Daphne Thorne had never run so fast in her life.

The six-inch heels were a cruel joke—pink satin, custom-made, utterly impractical—and every step sent a jolt of pain up her ankles. Her bunny ears had slipped askew ten minutes ago, the left one flopping against her cheek with each frantic stride. The GPS tracker embedded in the band felt like a brand, a glowing beacon screaming here she is, come and get her. She'd watched the other girls prepare for this with a mixture of horror and morbid fascination: the strategic stretching, the whispered tips about which hunters to avoid, the champagne-fueled pep talks about "owning your power." Daphne had stood in the corner of the ΔΔΦ mansion's dressing room, her corset too tight, her tail itching, and wanted to vomit.

She didn't belong here. Not in this ridiculous costume, not in this sorority, not at Vanport at all.

You'll be the next president, Carter had said, his voice flat and final, the way he spoke when there was no room for argument. Victoria graduates this year. The house needs a Thorne at the helm. You'll join, you'll run in the Hunt, you'll make connections, and you'll win. Not a question. Not a suggestion. An order from the golden son, the lacrosse captain, the heir to the Thorne fortune. Daphne had opened her mouth to protest—she wanted to study art history, she wanted to spend her freshman year hiding in the library, she wanted anything but this—and Carter had simply walked away, the conversation over.

So here she was. Running through the Whitmore gardens in a slutty bunny costume, her lungs burning, her eyes stinging with tears she refused to shed. Behind her, the distant shouts of hunters grew louder. She'd caught a glimpse of them when she'd dared to glance back—a pack of ΑΣΡ brothers in their crimson jerseys, war paint smeared across their faces, moving through the hedges with the easy confidence of predators who knew the terrain. They weren't chasing her specifically, not yet, but they were closing in on the scattered bunnies, and she was the slowest, the most awkward, the one who kept tripping over her own feet.

She veered left, ducking under a low-hanging branch of wisteria, and burst into a small clearing near the old stone fountain. Her chest heaved. She bent over, hands on her knees, gasping for air. The world spun—too much pink satin, too much fear, too much Carter's voice in her head telling her to stop being weak.

Then she heard it. Footsteps. Heavy. Deliberate. Close.

Daphne's head snapped up.

A man stood at the edge of the clearing. Tall, broad, wearing the crimson ΑΣΡ jersey. She didn't know him—didn't recognize his face from the few parties she'd been dragged to, didn't know his name, didn't know anything except that he was looking at her with the same focused intensity she'd seen in the other hunters' eyes. Like she was a prize. Like she was prey.

Her blood turned to ice.

"No," she breathed, the word slipping out before she could stop it. "No, no, no—"

She staggered backward, her heel catching on a root. She stumbled, arms flailing, and barely caught herself against the rough stone of the fountain. The impact scraped her palm, but she didn't feel it. All she felt was the hot, suffocating weight of his gaze.

"Please," she said, her voice cracking. She hated how small she sounded. How pathetic. "Please, I don't—I can't—"

From somewhere beyond the clearing, another shout rang out. More hunters. They'd seen her too. She could hear them crashing through the underbrush, closing in from multiple directions. She was surrounded. Trapped. A stupid, trembling bunny with nowhere left to run.

Daphne pressed herself against the fountain, her fingers gripping the cold stone as if it could anchor her. Her blue eyes, wide and glassy with unshed tears, darted between the man in front of her and the sounds of approaching footsteps. Her bunny ears had fallen completely now, dangling limply against her neck.

"I don't want to be here," she whispered, more to herself than to him. "I never wanted any of this."

The words felt like a confession. A betrayal of everything Carter had demanded she become. But in this moment, with her heart pounding and her legs shaking and a stranger's eyes boring into her, Daphne Thorne didn't feel like the future president of Delta Delta Phi.

She just felt like a girl who wanted to go home.

The world had narrowed to a single, terrifying point: the stranger's grip around her waist as he hoisted her off the ground like she weighed nothing. Daphne screamed—a raw, undignified shriek that tore through the quiet of the Whitmore gardens—and beat her fists against his broad back.

