"Then we'd better make sure I'm properly trained for their evaluation."
The calm way she says it eats me up inside.
"Camilla—"
"No." She shakes her head. "Don’t. No hesitation, no second-guessing. You said I need to learn this to survive. So, teach me."
Her hand slides inside my pants, warm fingers wrapping around me, and everything inside me goes rigid. My breath punches out in a low hiss.
“Christ.” The word rips out of me, raw, not even a word anymore but a sound.
"Is that good? Is that how you want me to touch you?"
"Yes." The word comes out strangled. "But you need to understand what you're doing. What this means."
“I understand perfectly.” Her grip tightens, her thumb dragging along the sensitive underside, sending a tremor through me. “I’m learning skills that might keep me alive. And you’re the one teaching me.”
My pulse hammers so hard I can feel it in my teeth. “And how does that make you feel?”
“Powerful.” Her thumb brushes across the head of my cock, smearing pre-cum, and I bite back a groan. She’s kneeling at my feet but somehow, she’s the one with power. “For the first time since this nightmare started, I feel like I have some control.”
“Control how?” I manage, but my voice is already fraying, and she knows it.
“Because right now, in this moment, you need me as much as I need you.” She strokes me slowly, deliberately, watching my face like she’s memorizing the exact way I break. “Because I can see what this is doing to you.”
“What is it doing to me?” My grip on her shoulder tightens until I can feel the delicate bones under my palm, but I can’t make myself push her away.
“Destroying you. Little by little, lesson by lesson.” Her other hand joins the first, sliding lower, cupping, coaxing, and a low, noise escapes my throat. “And despite everything — despite the viewing, despite the auction, despite all your business logic — you don’t want to let me go. And when the time comes, you won’t let me go.”
“You’re wrong.” The words have no strength behind them; my body’s already betraying me.
“Am I?” She leans forward, breath hot against the base of my cock, and a shudder rolls through me so hard my fingers curl into her hair. “Then this should be easy for you. Just another professional lesson.”
Her lips close around the tip, and rational thought disappears. Heat. Wetness. The pull of her mouth. My spine bows and my eyes shut against the wave of sensation.
“Fuck.” It’s a groan, a confession.
"Is that what Kozlov will say? Will he curse when I do this?" Her voice is muffled around me, the vibration shooting straight up my spine.
“Probably,” I grit out, but it’s barely a sound.
“And Al-Rashid? Will he make sounds like you’re making now?” Her tongue flicks and my hips jerk helplessly. I can’t answer. I can’t think past the wet heat and the terrible truth of what I’m teaching her.
I grab a fistful of her hair, not to hurt but to hold her still, to anchor myself. “Camilla, stop,” I manage, even though my body is already betraying the command. She lifts her head, mouth swollen, eyes dark, and I know she sees every thought I just fought to bury.
“Why?” She looks up at me, lips glistening. “Am I doing something wrong?”
“You’re doing everything right. That’s the problem.” My thumb brushes her cheek, and that single touch feels like a surrender I can’t afford.
She studies me with those dark eyes that see too much, then her warm mouth closes over me again, and I’m drowning — in sensation, in heat, in the terrible knowledge that every second of pleasure is another step toward losing her completely.
Because the viewing is coming.
The auction is coming.
And I'm running out of time to figure out how to keep what I can't afford to lose.
I can’t do this.
