The groan is soft, muffled by the pillow, but it’s enough to snap me from sleep. My hand shoots out before my eyes are open, finding the warm, plush curve of her hip. I drag her back against my chest, her spine slotting into the cradle of my body. “Sleep,” I growl into the mess of her hair. It smells like my shampoo and the stale sweetness of last night’s champagne.

She cries out, a sharp, pained sound. “My backkkk. My buttt. Owwww, where am I?” Her voice is a disheveled, sleepy whine, thick with confusion and genuine hurt.

I open one eye. The city’s dawn light is a grey bleed through the windows. My hand, moving with a will of its own, slides down from her hip to palm the full, round curve of her ass. She jerks, and a fist flies back in a blur. I catch her wrist easily, pinning both her hands against my chest, her knuckles pressed to my sternum. Her skin is fever-warm.

“What… happened… last night?” she slurs, her body tense in my hold.

I blink, the sleep clearing. “Don’t remember?” The surprise is genuine. The things she said. The things she took.

She goes still. Then she twists her head, just enough to stare up at me. Her emerald eyes are clouded, searching my face. The bow-shaped innocence of them is a lie I can see through now. “No,” she whispers.

I stare down into those green pits. My own reflection is a dark ghost in them. “Oh. There was this cute guy with white hair—”

My hand comes down on her ass. Not a playful tap. A sharp, stinging smack that cracks in the quiet room. The flesh under my palm jiggles, already tender. She yelps, a high, wounded sound.

“Whose bed are you in right now, solnyshko?” My voice is low, a morning gravel that promises more of the same.

She winces, her body trying to arch away from the aftershock. I tighten my arm around her waist, holding her in place. I don’t let her rub it. “Uh… yours?”

“I hate you.” The words are muffled against the sheet.

“I know that.”

“No. Like, wayyy more.” She emphasizes it like a child, and I blink. The performance is back, but the foundation is cracked. I can see the calculation trying to reboot behind the sleep-haze.

“You’re a scam artist,” she adds, almost petulant.

The words land like a thrown knife. I remember them from last night, slurred but vicious. So, drunk, she was truthful. The sunny girl is a lie. This sharp, accusing creature is the real one. The knowledge is a cold stone in my gut.

“You lied to me. I hated the dress.” She says it like a proclamation, her nose scrunched. As if she doesn’t know how damn gorgeous she looked, a black thorn in a garden of peonies, how every man in that room tracked her, how the sight of her nearly unraveled me.

I shift suddenly, rolling her onto her back. She gasps, her hands still trapped between us. I loom over her, bracing my weight on my forearms. The sheet pools around our hips. Her hair is a tangled halo, her lips swollen from sleep and my teeth. The marks on her chest are dark purple in the grey light.

“You hated the dress,” I repeat, my voice flat. My knee nudges her thighs apart, settling between them. She is naked. I am naked. The heat of her seeps into my skin. “You hated the champagne? The caviar? The diamonds I put on your throat?”

She glares up at me, that emerald fire sparking. “It was itchy. And tight. And you’re a monster.”

“The monster whose cock you came on last night,” I say, watching her eyes widen. “Twice. Once with my hand in your ass. Once with my cock in it.”

Color floods her cheeks. Not just embarrassment. A hot, furious shame. Her hips give a minute, involuntary jerk. I feel it against my thigh. “I don’t remember.”

“Liar.” I lower my head, my mouth hovering a breath from hers. “Your body remembers. It’s remembering right now.” To prove it, I slide my hand down her side, over the dip of her waist, and cup her between her legs.

She gasps, a sharp intake. She’s wet. Soaking. The slick heat greets my fingers instantly, a blatant, humiliating truth. Her eyes screw shut. “Stop it.”

“You can lie with your mouth, solnyshko. Not with this.” I press the heel of my hand against her, a firm, unyielding pressure. Her back arches off the bed, a silent cry on her lips. “This tells me everything. It tells me you’re a greedy little thing. It tells me the pain makes it better. It tells me you hate me, and you want me, and you don’t know the difference anymore.”

I move my hand, just a fraction. My middle finger finds her entrance, not pushing in, just resting there, coated in her. The sensation is obscene. The soft, giving flesh. The pulse I can feel against my skin. Her breath is coming in short, ragged pants. Her hands are fists against my chest.

“You want to know what happened last night?” I murmur, my lips brushing her ear. “This is what happened. You broke. You splintered. And you loved it.” I apply the slightest pressure. The tip of my finger sinks in, just past the first tight ring of muscle. She cries out, her head thrashing on the pillow. “You screamed. Then you begged. Then you came so hard you passed out.”