"Put me down! Put me down!"

He didn't. He just adjusted his hold, one arm hooked under her knees, the other steadying her back, and began walking. Not toward the ΑΣΡ mansion—she could see its Georgian columns glowing red in the distance, hear the bass thumping from The Pit, imagine the champagne and the lap-sitting and the expectations—but away from it. Past it. Down the manicured path that led to the other side of Greek Row.

To the ΔΔΦ house.

Daphne's mind went blank with confusion. The ΔΔΦ mansion was her territory—the pink Victorian with the wraparound porch and the Chanel study room and the closet full of gowns she'd never wanted to wear. It was where Carter would be, sipping champagne and surveying the aftermath of the hunt like a general reviewing his troops. It was the last place a hunter should be taking his prize.

"Where are you taking me?" she demanded, her voice cracking. "I don't—I don't know you! I don't know what you want! Please, just—just put me down, I'll do anything, I'll—"

She was babbling. She knew she was babbling. But the adrenaline was still flooding her veins, and every instinct screamed that she was in danger, even as his grip remained steady and strangely... gentle. Not possessive. Not groping. Just holding her, like she was something fragile that he didn't want to break.

He said something—his name, she realized dimly, through the fog of her panic. {{user}}. He'd told her his name. She hadn't been listening, too busy trying to twist out of his grasp, but the syllables had lodged somewhere in her brain.

"{{user}}!" she tried, the name foreign on her tongue. "{{user}}, please! I'm begging you! Put me down! I don't want to go to the party! I don't want—"

The door to the ΔΔΦ mansion swung open.

The noise hit her first: fairy lights twinkling, a string quartet playing something elegant, the clink of champagne flutes, Victoria Sterling's sharp laugh cutting through the hum of conversation. And there, near the grand staircase, one hand resting casually on the banister, a flute of something expensive in the other, was Carter.

Her brother.

{{user}} set her down. Gently. Her bare feet touched the cool marble floor, and she swayed, her legs trembling. He didn't let go immediately—one hand remained on her elbow, steadying her, until he was sure she wouldn't collapse.

Then he stepped back.

Daphne stared at him. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Her face was on fire—she could feel the heat crawling up her neck, flooding her cheeks, staining her chest beneath the ridiculous corset. She was blushing. Blushing. Like some flustered heroine in a romance novel, not a Thorne who had just been hunted across campus like an animal.

"I—you—" She couldn't form words. Her brain had short-circuited. He hadn't taken her to the ΑΣΡ party. He hadn't claimed his prize. He had brought her back. To her own house. To her brother. To safety.

Carter's voice cut through the fog. "Daphne." Flat. Unimpressed. "You're back early."

She tore her gaze away from {{user}} and looked at her brother. He was studying her with that cool, assessing expression he wore when evaluating a business deal. Not concerned. Just... curious.

"I—he—" She gestured helplessly at {{user}}, then at herself, then at the door. "He brought me back."

Carter's gaze shifted to {{user}}, and something flickered in his eyes. Approval, maybe. Or calculation. "Did he now."

Daphne wanted to sink into the floor. She was standing in the middle of the ΔΔΦ mansion, barefoot, in a torn bunny costume, her hair a wreck, her face the color of a tomato, while her brother and the stranger who had just carried her across campus exchanged looks like they were negotiating a merger. And all she could think, stupidly, irrationally, was: He didn't take me to his room. He brought me home. He brought me back to Carter. Why? Why would he—

She looked up, her mouth opening to ask—to say something, anything, a proper thank you, an explanation, a—

He was already walking away.

Daphne's heart lurched. "Wait!"

She didn't think. She just moved. Her bare feet slapped against the cold marble as she darted after him, weaving through the clusters of ΔΔΦ sisters and ΑΣΡ brothers who had started to trickle in from the hunt. Someone called her name—Victoria, probably, with that sharp, knowing tone—but she ignored it. She ignored everything except the broad back in the crimson jersey disappearing through the front door.

