He broke the kiss slowly. A thread of saliva stretched between their mouths, a glistening bridge that snapped, leaving her lips parted and wet. He studied her face, her closed eyes, with detached interest.
"Are you going to bathe like this?" he asked, his voice a low murmur against her flushed skin.
His hands moved to the shoulders of the chemise. His fingers hooked under the soaked straps. With a single, deliberate motion, he peeled the translucent fabric down her arms and torso. It slithered away, a discarded skin, leaving her utterly bare in the steaming water. She was a pale, trembling form against the dark copper and his own solidity.
His touch did not pause. One hand slid from her waist, down over the curve of her hip. His fingers slipped effortlessly between her thighs. There was no caress, only purposeful entry. He claimed the intimate space as if checking a lock. His finger moved inside her—a cold, blunt invasion—and she gasped, her teeth sinking into her own lower lip to trap the sound. Her eyes shot open, wide with shock at the violation, and the unwelcome, betraying slickness he found there.
"Stop…" The plea was thin, shredded by a sharp inhale as he added a second finger, stretching her.
He stilled, his gaze boring into hers. "Are you certain you wish me to?" His tone was flat, clinical. He curled his fingers slightly, a ruthless, internal pressure. "Your body suggests otherwise."
Before she could form another denial, he began to move them again, a swift, piston-like rhythm that was not about pleasure but about proof. It was a brutal demonstration of his access, his control over her most private responses.
"Henry—!" Her head fell back, a taut line of throat exposed, the name a strangled surrender to the sensation she could not stifle.
Only then did he withdraw his hand. The sudden emptiness was its own violation. His wet fingers gripped her waist, turning her slightly as he bent his head. His mouth, hot and demanding, pressed against her lower abdomen. He kissed a burning path upward, over the flutter of her stomach, the ridge of her ribs—a conquering army mapping its territory.
When his mouth closed over her breast, it was not with lover's ardor. It was possession. He bit down on the peak, sharp and merciless. The pain was a bright, shocking star that burst behind her eyes, and a ragged scream tore from her. Yet, in its wake, a treacherous, shaming heat pooled deeper within her. Her hands, acting on an instinct older than reason, flew to the nape of his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair. It was not a push away. It was an anchor, a plea for more of the sweet, devastating punishment—the only truth her shattered world seemed to offer anymore.
"Please," Gisela gasped, the word a raw, wet sound. "Don't stop."
He stopped immediately.
Henry lifted his head, separating from her. He looked down into her wide amber eyes, glazed with unwanted pleasure. A slow, sly smile touched his lips.
"Are you certain you understand what you are inviting?" Henry asked, his voice a low, dangerous hum.
Gisela could only nod, a desperate, jerky motion. The betrayal of her own body was a chasm she was already falling into.
"Impressive," he remarked, the word cold and clinical.
In one fluid motion, Henry lifted her from the water. Steam rose from their skin as he carried Gisela, dripping and pliant, into the cooler air of the bedchamber. He laid her upon the very center of the rumpled bed, as one might position a sacrifice upon an altar.
Henry did not join her. Instead, he knelt on the cold floor in front of the bed. The contrast was stark: his powerful form lowered in a parody of devotion, her nakedness splayed on the linens above him.
"Wha—?" Her voice was a thread of panic.
He didn't answer. His hands closed around her ankles and pulled. Gisela's body slid to the bed's edge, bringing her to him. He held her legs apart, his head tilting as he studied the intimate truth of her—the evidence of her shameful arousal, glistening and undeniable in the grey light.
Henry's gaze was not one of desire, but of profound, analytical conquest. He had not just breached her defenses; he had mapped the terrain of her own capitulation. And now, from his knees, he surveyed it. Gisela's breath came in ragged, shuddering pulls, less from anticipation than from the terrifying understanding of what she had just willingly confirmed: that her body was no longer her own to govern. It was a territory that had surrendered, and Henry was its sovereign, preparing to accept its tribute.
Then she felt it—not warmth, but a wet, searching heat between her thighs. His tongue. A deliberate, probing violation that was both intimate and utterly alien.
"Hen… Henry." Gisela's breath shredded into the air, each gasp a surrender she did not consent to give. The sensation was not pleasure; it was a slow, precise unraveling of her last coherent boundary.
His hazel eyes remained locked on hers, unblinking, as his tongue delved deeper. He was not tasting her; he was sampling her—collecting the physical proof of her degradation as one might examine a specimen. Her back arched, a rigid bridge of tension, while her head remained pinned to the bed. The movement of his mouth was ruthless, methodical, a dissection of her resistance.
A broken, guttural sound was carved from her throat. "Ahhh—"
"I don't want this… ahhh." The denial was feeble, drowned beneath a wave of traitorous sensation. A single tear escaped, not from sorrow, but from the sheer, violent conflict between her mind's revolt and her body's base, shaming response.
"Henry, please," she sobbed, the words splintering into fragments. "Stop. I don't want it anymore."
He did not stop. He absorbed her pleas like fuel. His rhythm became more invasive, more exacting—a cruel, clinical demonstration of his control over her very nerves.