“Breathe, Veralie. That’s it.”

Seated all the way, he didn’t move for several seconds—the act its own form of agony—giving her a moment to adjust to his size. She bit her lip and inhaled sharply through her nose, her nails digging into his biceps. The sight of her stiff and breathless beneath him should’ve made him feel guilty, but gods damn him, it didn’t. He reveled in it.

He’d never purposefully seek to cause her any real pain, but this pain? This pain he liked. Each heavy breath and wince was proof it was really happening. Proof that she’d feel him with every step she took tomorrow.

When she met the King, when she was announced to the court, and whatever else they required of her tomorrow, she’d do it while simultaneously thinking about what it’d felt like to have him inside her.

He gave her one last second, and then, convinced he might actually die if he didn’t move, he twitched his hips forward to test her reaction. She squeezed her eyes shut, her body tensing as her knees tightened their hold around his hips. “Holy gods.”

Trailing his lips up the smooth skin of her jaw, he whispered, “Did I hurt you?”

She sucked in a short breath. “A little, yeah.”

“Good.”

Her eyes snapped open, and when he didn’t retract his response, they narrowed. “Wanting to cause me pain is a character flaw you should reflect on during meditation,” she said, repeating back to him the taunt he’d used.

He grinned, pulling out agonizingly slow only to slam back in, his arms stinging as her nails finally broke skin. “Then I suppose I’ll have to spend the entire rest of the night meditating after what I plan to do to you.”

“You’re insane,” she whispered, even as her shoulders relaxed, and her hips shifted toward him. Hesitantly, exploring and testing the feel of him.

He ran the tip of his tongue over the split in his lip, the area sticky and beginning to swell since he had no intentions of healing it. There was something about knowing she’d never be afraid to fight back that filled him with a dark sense of excitement, and he swore his dick hardened even more.

“Don’t act like you don’t get off hurting me, too, little star.”

“I don’t.”

He stayed buried to the hilt, rolling his hips up into her in a steady rhythm, keeping excess friction at bay while hitting that spot inside her. The one that made her hands slide up to his neck and her eyes nearly roll back. “Your possessiveness and need to mark me back disagrees.”

“I didn’t—”

“You may not have used your teeth, but you marked me all the same.” He continued at the same steady pace, easing farther back with each roll of his hips until, eventually, he was fully thrusting in and out of her.

He watched her face for any sign he should stop, but she only groaned and arched into him, wrapping her legs around his waist. Thank fuck. He increased his speed, and her hands shot to his back as he began to move, clawing at his shoulder blades as she tried in vain to stay quiet.