I push my finger in to the first knuckle. The heat is incredible. Clenching. A velvet fist. She’s so tight, still tender from the violation. A tear leaks from the corner of her eye, tracking into her hairline. “It hurts,” she whimpers.

“I know,” I say, and it’s not a comfort. It’s a fact. I watch her face as I push deeper, slowly, inexorably, until my finger is buried inside her to the root. Her mouth opens in a soundless scream. Her inner muscles flutter around me, a chaotic, desperate rhythm. “The pain is the point. It’s the punishment. It’s what you earn for being a lying, scheming little rabbit.”

I begin to move. A slow, torturous drag out, then back in. The wet sound is loud in the quiet room. Her hips try to move, to escape or seek more, she doesn’t seem to know. I pin her with my other arm across her stomach. “Stay still.”

“I can’t,” she sobs, the childish petulance gone, replaced by raw, overwhelmed sensation.

“You can. You will.” I curl my finger inside her, searching. Her whole body jolts when I find the spot, a rough, swollen patch of flesh. A broken sound tears from her throat. I press against it, relentless. “This is what you remember. This feeling. Being full. Being owned. Coming on your kidnapper’s fingers while he tells you what a pretty, pathetic liar you are.”

Her orgasm builds not in waves, but in a terrifying, steep cliff. I see it in the blind panic in her eyes, in the way her toes curl, in the cords standing out in her neck. She’s fighting it, shaking her head, biting her lip until it bleeds. “No, no, no, please—”

“Yes,” I command, my voice guttural. I fuck her with my finger, hard and precise now, my thumb finding her clit, rubbing rough, fast circles. “Show me. Show me the truth.”

She shatters. A raw, ragged scream is ripped from her lungs. Her body convulses under mine, back bowing off the bed, her cunt clamping down on my finger with a brutal, rhythmic pulse. I don’t stop. I ride her through it, milking every last spasm until she’s a sobbing, boneless wreck beneath me, tears and sweat and arousal slick on her skin.

I slowly withdraw my finger. It’s glistening. I bring it to my mouth, never breaking her glassy, devastated gaze, and lick it clean. The taste of her is salt, musk, and victory. Her eyes follow the movement, wide with horror and a dark, dawning fascination.

I settle my weight back over her, my hardened cock pressing against her inner thigh. She flinches at the contact.

“As you’ve made an appearance in front of my rivals,” I state, my eyes roaming her exhausted, tear-streaked form, “you’ll be needing to meet my father.” My morning wood is a thick, aching weight against her thigh, leaking precum onto her skin. Her pussy is ready, healed, and tight. I rub my palm over her crotch, feeling the damp heat through her curls, letting her body shake with the oversensitivity.

“The dre—” she starts, her voice hoarse.

“I want to choose the dress.” She cuts me off, the demand slicing through her post-orgasm wreckage. Her emerald eyes fix on mine, clear and sharp again. The liar is back.

I go still. My hand stops its motion. The air in the room condenses, charged and brittle. “You want,” I repeat, the words flat and dangerous.

“Yes.” She doesn’t blink. A strand of blonde hair is stuck to her damp cheek. “You broke the deal last time. I get to choose this time.”

A slow, cold smile spreads across my face. It doesn’t reach my eyes. “You are in my bed. Naked. Sore from my cock. Dripping from my fingers. And you are making demands.”

“I’m stating terms.” Her chin lifts a fraction. The movement exposes the brutal purple marks on her throat. My marks. “You need me to play the part. I’ll play it. But I choose the costume.”

The audacity is breathtaking. It’s also a trap. A calculated play from the girl who collects knives and reads torque specs. She’s negotiating from the floor, and she thinks she has leverage. The cold stone in my gut turns to fire.

I shift my weight, settling more fully between her thighs. The head of my cock nudges against her entrance, not pushing, just resting there. A threat and a promise. She gasps, her composure cracking for a second. Her inner muscles flutter, a traitorous welcome.

“You’ll wear what I give you,” I say, my voice a low rumble. I roll my hips, just enough to smear the precum, to let her feel the size and the heat. “You’ll smile when I tell you. You’ll call him ‘sir.’ You will be perfect.”

“Or what?” she whispers. Her breath hitches as I apply the slightest pressure. I’m not inside. I’m at the threshold. The single most charged moment. Her body is open, vulnerable, poised on the edge of being filled. Her eyes are wide, locked on mine.

“Or I remind you what happens to liars who test me.” I hold myself there, letting the tension build in her limbs, in the cords of her neck. Her chest rises and falls rapidly. “I can make you forget your own name again. I can make you beg for the dress. Do you want that, solnyshko? Do you want me to fuck the negotiation out of you?”