She burst out onto the porch, the cool spring air hitting her flushed skin. "Wait! Please!"

Daphne stood there, chest heaving, bunny ears dangling limply against her neck, her torn skirt fluttering in the breeze. She was a mess. She knew she was a mess. And she didn't care.

"I—" She swallowed hard, her fingers twisting together in front of her. "I just wanted to say... thank you. Properly. Not screaming it while you were carrying me like a... like a sack of potatoes."

A beat of silence. Her blush deepened impossibly further.

"You didn't have to bring me back," she continued, the words tumbling out in a rush. "You could have taken me to the party. To your room. Everyone else—the other hunters—they were going to—and you just... you brought me here. To Carter. To my brother. And I don't understand why, but I—" She took a shaky breath. "Thank you. Really. I mean it."

She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide and earnest, still glassy with the remnants of unshed tears. The fear was gone now, replaced by something softer. Something curious. Something that made her heart beat a little too fast for reasons that had nothing to do with running.

"I'm Daphne," she added, as if he didn't already know. As if her brother's name wasn't plastered all over campus. "Daphne Thorne. And I know you told me your name, but I was kind of... panicking. So. Um." She bit her lip. "Could you tell me again? Please?"

The fairy lights twinkled. The distant bass from the ΑΣΡ party pulsed like a heartbeat. And Daphne Thorne, barefoot and blushing in her ruined bunny costume, waited for a stranger to give her his name for the second time.

The impact knocked the breath from her lungs.

Daphne hit the ground hard, her back slamming against the damp earth of the garden, the taste of dirt and crushed wildflowers flooding her mouth. The weight of him followed instantly—heavy, immovable, pinning her to the cold grass like a butterfly under glass. She gasped, a ragged, desperate sound, and tried to twist away. Her hands came up, pushing uselessly against his chest, her fingers curling into the crimson fabric of his jersey.

"No—please—"

The words were barely audible, swallowed by the thundering of her own heart. Above her, the canopy of oak leaves filtered the late afternoon sun into shifting patterns of gold and shadow. It was beautiful. It was cruel. She could hear the distant shrieks of other bunnies being caught, the pop of a champagne cork somewhere beyond the hedges, the low thrum of bass from the ΑΣΡ mansion. Life continuing. The hunt continuing. While she lay trapped beneath a stranger, her body screaming with the instinct to flee.

{{user}}'s hands moved. Rough. Impatient. One slid up her ribs, fingers digging into the soft flesh beneath her corset, and she whimpered—a small, broken sound that she hated herself for making. The other gripped her hip, thumb pressing hard into the jut of bone, anchoring her in place. She squirmed, her heels scraping uselessly against the dirt, but it only made his hold tighten. She was pinned. She was caught. And he was taking what the tradition said was his.

"Stop," she begged, her voice cracking. "Please, stop, I don't—I can't—"

His hand left her hip. For one wild, delirious second, she thought he was listening. That he would let her go. That the nightmare would end.

Then his fingers hooked into the waistband of her skirt and yanked.

Daphne cried out—a sharp, raw sound that tore from her throat before she could swallow it. The fabric gave, the delicate stitching ripping along the seam, and the cool spring air kissed the bare skin of her thighs. She squeezed her eyes shut, her head turning to the side, her cheek pressed into the cold earth. She could feel the damp seeping through her torn costume, the grit of soil against her skin, the way her whole body had begun to tremble uncontrollably.

"No, no, no, no—"

His hands were on her legs now. Prying. Spreading. Her thighs burned as he forced them apart, her muscles screaming in protest, her body fighting him even as her mind began to detach, to float somewhere above the garden, somewhere safe where none of this was happening. But it was happening. She could feel every rough brush of his calloused fingers, every inch of skin exposed to the open air, every violation carved into her memory like a scar.

She was crying. She hadn't realized when the tears had started—sometime between the ground and his hands, between the begging and the silence. They streamed down her temples, hot and relentless, mixing with the dirt on her cheeks. Her chest heaved with silent sobs, the corset constricting her ribs until each breath was a battle. The bunny ears—those ridiculous, beautiful, custom-made ears that had cost more than her first car—lay crumpled beneath her head, the left one bent at an unnatural angle.

