Her stomach churned. Her belly burned. The louder the pounding grew, the more Anais found herself crying out in sharp, breathless m*ans.

“Ahh, mm! Ah, haah!”

Killian drove his hips up fast, and a wave of pleasure crashed over her, more than she felt she could take. She wanted to flee. She felt like she was losing herself. Was this really what she wanted? To fall into an ecstasy so overwhelming it felt like losing her mind?

If this was truly what it meant to be with a man, then what she shared with Louis was nothing more than playing house. Anais lowered her gaze from the ceiling and looked at the man above her, rocking her.

Killian di Visconti.

She wanted to see the man who plunged her into this mire of pleasure. Pale blue eyes met dark, sunken violet. He didn’t look away from her as he drove his hips up, again and again.

The sound of wet skin meeting skin and the m*ans spilling from Anais’s lips alternated one after the other, cutting through the thick air of the bedroom and spreading without end.

It didn’t hurt anymore. More than just not hurting, it felt good. Good enough that she was willing to give herself over to Killian completely, to be shaken and undone. Good enough that she would gladly say yes even if this night went on many times over.

“…… Killian.”

“Mm, Ana.”

The satisfaction of seeing a man who always seemed so unhurried and in control brought to his knees by desire was beyond anything she imagined. That she was the one who brought him there was the same. Anais stretched out both arms and pulled him close, wrapping them around his back.

Her inner walls stretched wide and then gripped tight again around the shape of him, like a confession that only he could ever fill this space. Before she knew it, Anais let all her tension go and gave the night over to him.

Once the fire caught, Killian moved like a man unleashed. Then came the peak. He let out a rough breath and pushed deep inside her, kissing her cheek. He didn’t pull out right away, moving slowly in and out of her a few more times.

He could tell Anais’s pale blue eyes, which went slack thinking it was over, filled with surprise. She felt him growing inside her again. Killian laughed low and turned her over. Her back was just as beautiful as her front, after all.

Outside, the night was still in full swing. The shift in position pushed him all the way inside her. Killian let out a satisfied breath and began to move again.

* * *

Old habits are a fearsome thing. Anais opened her eyes around the time the navy sky began to bleed into the blue of early dawn. It was exactly the same hour she woke at the estate in the capital.

Her last memory was closing her eyes in the arms of the man who pushed her to her limits until nearly dawn. She carefully moved his arm from around her waist and sat up. Her legs didn’t feel like her own, and Anais drew a sharp breath.

She ached below like something torn. Her whole body screamed. She moved her unsteady legs and stepped into the bathroom. The face in the mirror was unfamiliar. Tangled hair, swollen eyes and lips, and the marks of the night left all over her body.

She tidied herself up roughly and gathered her clothes. With the curtains drawn, the darkened room only now came into view. This wasn’t the room where she was with him last night.

Did he use a different bedroom?

It didn’t matter either way. Anais held her breath and dressed, then crossed to the door and reached for the handle.

“Where are you going, Ana?”

A drowsy, languid voice stopped her in her tracks. The man who called her by a nickname she never gave permission for closed the distance in an instant, pulling her into his arms just as she was about to open the door and leave. She was lifted and carried back to the bed, and before she knew it she was sitting on his lap.

“I need to go home.”

The man smoothed her tangled hair and pressed his lips to her soft cheek. He kissed her temple, her eyelids, the bridge of her nose, and her lips in turn, then lifted her hand and began pressing his lips to each of her fingertips.

She seemed to have grown used to something she couldn’t have imagined until yesterday, given that she was accepting even this without any fuss. Anais simply stared at the man kissing her bare hand in a daze.

“Have a meal before you go. After that, we could enjoy a date. You did agree to be my lover for the whole summer, after all.”

She hadn’t known him long, but she felt like she understood his nature. Killian would not bend his will.

“All right, then let’s eat first.”

The man smiled at her answer, pulled her close, and lay back down on the bed. He tucked his arm under her head, held her against his chest, and patted her back gently as he murmured,

“It’ll be a good while before the meal is ready. Regrettably, my estate is still in the middle of the night.”

It was so absurd she laughed along with him. Killian closed his eyes like he was genuinely going back to sleep. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep at all, yet Anais lay there watching Killian’s face and drifted off quietly in his arms.

When she opened her eyes, the sun was tilting toward the west.

Something she never once imagined when she was in the capital, and laughter kept slipping from her lips without stopping.

A small note sat on the bedside table. It said to ring the bell when she woke. She rang it as it said, and a few maids came in.

“His Highness finished getting ready ahead of you. We’ll help you with your preparations, Miss.”

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

A maid reported that the bath was ready, and Anais went into the bathroom. She might have felt a little embarrassed showing this body to Lily, but to his maids it was no different from any ordinary day, so she felt nothing about it.

Somehow, from somewhere, they produced undergarments and an indoor dress that fit her perfectly. Once simply dressed and ready, Anais followed a maid’s guidance into the dining room.

The man was there. Killian gestured with his chin toward the seat across from him. Anais went and sat down.

“Did you sleep well, Ana?”

“Yes. And you?”

“Of course.”

Killian instructed that all the food except dessert be brought out at once. She didn’t think she was hungry, but when the well-laid dishes came up to the table all together, hunger rushed in.

A salad topped with fresh figs and a richly milky cheese, a clear clam soup, lobster. She lifted each to her plate and worked through them steadily. Long after the man finished eating.

When Anais finished too, the dessert came out. A tomato sorbet, bright and sweet. Laughter finally spilled from across the table. The man laughed for a good while, then rested his chin in his hand and spoke.

“All right, tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Why a woman with no experience with men whatsoever, a capital noblewoman who never even set foot in the south, came all the way here and went out of her way to do something like this.”

Killian had a sharp edge to him sometimes. Anais lowered her hands and folded them in her lap. She steadied her breathing and put on a calm face.

It wasn’t a difficult thing to do. Even when she watched the fiancé who once stood beside her as an equal lose everything and work as her father’s secretary, she had to be fine. Even when he finally met another ordinary woman and smiled as he handed her a wedding invitation, she attended the ceremony, watched him become another woman’s husband instead of hers, offered her congratulations, and smiled.

No, not ordinary. Louis’s wife, Emily Carter, was suffering from an incurable illness.

Emily was the daughter of Louis’s wet nurse. When the Rossetti family lost their title and everything was dissolved, they scattered in all directions. Louis couldn’t turn away Emily when she came looking for him after losing her mother.

That was the first time Louis ever begged Anais for anything. Please take Emily in. He couldn’t send her away when she was suffering from an incurable illness. Anais couldn’t refuse his request.

She grew more distant from her father because of it, but she was genuinely proud to have granted Louis’s wish. She even let herself hope that maybe things between them might improve a little.

All of it was pointless. Because Emily became Louis’s wife. The two of them, who grew close working together at the estate, left without looking back. While Anais waited all that time, Louis stood on his own two feet and chose Emily instead of her.