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KIPTON

My cock was barely inside her tight pussy, the crimson evidence of what I’ve done smeared between us, hot and unmistakable.

Virgin.

The word just sits in my skull like a foreign object, something that doesn’t belong in this room, in anything that has to do with me. I stare down at her through the eyeholes of this fucking mask, watching her face go blank, that same shut-down expression I’ve seen on people who’ve learned that showing pain only invites more of it.

She’s looking at the ceiling, her jaw tight. Hands still gripping the sheets, bracing for the rest of it.

Because she thinks I’m going to finish anyway.

The thought hits me like a gut punch.

Of course, she does. She made a deal in a parking lot with three masked men who trade women’s bodies like currency. She doesn’t know that the Winter family, for all its sins, has never needed to take what wasn’t offered. She doesn’t know that my father drilled into us from childhood that power without restraint is just brutality with better PR.

She doesn’t know that the only thing I can think of right now is… I have already ruined this.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Noah asks from somewhere to my left, and his voice sounds uncertain.

Noah is never uncertain.

Fawn’s laugh is soft, broken. “Would it have mattered?”

Noah doesn’t answer. Neither does Ryker.

I should end this right now. Pull out completely, step back, and call Malcom. Have her get dressed and delivered back to her sister before the hour is up. I should treat this like the miscalculation it is and cut my losses.

But instead, my hips press forward of their own accord.

It’s the smallest movement, but she makes a pained sound, and I freeze again, letting my shaky, gloved hand come up to her face before I can stop myself.

She flinches.

“Yes,” I say, and my voice doesn’t sound like mine. It’s too quiet. Too raw. “It would have mattered.”

She doesn’t believe me. I can see it in the set of her mouth and the way her eyes stay fixed on something past my shoulder. She’s waiting for the rest, prepared to pay the full price because that’s what she does…that’s what people like her do. They pay and pay and pay until there’s nothing left.

I know I should stop.

But I can’t.

I pull out slowly, watching her face for every sign of discomfort. The drag of my cock makes her breath hitch, and I feel it in my spine. When I’m almost completely out, I pause, letting her adjust, until some of the tension eases from her shoulders.

Then I gently push back in.

Slower this time. Not the claiming thrust I started with. She is so impossibly tight around me. I feel the heat of her in my bones. I’ve had sex with so many women that I stopped counting years ago. But none of them felt like this.

I set a rhythm that barely qualifies as movement. Small rocks of my hips, barely pulling out before sliding back in, trying to go as deep as I can without hurting her again. My hands find her hips, holding her steady, and I feel the moment she relaxes. Her death grip on the sheets loosens just as her breathing evens out, going from sharp intakes to something else…it almost sounds like…

“That’s it,” I murmur, and I don’t recognize my own voice. “Breathe.”

Her chest rises and falls beneath me, her tits moving with each breath. I can’t stop watching her. The way her throat works when she swallows. The flutter of the pulse in her neck. The gradual softening of her features as her body adjusts to the intrusion, as the pain I caused fades into something else.

Noah and Ryker are still in the room, but I don’t look at them. I can’t. Because if I do, I’ll see the same recognition that I feel. That something has shifted in this room, and there’s no going back.

This was supposed to be one night.