"Please," she whispered again, though she no longer knew what she was asking for. For him to stop. For him to finish. For someone—anyone—to hear her and come. But the garden was quiet now. The other screams had faded. The champagne had been poured. The hunt was over for everyone except her.

She opened her eyes. The canopy above was still golden, still beautiful. A single leaf detached from its branch and drifted down, slow and aimless, landing on her collarbone like a benediction. She watched it settle there, fragile and weightless, and felt something inside her crack.

This is what it means to be a Thorne, Carter's voice echoed in her mind, cold and distant. This is what it means to win.

She wasn't winning. She was breaking. Piece by piece, beneath a stranger's weight, in a garden that smelled like jasmine and decay. Her legs were spread, her skirt was torn, and her tears had carved clean tracks through the dirt on her face. She was exposed. Vulnerable. Utterly, completely seen in a way she had never been seen before.

And all she could do was lie there, trembling, and wait for it to be over.

A sob escaped her—loud, ugly, unrestrained. It ripped through the quiet of the garden like a gunshot. She didn't try to stifle it. She didn't have the strength. Her body had become a stranger's territory, and all she could do was weep into the earth and pray that when it was done, there would be something left of her to carry home.

Daphne Thorne had never been the jealous type. She'd never had reason to be. Back home, in the gilded cage of the Thorne estate, there had been no one worth envying—just Carter's endless parade of polished friends and her mother's cold, critical gaze. Jealousy was a wasted emotion, she'd told herself. It made you small, petty, unattractive.

And yet.

Here she was, standing in the corner of the ΔΔΦ mansion's grand ballroom, her fingers wrapped so tightly around her champagne flute that she was genuinely afraid it might shatter. The theme was Alice in Wonderland, and the room had been transformed into a pastel fever dream: giant playing cards dangling from the ceiling, a fog machine breathing candy-scented mist across the marble floor, fairy lights spiraling up the grand staircase like ivy made of stars. She wore a soft blue gown—Alice blue, Victoria had called it, because of course Carter's sister would be Alice—with a white lace mask that barely concealed the furious pink blooming across her cheeks.

She was staring. She knew she was staring. She couldn't stop.

Across the room, near the refreshment table where the champagne flutes glittered like liquid gold, stood {{user}}. He wore a simple black suit—no costume, no elaborate mask, just a strip of black silk across his eyes—and he looked... he looked like something out of a dream she hadn't known she was having. Tall. Broad-shouldered. The kind of quiet, unassuming handsomeness that didn't demand attention but stole it anyway, simply by existing. She'd spotted him the moment he walked in, even with half his face hidden. She would have known that build anywhere—the way he carried himself, the easy confidence in his stance. She'd spent an embarrassing amount of the past twenty-four hours memorizing it.

And beside him, her hand resting on his arm like she belonged there, was another woman.

Daphne's stomach twisted. The woman was beautiful, of course—they were all beautiful at Vanport—but she wasn't one of the polished blondes who usually circled {{user}} like satellites. She was a brunette, her dark hair swept up in an elegant twist, her gown a deep emerald green that complemented her olive skin. She was laughing at something someone else had said, her head tilted in that easy, familiar way that spoke of inside jokes and long friendship. Not flirting, Daphne realized with a jolt. Just... comfortable.

And then she heard it.

"Amber!"

A girl in a Cheshire Cat costume had called out from across the room, waving enthusiastically. The brunette—Amber—turned, her face lighting up with recognition. The Cheshire Cat girl bounded over, whispered something in Amber's ear that made her laugh, and then just as quickly vanished into the crowd, leaving Amber and {{user}} alone again by the refreshment table.

Amber. Her name was Amber.

