Chapter Eight

Ava’s POV

The hours after Sybil left stretched like something alive.

I went back to my room because I didn’t trust myself anywhere else. The green dress still clung to my skin. Every time I moved I felt the soft fabric brush my thighs and remembered the exact weight of Corren’s hand at breakfast. The order he had left me with sat heavy between my legs. *Don’t touch yourself.* I had obeyed so far, but the ache had only grown sharper. By six o’clock I was restless, pacing the length of the large bedroom, then sitting on the edge of the bed, then standing at the window again.

The estate looked peaceful in the late-afternoon light. Fountains caught the sun. The high walls kept everything outside at a distance. Inside, I felt like I was waiting for something inevitable.

I tried to read. The words blurred. I tried to shower again, letting the water run colder than comfortable, hoping it would dull the heat under my skin. It didn’t. When I stepped out and caught my reflection in the mirror, my cheeks were flushed and my eyes looked too dark. I looked like a girl who already belonged to someone.

At eight-thirty I stood in front of the closet and stared at the clothes he had given me. I didn’t know what he expected me to wear to his study. In the end I kept the green dress on. It felt like the safest choice and the most dangerous one at the same time.

At ten minutes to nine I left my room.

The hallway was quiet. Soft lights glowed along the walls. My heels made soft sounds against the marble as I walked toward the wing of the house I had not yet entered. A maid passing by lowered her eyes and stepped aside without a word. Everyone here already seemed to understand the new order of things.

The door to his study was closed. I stood in front of it for a long second, heart beating hard enough that I could feel it in my throat. Then I raised my hand and knocked once.

“Come in.”

His voice was calm, controlled, exactly as it had been that morning.

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

The study was large and darkly elegant—shelves of books, a heavy desk, low lighting, the faint scent of leather and his cologne. Corren sat behind the desk in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, the top button undone. He looked up as I entered, and the air in the room shifted. His eyes moved over me slowly, taking in the dress, the way I stood, the nervous way my hands rested at my sides.

“You’re on time,” he said. “Good.”

I didn’t answer. My mouth felt dry.

He leaned back in his chair, watching me. “Come here.”

I walked around the desk until I stood a few feet from him. He turned his chair slightly so that he faced me fully. For a moment neither of us spoke. The only sound was the low tick of a clock somewhere in the room.

“Have you touched yourself today?” he asked.

The directness of the question made heat rush to my face. “No.”

“No, what?”

I swallowed. “No, Daddy.”

Something satisfied flickered in his eyes. He nodded once. “Show me.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“Show me that you obeyed.” His voice remained quiet, but there was no room for refusal in it. “Lift your dress and pull your underwear aside. I want to see how wet you’ve been for me all day.”

My pulse slammed so hard I felt dizzy. Shame and arousal tangled together until I couldn’t tell them apart. My fingers trembled as I reached down and slowly lifted the hem of the green dress. The cool air of the study touched my thighs. I hooked my fingers in the side of the underwear he had chosen for me that morning and pulled the fabric aside.

I was soaked. The evidence of how much I had needed him all day was unmistakable.

Corren’s gaze dropped. He looked for a long moment, expression unreadable, then lifted his eyes back to mine. “Come closer.”

I stepped forward until I stood between his knees. He reached out and ran two fingers slowly through the wetness, a light, deliberate stroke that made my breath catch. My hips jerked involuntarily. He didn’t smile. He simply watched my face as he touched me, learning the exact way my body responded.

“You’ve been suffering,” he said softly. “Good. I wanted you to feel it.”

He pulled his hand away and brought his fingers to his mouth, tasting me without breaking eye contact. The sight made my knees weak.

“Turn around,” he said. “Hands on the desk.”

I turned. The wood of the desk was cool under my palms. I heard him stand. Then his hands were on my hips, sliding the dress higher until it rested above my waist. He pulled the underwear down my thighs until it fell to the floor. One of his shoes nudged my feet farther apart.

I felt the heat of him behind me, still fully clothed, the hard ridge of his cock pressing against my bare ass through his trousers. His mouth brushed the side of my neck.

“You did well with Sybil today,” he murmured. “You kept our secret. That deserves a reward.”

His hand slid around to the front of my body and found my clit, rubbing slow, exact circles. At the same time I heard the sound of his belt, then the soft drag of his zipper. The thick head of his cock nudged against my entrance, slick from how wet I already was. He pushed in slowly, inch by inch, until he was buried to the hilt. The stretch forced a broken sound from my throat.

He didn’t move at first. He simply stayed deep inside me, one hand still working my clit, the other braced on the desk beside mine. His breath was warm against my ear.

“This is what you think about when you call me Daddy,” he said quietly. “This is what you belong to now.”

Then he began to thrust—deep, measured strokes that filled me completely every time. The wet sound of it filled the study. My fingers curled against the desk. Every time he bottomed out, pleasure sparked low and sharp. He kept the pace controlled, almost cruel in how precisely he gave me what I needed without letting me fall over the edge too quickly.

I came with a muffled cry, legs shaking, clenching hard around him. He groaned low in his throat but didn’t stop. He fucked me through it, steady and deep, until the sensitivity bordered on pain and a second orgasm started building almost immediately.

“Again,” he ordered softly.

I had no choice. My body obeyed him even when my mind was still catching up. The second climax hit harder than the first, pulling a broken, helpless sound from my mouth. Only then did he let himself go, thrusting deeper, burying himself inside me as he came with a low, rough sound against my neck.

For a long moment the only sound in the room was our breathing.

He pulled out slowly. I felt the loss of him like a physical thing. His hands gentled on my hips, then he turned me around to face him. My dress was still bunched at my waist. My underwear lay on the floor. I must have looked wrecked.

Corren brushed a strand of hair from my face with surprising care.

“Every night at nine,” he said quietly. “You come here. You take what I give you. You call me Daddy. And you do not touch yourself without permission. Clear?”

I nodded, still trying to catch my breath.

“Words, Ava.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

He leaned in and kissed me once, slow and deliberate, the same way he had kissed me at the window the night before. When he pulled back, his eyes were dark and satisfied.

“Go to bed,” he said. “I’ll send someone to draw you a bath.”

I stepped back on unsteady legs, found my underwear, and slipped it back on with trembling hands. At the door I paused and looked at him once more. He had already returned to his chair behind the desk, as if nothing unusual had happened.

But the wetness between my thighs and the lingering stretch of him inside me said otherwise.

I walked back to my room in silence, the taste of his authority still heavy on my tongue, and understood with sudden clarity that the rules he had given me were no longer just rules.

They were becoming the shape of my nights.