Her lips part. A tremor runs through her. I see the war behind her eyes: the tactical mind weighing odds, the raw, shameful hunger my threat ignites. Her hips give a tiny, involuntary upward tilt. Seeking. The confession is silent, and it’s everything.

“I choose the dress,” she repeats, but her voice is weaker now, thready. Her body is betraying her manifesto.

I lean down until my mouth is against her ear. “No,” I breathe. Then I push.

It’s not a brutal thrust. It’s slow. Inexorable. An invasion of absolute certainty. The head of my cock parts her, stretching the tender, swollen flesh. She cries out, a sharp, broken sound. Her nails dig into my shoulders. I sink deeper, inch by devastating inch, feeling every internal ripple of resistance, every clench of her body trying to accommodate me. The heat is staggering. The tightness is a vise of slick, velvet friction.

I stop when I am fully sheathed, buried to the hilt. We are fused. Her legs lock around my hips, not to pull me closer, but as a spasm of overwhelmed sensation. Her face is pale, her eyes squeezed shut. A single tear escapes.

“This,” I grind out, my own control fraying at the edges from the sheer, perfect feel of her, “is your answer. You get nothing unless I give it. You are mine. The dress is mine. The performance is mine.” I pull back almost all the way, until just the tip remains inside, then drive back in with a firm, punishing stroke. Her gasp is a sob. “Do you understand?”

She nods, frantic, her forehead pressed to my shoulder. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I understand.” The words are muffled against my skin.

I still. Don’t move. Let the fullness be her universe. “Who do you belong to?”

Her breath hitches. A long pause, filled only with the sound of our ragged breathing. Then, a whisper. “You.”

I begin to move. A deep, rolling rhythm that isn’t about her pleasure, but about imprinting the truth. Each thrust is a punctuation mark. Mine. Mine. Mine. The bedframe knocks softly against the wall in a steady, relentless cadence. The wet, rhythmic sound of our joining fills the room. She is silent now, her face hidden, her body taking what I give her.

But her body is still that of a liar. Her hips begin to move with mine, meeting my strokes, seeking a deeper angle. Her cunt clutches at me, a pulsing, greedy rhythm that speaks of a building peak she doesn’t want to claim. I snake a hand between us, my thumb finding her clit. It’s swollen, hard. I press down.

She jerks, a sharp, aborted movement. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” I rasp, my thrusts becoming harder, faster. The slap of skin grows louder. “Don’t make you come while I’m telling you how owned you are? Too late.” I rub her in tight, brutal circles. “Come for me. Show me you accept your terms.”

She shakes her head, a frantic denial, but her body is arching, tightening, hurtling toward the edge. A high, desperate whine builds in her throat. I feel the exact moment she breaks. Her inner muscles clamp down on my cock in a series of violent, fluttering spasms. She comes silently, her mouth open in a soundless scream, her whole body rigid with a pleasure that looks like agony.

I follow her over. My own release is a dark, possessive tide that empties into her, hot and deep. I grind into her, claiming every pulse, until I am spent and hollow.

For a long minute, there is only the sound of our breathing. I collapse onto my forearms, still inside her, my face buried in the sweat-damp pillow next to her head. The smell of her, of us, is overwhelming.

I withdraw slowly. She flinches at the loss. I roll onto my back, staring at the stark ceiling. The city lights have faded to a dull morning grey.

“The appointment with the designer is at noon,” I say, my voice stripped of all inflection. “You will be ready. You will choose a dress. It will be black. It will be modest. It will please my father.”

She doesn’t answer. I turn my head to look at her. She is staring at the same patch of ceiling, tears tracking silently from the corners of her eyes into her hair. The sunny girl is gone. The sharp creature is broken. And the thing that is left is just… mine.

I reach out and wipe a tear away with my thumb. The gesture is not gentle. It is possessive. A brand. “Remember this,” I tell her. “Remember the cost of your demands.”

Then I get out of bed and walk to the shower, leaving her alone in the wreckage of her defeat.

The hot water does nothing to scour the feeling of her from my skin. I look at myself in the steamy mirror. My reflection is a stranger—hollow-eyed, jaw tight, the ghost of her teeth on my shoulder. Okay. I’m never this rough. Not with women. Not without a contract, without clear lines. Whatever. She deserves it. The lie tastes bitter. I clean myself up with mechanical efficiency, then wrap a towel around my hips and walk out to give her the aftercare. The bed is empty. The sheets are a tangled, damp ruin. She’s not there.

Irritation creeps over my skin, hot and prickling. I sigh, a sound of pure exasperation, and get dressed. Black slacks, a fresh white shirt I don’t bother to button. “Alice.” I call out into the penthouse, my voice a low, warning rumble. I rub my temples. Silence answers. Whatever. I don’t have time for this. I have what? Five meetings today? She can sort her own shit out.