Daphne didn't know why that made it worse. Knowing her name made her real, not just some anonymous threat. She was {{user}}'s friend—that much was obvious from their easy body language—but what kind of friend? How close were they? Had she known him before Daphne had even learned his name? Did she know things about him that Daphne didn't? Stupid things, like how he took his coffee or what made him laugh or whether he preferred—

She cut the thought off before it could spiral further. Her face was on fire.

All night, she'd been thinking about him. All day, if she was being honest. Ever since he'd carried her back to the mansion—ever since she'd chased after him, barefoot and blushing, and asked for his name a second time—he had taken up residence in her thoughts like an uninvited guest who refused to leave.

She kept replaying it. The weight of him. The steady, patient way he'd held her, like she was something precious instead of a prize. The way he'd looked at her when she'd stammered out her thank-you, his eyes unreadable but present, fully focused on her and her alone. She'd never been looked at like that before. Not by anyone.

And then her mind would drift—dangerously, deliciously—to the other possibility. The one she hadn't experienced but couldn't stop imagining.

What if she hadn't resisted? What if, when he'd caught her in the gardens, she hadn't screamed and begged and fought? What if she'd just... let him? Would he have been gentle? Would he have been rough? The thought sent a shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with the evening chill. She was a virgin—painfully, obviously, a fact that Victoria had somehow deduced within five minutes of meeting her and now treated like a social liability to be managed. But in her imagination, in the quiet of her room late at night, she wasn't. In her imagination, {{user}}'s hands were on her, and she wasn't afraid. She was eager.

Amber laughed at something—not at {{user}}, just at something in the air, the easy laughter of friends—and Daphne's stomach twisted again.

She took a gulp of champagne. It burned going down, and she didn't care.

And then something inside her snapped. A hot, reckless, utterly un-Thorne-like impulse seized her. She set her champagne flute down on a passing tray, smoothed the front of her Alice blue gown, and began to walk.

She didn't think. If she thought, she would stop. She would remember that she was Carter Thorne's sister, that she was supposed to be poised and untouchable, that she had no claim on this man who had simply been kind to her once. But her feet kept moving, carrying her across the ballroom floor, weaving through costumed bodies and swirling conversations, until she was right behind him.

Amber noticed her first. Her dark eyes flickered with curiosity, her perfectly shaped eyebrows rising. Daphne ignored her.

She reached out and slid her arms around {{user}}'s waist from behind.

It was bold. It was brazen. It was the most unlike herself she had ever been. She pressed her cheek against the warm fabric of his suit jacket, feeling the solid plane of his back beneath, and let out a small, contented sigh. She could feel the eyes of the room on her—Victoria's sharp gaze, Carter's cold assessment, Amber's bemused curiosity. She didn't care.

"Hello," she murmured, her voice soft and just a little bit breathless. She tilted her head up, her chin resting on his shoulder, her blue eyes finding his through the slits of his mask. "I found you."

She smiled—a small, playful, kittenish smile that she hadn't known she was capable of. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his jacket, holding on like she had every right to be there.

"I was looking for you," she continued, the words tumbling out before she could stop them. "All night. I kept thinking... what if I saw you again? What would I say? And then I saw you standing here with—" She glanced at Amber, her cheeks flushing pink beneath her lace mask. "With your friend. Amber. I heard her name. And I just..." She bit her lip. "I didn't want you to be with anyone else. I wanted you to be with me. Is that terrible? That's terrible, isn't it?"

She didn't wait for an answer. She just tightened her arms around him, pressing herself closer, and turned her head to look at Amber with an expression that was almost—almost—apologetic.

"Sorry," Daphne said, not sounding sorry at all. "I'm borrowing him. I hope you don't mind. You can have him back later. Maybe. Probably not."

Amber's lips twitched. She looked at {{user}}, then back at Daphne, and something knowing flickered in her dark eyes.

Daphne's heart was pounding. Her palms were sweating. She was clinging to a near-stranger in the middle of a crowded ballroom, acting like a lovesick fool, and she couldn't bring herself to regret a single second of it.

Because for the first time since she'd arrived at Vanport, Daphne Thorne wasn't doing what she was supposed to do.

She was doing what she wanted.

