Chapter 3: Take Off Your Clothes

My hands shook as I pulled the shirt over my head and let it fall to the floor. Riven watched every movement with that same dark focused attention. The letter still sat open on the table behind him. The words I had supposedly written kept burning in the back of my mind even as I pushed the rest of my clothes down and stood naked in front of him.

He walked around me slowly.

You read it, he said at last. Good. Now you understand that leaving early is no longer an option.

I swallowed hard. I never wrote that letter.

His eyes flicked to my face. The handwriting says otherwise.

Someone is lying, I said. And it is not me.

Riven stopped behind me. He rested one hand on my hip while the other slid up my stomach and settled between my breasts. Your body already knows what belongs to me. The letter only makes sure your mind remembers it too.

I turned my head slightly. You enjoy this too much.

I enjoy honesty, he said. Even when it comes late.

He turned me around and pushed me backward until the edge of the bed hit my legs. I fell onto the mattress and he followed without hesitation, spreading my thighs with his knees and settling his weight over me. There was no soft start. He reached down and guided himself into me in one deep thrust that forced a broken sound from my throat.

The stretch was still there from the night before yet my body opened for him with humiliating ease. The wet heat of me made it clear how ready I already was.

Every time I tried to turn my face away he caught my chin and made me look at him.

You will watch, he told me. You will feel every part of this and you will remember that I hold more than your brother’s freedom.

I bit down on my lip to keep from answering but the pleasure still built in heavy waves. His hand closed around my throat just tight enough to remind me who controlled the air in my lungs while his other hand pinned both of my wrists above my head. The rhythm of his thrusts stayed deep and controlled. The friction against that sensitive place inside me made my legs start to shake.

When the orgasm tore through me it was stronger than the one from the night before. I cried out while my walls clenched hard around him. Riven watched my face the entire time as if the sight of me breaking was the only thing that mattered.

He did not stop after I came. He kept fucking me until his own release hit and he emptied himself deep inside me with a low sound that vibrated against my neck. For a long moment he stayed there breathing hard while my heart slammed against my ribs and the heat of him pulsed inside me.

He pulled out slowly and sat back on his heels looking down at the mess he had left between my legs.

Clean yourself up, he said. We are not finished talking.

I pushed myself up on weak arms and tried to steady my breathing. The letter still lay open on the table like a second presence in the room. Riven stood and walked over to it. He picked the paper up again and held it so I could see my own handwriting under the low light.

Do you want to know how I got this, Nora?

My voice came out rough. Yes.

He folded the letter carefully and slipped it back into his pocket. Then he looked at me with an expression that was almost gentle and somehow more frightening because of it.

Someone close to you gave it to me, he said. Someone who has been watching you far longer than I have. And that person is waiting to see whether you survive these hundred nights or whether you break before the end.

The words landed like ice in my blood even while my body still throbbed from everything he had just done to me.

Who?

Riven was already moving toward the door.

Get dressed and go home, he told me. Night three will be longer. And Nora, the next time you come here I expect you to stop pretending the letter is a lie. We both know it is not.