Because when Ellis found out, he was going to lose his mind. The thought simultaneously thrilled me and intrigued me.
 
 I should feel guilt, shouldn’t I? Ellis and I certainly had an understanding, but we weren’t married. We weren’t evenengaged.A fuck on a balcony and a few other stolen moments in between dodging death could hardly count as lifelong vows.
 
 Ellis wasn’t here now. The gods only knew what he was doing. I needed to survive. Though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want it at all.
 
 “I could take you right here against this wall with no fucking promises,” Alihandro rumbled against me, pushing his hips against mine. “And you’d let me, wouldn’t you?”
 
 My breath stilted against my chest.
 
 “You could, but you won’t,” I challenged him. “Then you’d be just like the others in the house. That’s not what you want. You want me to want you.”
 
 His palm wrapped around the hollow of my throat, applying pressure. My eyes closed, half-hooded, as pleasure shot through me. Something was seriously wrong with me.
 
 Or seriously right with him.
 
 He leaned in close, his tongue licking a possessive trail up my neck, jaw, and cheek.
 
 “You already want me, Princess. I can smell it. What would your prince think of that?”
 
 My hand shot out and wrapped around his cock, longer and shaped a little differently than Ellis’s or Gregory’s, with a rounder head and little grooved bumps along his shaft.
 
 He went still as death, struggling to hide his heavy breaths.
 
 “Hmm. My prince’s is bigger,” I shot back.
 
 He laughed again and slammed me back against the stone wall with his hand still wrapped around my throat.
 
 “That’s it, Princess. Keep fighting.”
 
 He parted my legs and thrust into me, all rational thought in my mind lost as he instantly hit a spot deep inside of me I didn’t know existed. All the air left my lungs as he pulled out, the bumps on his dick doing things to my insides that wereabsolutely sinful. I sucked in one breath before he thrust back in again, my head banging off the wall as I threw it back.
 
 “Say you want this. Say you want me,” he rumbled against me.
 
 His thrusts punctuated each sentence, not giving me space to breathe, let alone think, and spit out a retort.
 
 “Say it.”
 
 “Yes! Please! I want you!” I cried out, unable to deny it any longer. I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to feel protected. I wanted to feel something other than fear and pain and anxiety and misery for one goddamn second even if it meant fucking Alihandro.
 
 With a growl, he withdrew and turned me around, pushing me down to the ground on all fours. Before I could breathe, he entered me from behind, and all conscious thought left my mind. Nothing existed but this glorious, sinful new position, and how full I was, and how tight it was, and how he kept one hand on my hip to drive deeper into my body, and the other tangled in my hair as yanked my hair back, forcing my back to arc.
 
 The air filled with the sound of slapping flesh, my body too overwhelmed to make a single sound other than my pants for air. His hand drifted from my hip to my core, fingers sinking softly into my flesh and finding that small, magickal, little nub and gently circling it.
 
 “Oh my gods!” I cried out, unable to explain the deep-seated itch that was building deep inside of me.
 
 “Yes, call out. Let the entire manor know we’re here. Take my cock like a good little princess.”
 
 I should be offended. I should hate him. But oh gods, his dirty words fueled something deeply repressed inside of me, his cock sliding easier in and out the more filth he spewed in my ear.
 
 “Scream for me, Princess,” he breathed at the back of my neck, his fangs biting down as his fingers worked my clit and his cock pounded inside of me.
 
 It was too much—I cried out as the wave of my pinnacle took me, washing me away in its sweet embrace as my muscles clenched and spasmed around him. He choked from behind and went rigid, a gush of new fluid spurting into me and down my thighs.
 
 It was obscene and vile, and I loved every second.
 
 After a few moments, Alihandro dropped me to the ground, tucked his cock away, fixing the ties on his breeches. Shakily, I stood and straightened my skirts, blinking in confusion as he walked toward the inside of the manor. I followed automatically, confused and taken aback. It was just like my first time with Ellis, but in reverse.
 
 I shoved down the guilt.