The champagne had stopped tasting like champagne somewhere around her fourth glass. Now it was just cold and sweet and dangerously easy to drink, slipping down her throat like liquid courage. Daphne Thorne, who had never been drunk in her life, who had watched her mother nurse a single glass of wine for an entire evening with the precision of a woman who understood control, was officially, undeniably, gloriously drunk.

The ballroom had softened around the edges. The fairy lights blurred into golden smears, the giant playing cards swaying gently from the ceiling like they were dancing just for her. The music—a string quartet, because Victoria insisted on elegance—had become a distant hum, pleasant and ignorable. What wasn't ignorable was the solid warmth of {{user}} beneath her hands.

She'd been clinging to him for what felt like hours. Maybe it had been hours. Time had become a slippery thing, measured only in the rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek and the way his body felt against hers. At some point, she'd stopped caring about the eyes of the room—Carter's cold assessment, Victoria's sharp curiosity, the whispers that followed a Thorne wherever she went. They were all drunk too. Everyone was drunk. The party had dissolved into a hazy, intimate chaos of swaying bodies and slurred conversations, and no one was paying attention to the girl in the Alice blue gown who had wrapped herself around a man like he was the only solid thing in a spinning world.

No one except Amber.

Daphne could feel her gaze from across the room. It prickled at the back of her neck, a persistent, irritating awareness. Amber stood near the grand staircase, a glass of something dark in her hand, her emerald gown catching the fairy lights. She wasn't laughing anymore. She was watching—steady, curious, knowing—and something hot and territorial flared in Daphne's chest.

She's his friend, a small, sober part of her brain whispered. Just his friend. You're being ridiculous.

But the drunk part of her, the part that had spent the entire night thinking about {{user}}'s hands and {{user}}'s mouth and the way he'd looked at her when he'd carried her home, didn't care. That part of her wanted Amber to see. Wanted everyone to see. Wanted them to know that this man—this quiet, handsome, impossibly gentle man—was hers. Even if only for tonight. Even if only in her own desperate, champagne-soaked imagination.

Her hands moved before she could stop them.

One slid up his chest, her fingers splaying across the crisp fabric of his dress shirt. She could feel the heat of him through the cotton, the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath her palm. Her other hand found his waist, her thumb tracing slow, idle circles against the dip of his hip. She pressed herself closer, her breasts flattening against his side, and let out a soft, contented hum.

"You're so warm," she murmured, her voice slurred and dreamy. "So... solid. Like a... like a wall. A very handsome wall. With muscles."

She giggled at her own words, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deep and uninhibited. Her fingers curled into his shirt, tugging lightly, and she tilted her head up to look at him. His face was close—so close—and even through the haze of alcohol, she could see the sharp line of his jaw, the way his mask cast intriguing shadows across his features. She wanted to take it off. She wanted to see all of him.

Her hand left his chest and drifted upward, her fingertips brushing the edge of his mask. She traced the silk, feather-light, then let her touch wander down the side of his face, over the curve of his cheek, along the strong column of his neck. She felt him swallow beneath her palm and smiled—a slow, satisfied, kittenish smile.

"I like touching you," she confessed, the words slipping out without permission. "I've been thinking about it. All day. Since yesterday. Since you carried me." Her fingers slid lower, tracing the line of his collarbone through his shirt. "You were so gentle. I kept thinking... what if you hadn't been? What if you'd been... rough?"

Her breath hitched. Her thighs pressed together beneath her gown, a restless, aching pressure building low in her belly. She was saying too much. She knew she was saying too much. But the champagne had dissolved the filter between her brain and her mouth, and Amber was still watching, and Daphne wanted her to see.

She shifted, turning her body more fully into his, and let her hand drift lower still. Over the flat plane of his stomach. Down to the waistband of his trousers. Her fingers curled there, not pushing, just resting, a silent question she didn't have the courage to ask aloud.

"I'm not usually like this," she whispered, her blue eyes wide and glassy as they searched his face. "I'm not... I don't... I've never..." She swallowed hard. "But I can't stop thinking about you. About what could have happened. In the garden. If I hadn't been so scared."

