Chapter 2.1

“…So my brother has been saying foolish things.”

“Does it matter who I heard it from? What really matters is that you’ve been lying to me all this time. You deceitful, vile—”

Esha ground her teeth. She couldn’t tell if the hot swell rising in her chest was born of hatred for him or from the way her heart had begun to pound uncontrollably at the sight of him after so many months.

When she had been dragged off as a prisoner of war and locked away in the tower, she could only measure the passing of time by a narrow window, barely wide enough for her to slip a hand through. On the days she thought death might be kinder, it was, ironically, Johan—the man who had destroyed her life—who gave her the will to live.

Lying on the cold stone floor, gnawing on dry bread, she spent every waking hour plotting what she would do if she ever saw him again.

Would she smuggle in something sharp and drive it into him the moment their eyes met? Would killing him finally quench this maddening thirst inside her…?

“What does it matter if I slept with your brother? Or with some passing knight?”

She crossed her arms, concealing the tremor in her hands.

“Ha.”

“Johan, did you think I’d remain chaste for a husband like you? A traitor?”

A vein bulged across Johan’s temple. For the first time, his face—previously carved with the stillness of marble—twisted in raw anger.

Clamping his teeth around the edge of his right glove, he tugged it off. Then, pressing his bare thumb against her lips, he growled,

“So you did sleep with another man? Like some common whore?”

Esha wondered, fleetingly, why he refused to remove his left glove. But she didn’t have time to dwell on it. Johan was already lifting her and setting her atop the desk.

His hand slipped beneath her dress, shoving her undergarments aside. A deep flush spread across Esha’s face. The humiliation of being exposed in broad daylight, here in the very heart of his study, was unbearable.

“What are you doing? Are you insane?”

“What’s the problem?”

“We aren’t in a bedroom—!”

Johan arched one brow. At once, Esha regretted her words. It sounded as if she were implying that it would be acceptable in a bedroom.

“Ah…!”

His thick fingers pushed past her dry folds.

Esha’s body jolted from the unfamiliar sensation, and she struggled to rise, trying to twist free of him. But he pushed down on her stomach, forcing her to lie back on the desk.

It made her gag, her breath hitching as one of her shoes slipped from her foot and thudded onto the floor, followed by the other.

{The first place we ever wanted each other was in the garden, so what does the location matter?}

He spoke in Atlanian deliberately, using the same voice and tone from back then, as if trying to drag her back to that memory. Esha glared up at him with eyes full of resentment.

It wasn’t as though this was their first time together. She knew that well, and yet lying here, legs spread wide across the polished surface of his desk, was more than she could bear.

It felt as though she were living up to that word he had flung at her earlier. “Whore.”

“I am simply conducting my work in my office. Pay it no mind.”

“Work…? W-what kind of work… do you call this—ugh—?”

Johan’s reply was cold, clipped.

“Let’s say I’m interrogating an enemy prisoner.”

When she raised her head, confusion written plainly across her face, he felt a rush of heat pool low in his abdomen. His attention was drawn to her breasts, perilously close to spilling over the edge of her corset.

“What price did my brother pay to have you freed from the tower?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“You’d best answer me.”

As he spoke, his thumb began to circle over her clit through her underwear, rubbing in gentle, deliberate motions. At the same time, his fingers rubbed against her inner walls, and he felt her body start to give way. The trembling and desperate resistance she had shown moments ago began to melt, her eyes reddening as a stifled shudder ran through her.

When Esha stopped resisting, Johan leisurely continued to toy with her below. He pinched her now-swollen clit and smeared her slickness around the entrance of her sex.

“Whatever my brother may have offered, you, my wife, are not leaving this place.”

“Haa… ngh, hnnn…”

“You’d do well to speak quickly.”

Johan leaned forward, pressing his lips firmly against her collarbone.

“I know my wife better than anyone.”

Esha drew in a sharp breath. The boy she had practically raised was now laying her across his desk and subjecting her to this. The Johan she had once known would never have done such a thing.

He knew her intimately, more than anyone ever had, but what terrified her was the realization that she no longer knew him.

Squelch, squelch… Humiliating sounds filled the study, echoing against its high walls. Esha squeezed her eyes shut, imagining the servants waiting just outside. Tears slipped down her temples.

All the while, his fingers continued their relentless motions, his mouth branding the bruises Damian had left behind.

When his teeth sank in and ground against her tender skin, her bruised flesh flared red and angry.

“Agh, stop, ahhh…”

Esha pleaded, her voice breaking as if she might choke on her own breath.

Johan still remembered all the places that drove her mad.

He withdrew his fingers from her slick heat and shoved aside the cumbersome layers of her skirt. Beneath, her smooth thighs and glistening entrance were laid bare.