But no words came.
No pleading.
No gasping cry for more.
Only silence.
Only the tremble of her thighs and the way her fingers clutched the sheets—small, desperate motions—but her lips stayed sealed. Her green eyes stared up at him, wide, vulnerable, burning with all the need her mouth refused to speak.
Damien froze.
For a heartbeat—two—he just stared at her. Watched the way she shook beneath him, saw the desperate little flutters of her hips seeking friction, chasing release.
And yet—
She said nothing.
She would not.
Not even now.
The realization hit him with the slow, molten weight of understanding, sinking deep into the marrow of his bones.
'Ah.'
Of course.
How could he have been so foolish?
Elysia—his cold, brilliant, stubborn maid—wasn't the kind of woman who could just break with one night of pleasure. She wasn't a lock to be picked open in a single thrust. She wasn't a battle to win with the right words or the right pressure.
She was a fortress.
