to."
She should laugh. Should remind him that she has no choice, that the gate is locked, that the threats are real. But the question in his eyes isn't about the gate. It's about something deeper. Something she doesn't have a word for.
She doesn't answer. But she doesn't pull away either. Her hand finds his chest again, palm flat against his heart. It's still steady. Still sure. She hates him for that.
And she hates herself for not knowing if she means it.