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She screamed when she came, body locking around me, pussy pulsing hard enough to drag the orgasm out of my spine.

My balls tightened. My cock swelled. I came with a sound that belonged in a cage with an animal, filling her while she milked every last drop from me and shook beneath my hands. For a second, I stayed buried deep, breathing heavily.

I released her wrists. Her hands lowered then, slow, cautious, landing on the sides of my mask. The room went still. Every shadow froze. Even the air seemed to hold its breath. Her thumb hooked under the rim. Before I could think, I grabbed her hand with bruising force and yanked it away. “No.”

Liv shrank under me.

“Liv.”

She swallowed. “Right.”

I pushed off the bed, and the nightmares recoiled up the posts and across the ceiling like they knew I’d fucked up before I did. She sat up slowly, pulling my shirt back over her shoulders with shaking hands. I stood there naked and masked like a nightmare who had forgotten how to become a man.

“I didn’t mean to grab you like that,” I said. There. Great. Perfect. Excellent work, Lux. Nothing seduced a woman like pinning her to a bed, letting the bond crawl under her skin, fucking her silly, then snatching her hand away like she had tried to steal state secrets instead of just touch my mask.

Liv stared at me, one shoulder bare where my shirt had slipped, the collar hanging loose around the mark trying to wake under her skin. Her hair clung to her cheek in damp strands. Her mouth was still swollen from mine, but the heat in her eyes had gone dull and wary.

I had spent years making people look at me that way. It worked beautifully in meetings. It cleared rooms. It won wars before blades left sheaths. It had no place in my bedroom with her sitting in the wreckage of a moment I had almost made beautiful before I took a hammer to it.

She pulled my shirt up over her shoulder. “You didn’t mean to.”

“Liv.”

“No, it’s fine.” I watched her scoot away from me and felt my sanity file for immediate resignation. I was going to lose my shit if she tried to leave.

“You panicked. That’s very relatable. My entire body has been panicking for days.”

I dragged a breath through my nose and forced myself to stand still.

“I reacted badly,” I said.

Her brows lifted. “Wow. Did that hurt?”

“Yes.”

A corner of her mouth twitched despite the tension. A small victory. I should’ve been above caring about one twitch of her mouth. I wasn’t above anything anymore.

The bar was in Hell, and I was still tripping over it.

She scooted back again, and I felt my jaw lock. I couldn’t hold back the low warning growl that escaped me. “Stop backing away from me unless you intend to make the chase worth my time.”

She froze.

Good girl. Though I would enjoy the chase. And book girls liked that, right? Being hunted down and fucked raw? Sounds . . . fun. I shook away the horrible thought. A thought I should have dragged outside, shot twice, buried under concrete, and denied under oath.

I was a demon lord. I had taken torture better than this. Somewhere deep in the tower, a ward groaned.

Of course. Of fucking course. I caught her chin and forced her gaze back up. “I need something from you first before you get my face, Liv.”

I leaned over her, one hand braced beside her head, the other still holding her jaw—not tight, just enough to feel the pulse hammering there. She shifted beneath me, and my body noticed with the enthusiasm of a doomed man.

“The mask is off-limits. I get it.”

“That’s not it.” I tried and failed to keep my tone even.

“Then what?”

I blew out a breath and released her jaw. Pacing the floor. Was this it? “I need to know that this is what you—that I—”