"I want you to make me yours."
Ana’s pulse hammered against her throat. The heat radiating off him was intoxicating, but all the past years of ice and humiliation came rushing back with violent clarity.
She planted both hands flat against his chest, refusing to let the proximity break her resolve.
"You’re already bought and paid for, Damian," she whispered, her voice trembling with raw, bitter defiance. "There is nothing left of you to claim."
Damian didn’t step back. His dark eyes locked onto hers, burning with unfulfilled hunger.
"You want my obedience?" Ana demanded, her chin lifting as tears of fury threatened to spill. "Then give me the truth. What was the real reason you married me? Because you clearly never loved me. Was it really revenge? Was it really to settle an old score with my father, or did you just want the satisfaction of playing with my emotions?"
A muscle in Damian’s jaw ticked, but he remained silent, trapped under the weight of her gaze.
"For all those years, you despised me so much you couldn’t even stand to look at me," Ana continued, her voice breaking on the edges of a sob. "You never touched me. You acted like being in the same room as me was a chore. So what changed, Damian? Why are you suddenly suffocating me? Why can’t I even take a single breath without you hovering over me?"
She pushed against his chest, holding him an inch away so he had to hear every word.
"If you really want me to submit... if you want me to stop questioning you and play the compliant little captive, then earn it," she hissed, her eyes burning directly into his. "Give me what I craved from you back then. Treat me like you love me. Treat me like I am actually your wife."
Damian went completely still. Her hands against his chest felt like branding irons, but his face hardened into an impenetrable mask of ice.
He stepped back just enough to break the contact, his dark eyes looking down at her with a chilling detachment.
"You want to know why I took you in?" Damian’s voice dropped into a flat, gravelly baritone. "It wasn’t revenge, Anastasia. And it wasn’t some sick game to play with your feelings."
He turned slightly toward the rain-streaked window, his hands slipping into his pockets, the rigid posture of a man barricading his own soul.
"Before my father died, he made me swear an oath," Damian said coldly. "He always had a soft spot for you. He knew what your father was becoming, and with his last breath, he demanded that I keep you close. That I protect you under the Sterling name."
Ana’s breath caught, the revelation settling like lead in her chest.
Damian turned back, his obsidian eyes locking onto hers with ruthless clarity.
"You asked why I kept my distance for those years. Why I never touched you. I did it because I never loved you, Anastasia. I didn’t love you then, and I don’t love you now. I refused to give you false hope for something that doesn’t exist."
Every word was delivered like a surgical strike, stripping away any lingering illusion of warmth.
"Nothing has changed between us," Damian continued, his voice devoid of all mercy. "I am not suffocating you because my heart softened. I am doing it because you are my responsibility, and I don’t break my promises. Don’t ask me to treat you like a wife I love. Love is a weakness I am incapable of feeling."
Anastasia didn’t flinch.
The words hit like ice water, but the sob that had been rising in her throat froze over instantly. Her posture straightened, the warmth draining completely from her face until her expression was as cold and sharp as glass.
A faint, bitter smile touched her lips.
"A dead man’s obligation," she whispered, her voice dangerously steady. "Thank you for the reminder, Damian. For a moment, I almost forgot what a coward you are."
Damian’s eyes darkened, his jaw tightening into iron.
"You call it duty," Ana said, her voice dropping into a quiet, cutting rhythm. "You hide behind your father’s ghost and tell yourself you’re incapable of feeling. But if I’m just a chore you inherited... Why do you lose your mind every time another man looks at me? Why did you burn half the city down because Dante kissed my lips?"
She scoffed softly, the sound dripping with pure contempt.
"You’re not a machine, Damian. You’re just terrified to admit that you’re human."
Before he could speak, Anastasia closed the remaining distance between them.
She reached up, grabbing the collar of his sweater with both hands, and pulled him down into a fierce, breathless, punishing kiss.
Damian froze in pure shock for a fraction of a second, his body going rigid beneath her touch as her lips pressed hard and deep against his, taking everything he had guarded so ruthlessly behind his walls of ice.
Just as quickly, she broke the kiss, stepping back out of his reach.
Her chest heaved, her lips flushed red, but her eyes held absolute, chilling clarity.
"That’s all I needed to know," Anastasia said softly, looking straight into his wide, stunned gaze. "If this is just a transaction to fulfill your duty... fine. I will give you every single piece of me for the rest of this contract. I will play your slave, obey your rules, and let you possess me completely."
She stepped around him, her chin held high as she walked toward the open library doors.
"And when the final day arrives, Damian... I will walk away, and I won’t have a single regret."
She took two steps toward the open double doors before a heavy hand seized her wrist.
In one violent, seamless motion, Damian yanked her back, spinning her around and pinning her flush against the towering mahogany bookshelves. Large book volumes rattled above their heads as his towering frame trapped her completely, cutting off every scrap of air.
His eyes were no longer cold... they were completely ablaze, stripped of all discipline.
"You think you can play with fire and dictate the terms, Anastasia?" Damian growled, his voice thick, ragged, and raw.
His free hand gripped her jaw, his long fingers tilting her head up with bruising firmness.
"You think you’re the one walking away?" His thumb dragged roughly across her swollen bottom lip, pressing into the heat she had just ignited. "You offered every piece of yourself to me. Don’t think for a second I won’t collect every last drop."
Before she could draw breath to answer, Damian crushed his mouth back down onto hers.
It wasn’t the tentative, desperate touch of the girl from four years ago, nor was it the brief shock of her defiance. It was a ravenous, suffocating possession.
His tongue breached her lips, claiming her mouth with a fierce, punishing hunger that made her head spin and her knees buckle against his thighs.
Ana gasped into the kiss, her hands flying up to push him away, but her fingers betrayed her, knotting tightly into the dark wool of his sweater as a shuddering gasp tore from her throat.
The sheer, overwhelming heat radiating between them threatened to consume every boundary she had just built.
His other arm slid around her waist, lifting her slightly off the floor and hauling her flush against his hard chest.
He tore his lips from hers just enough to drag hot, searing kisses down the exposed curve of her throat, biting lightly at the sensitive skin beneath her jaw until she let out a broken, helpless moan.
"Tell me this is just a transaction," Damian whispered hoarsely against her racing pulse, his chest heaving against hers, his eyes wild with a possessive fever. "Look me in the eye and tell me you feel nothing."
A sharp, double-tap at the library doors suddenly shattered the dark haze.
"Sir," Walter’s urgent voice sliced through the heavy air from the corridor. "The front gate sensors just tripped. Jullian Montgomery bypassed perimeter protocol... and he didn’t come alone."
Damian didn’t release her immediately. He stayed buried against the crook of her neck for two agonizing heartbeats, his hot breath burning her skin, before slowly pulling back.
His dark eyes bore into Anastasia’s flushed, trembling face, a dangerous, breathless promise lingering in the dark room between them.
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