I’ve brought myself satisfaction before—but I’ve never felt anything like this. I’m suddenly terrified this is the best I’ll ever feel. My body has only ever been a prison where I’m trapped with pain or a bait to lure a violent man to his death. It has never been a place of pleasure for more than a fleeting moment.

But this is an eternity of ecstasy laced with sharp pain to bring me up and down until I’m breathless and aching and ready to give him anything he asks for. My thighs clamp around his head as the last shudders rip through me.

When I finally open my eyes, they’re blurry with tears. The release is so intense that every emotion I’d been holding back rushes out post-climax. I bite back a shocked laugh.

Henry looks as wrecked as I feel as he prowls over me and leans close.

“I want to hear you moan like that every night,” he murmurs into my ear.

Henry kneels and licks his lips. He doesn’t let me recover. He tosses off his robe and uses his soaked hand to stroke his cock twice before notching himself at my entrance and thrusting inside to the hilt.

I groan loudly, body arching into him like I was meant for this. I’m so turned on that it barely hurts at all, but he is by far the biggest man I’ve been with. The stretch steals my breath.

He thrusts again and groans a curse into the space behind my ear. “You were made to take me just like this.”

My muscles instantly start clenching again and I’m so relieved for the familiarity of something rough and purely physical. He cups my breast and tweaks my nipple hard, and I gasp as he pulls out and thrusts again.

“You like it fast and rough?” His voice is a gravelly whisper as he continues to move.

If it didn’t feel so good, I’d be more angry that I can’t compose myself, but I’m half-mindless with the need to feel what I just felt again.

He slows down and pushes the fingers that were just inside me into my mouth. “Taste how hard you just came for me.” He’s so cocky.

I bite down, but he shoves his fingers back into my throat. When I gag and open, he chuckles into my ear.

“I can’t wait to do that with my cock.”

His voice is low enough that only I can hear, and I shiver at the thought. I don’t actually want that. My brain is slow from the aftereffects of the orgasm.

Surely he’s not planning on this now. It wasn’t one of the activities we discussed.

“Oh no, not tonight, lovely,” he taunts, his voice low and full of certainty. “You’re going to ask for this again, and when we’re away from this crowd, I’m going to love watching you choke on my cock as much as you’re going to like me making you.”

I shove my hand into his hair and hold him in place as I bite his ear. “Only in your wettest dreams will you see me on my knees for you.”

He thrusts into me harder and chuckles. “That would be more believable if you weren’t soaking for me. If you get this slick for someone you can’t stand, I’d love to see how you respond when you actually like someone.”

“Shut up and move,” I grunt into his ear.

The man is bent on doing exactly what I tell him not to. He pulls back, looks me in the eye, and pauses his movement so the pressure that had been mounting dissipates. His smug smile is maddening.

I briefly consider slapping him, but I’m afraid he’d like it.

He shifts, hooking his arms under my knees to push them higher toward my shoulders. The new, deeper angle has me arching off the bed.

I curse, hands fisting in the sheets. He’s so deep, and I should hate it, but it feels so good I can hardly breathe as he finds a slower pace.

He watches his cock slide in and out of me with hooded eyes, and I can’t look away. It feels so good.

“You look so beautiful taking me like this. I hate that anyone else is seeing it. I want your pleasure to myself.”

I shouldn’t like those words, but the possessive edge to them that would normally be a massive turnoff is unbelievably hot when I’m this close to a release.

The only thing holding me back is the relentless reminder of everyone in the room watching. They haven’t moved, but all conversations have ceased, and their hungry gazes are all on us.

Henry groans, his dark blue eyes narrowed in intense concentration. I swear to the Divine it feels like he’s getting bigger, but it must be the mounting pleasure. I’m clenching tighter with every slow thrust.

When he meets my gaze again, his eyes are full of heat and unnerving softness. “I knew this is what you needed. As much as I’d love to choke you until you come all over my cock, I know what you need is a nice, sweet fuck. A soft fuck for a secretly soft woman.”

He thrusts in deeper, and my eyes roll back, fingernails scratching up his back. “That’s right, lovely—” He breaks off into some sort of incomprehensible praise as my pussy clamps down on him harder and he presses my legs back further.

“Fuck, you’re flexible,” he groans.

He momentarily loses control, fucking me hard and fast. I’m gasping for air, nails scoring his shoulders, as the tension in my body becomes so extreme that spots form in my vision. I’m so close it hurts.

But then he stops all at once. I let out a mortifying whine. His aura is shooting off bright flares in all directions. He’s close too, but he’s stopped to stare into my eyes.

His hands come to cup my face.

Then, he kisses me hard and starts to move again. He releases his arms from under my legs and cups my ass in his hands. I wrap my thighs around his hips, arching up to meet his every thrust.

Immediately, I’m lost in blinding rapture again.

It’s the kissing. I’m terrified at the way this tenderness has me so undone, so quickly. I’m holding off the climax by sheer force of will. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of it being this easy.

He kisses down my jaw and chuckles into my ear. The pleasant timbre of it sends a shiver through me that almost pushes me over the edge.

“I love watching you fight it. I love that you’re about to have the best orgasm of your life and I’m the one giving it to you. But mostly I love how much you hate it.” His voice is a hoarse groan in my ear, but the certainty makes me shudder. “That’s right. Be a good little wife and give me what I want.”

It’s tempting to defy him, but he kisses me again, and the tension in my body is so intense. Every nerve ending in my skin is electrified with pleasure. The climax is close but somehow elusive. What if I can’t? What if we fail the ritual?

My skin is covered in goosebumps and my nipples are so hard they hurt.

I feel like a dying star, just trying to suck everything in and in and in. I’m gasping for breath, clawing Henry’s back, clenching around his cock. I want more of everything. I’m so, so close, it hurts.

His hands flex on my ass, his aura so wide and expansive it’s taking up the entire bed. He’s just as close.

Henry was clear he needed to finish inside me as part of the ritual, but if I don’t finish first, it might not work. We might offend Kennymyra.

I’m hit with the fear of failure, with the horror of a room full of people who loathe me watching as I consummate my marriage with the best sex of my life.

Henry meets my eyes, and he looks suddenly so serious. “You’re safe, Harlow,” he whispers.

I know it’s not really true, but the words are like a match struck in my body. The climax blows through me like a storm.

“Oh, fuck, fuck—” His curses break off as he pumps into me harder and faster.

It’s only the faint warning in my mind that reminds me I need to touch the sigil because I’m about to die of pleasure. I slap my still-bloody palm to the sigil.

I’ve never felt anything like this. It’s like I’m being broken apart and reassembled, all at once made and unmade by pleasure alone.

I scream, loud and throat-shredding. My entire body spasms with the lightning strike of pleasure. I’m blind and breathless—gasping in shallow gulps of air as my body buzzes with ecstasy, the rushing warmth of it filling me up in shivery swells. It goes on and on and I’m bearing down on Henry’s cock so hard. My thighs shake violently. My feet curl until they cramp.