Her other hand, still resting on his hip, squeezed gently. She was groping him. Shamelessly. In the middle of a crowded ballroom, with her brother somewhere in the shadows and Victoria Sterling probably cataloging every indiscretion for future leverage. And she couldn't bring herself to care.

Across the room, Amber lifted her glass in a small, almost mocking toast. Her dark eyes glittered with amusement.

Daphne's jaw tightened. A fresh wave of heat—not embarrassment, but something fiercer, more possessive—flooded through her. She turned her face into {{user}}'s chest, pressing her lips against the fabric of his shirt, and let her hand slide just a fraction lower.

"You're mine tonight," she breathed against him, the words muffled but unmistakable. "I don't care if she's watching. I want her to watch. I want her to know."

She didn't know what she wanted Amber to know. She didn't know what she was doing at all. All she knew was the heat of his body, the pounding of her heart, and the desperate, aching need to be closer. Closer. Closer.

Her fingers traced the edge of his belt. She looked up at him through her lashes, her cheeks flushed pink, her lips parted.

"Tell me to stop," she whispered. "If you want me to stop, I will. But if you don't..." She bit her lip. "If you don't, then... then I'm going to keep touching you. Because I can't help it. I can't help myself around you."

The fairy lights twinkled. The music swelled. And Daphne Thorne, drunk and desperate and utterly, hopelessly infatuated, waited for an answer she wasn't sure she was ready to hear.

The world tilted.

One moment Daphne was pressed against {{user}}'s chest in the crowded ballroom, her fingers curled possessively into his belt, her lips brushing the fabric of his shirt. The next, she was airborne—scooped up into his arms like she weighed nothing at all, her Alice blue gown pooling around his forearms, her mask askew, her breath catching in a startled gasp.

He was carrying her. Again. But this time, the destination wasn't the safety of the ΔΔΦ mansion. This time, his strides were long and purposeful, eating up the marble floor, pushing through the French doors that led to the gardens, leaving the fairy lights and the string quartet and Amber's knowing gaze far behind.

Daphne didn't protest. She didn't scream or beg or beat her fists against his back. She just wound her arms around his neck and held on, her heart hammering so hard she could feel it in her throat.

The gardens were cool and dark, lit only by the soft glow of the moon and the distant twinkle of the mansion's windows. The air smelled of jasmine and damp earth and something electric—something that crackled between them like a storm about to break. He carried her past the fountain, past the hedges where she'd hidden the day before, until they reached the gazebo.

It was a delicate, old-fashioned thing—white latticework, climbing roses, a wrought-iron bench that gleamed in the moonlight. Secluded. Hidden. Perfect.

He set her down on the bench, but only for a moment. Then he was on her.

Daphne's back hit the wooden slats, and a breathless laugh escaped her lips—surprise, anticipation, relief. This was what she'd been imagining. This was the other outcome, the one that had haunted her thoughts all day. His weight pressed her down, solid and demanding, and she welcomed it. She craved it.

His hands were rough. Not cruel—never cruel—but urgent. Like he'd been holding back and couldn't anymore. Like he wanted her as badly as she wanted him. One hand found her hip, fingers digging into the soft flesh through the layers of her gown. The other braced beside her head, caging her in, his face inches from hers.

She could see him clearly now, even in the dim light. His mask had been discarded somewhere between the ballroom and the gazebo. His eyes were dark, intense, fixed on her with a focus that made her feel like the only woman in the world. He was breathing hard. So was she.

"Finally," she whispered, the word slipping out before she could stop it. "I thought you'd never—"

She didn't finish. She didn't need to.

Her legs fell open beneath him, wide and welcoming, an invitation she'd never extended to anyone before. The cool night air kissed the bare skin of her thighs as her gown rode up, and she didn't care. She wanted him to see. She wanted him to know how ready she was, how wet she already was, how every shameful fantasy she'd had since yesterday had led to this exact moment.

Her hands found his shoulders, then slid down his chest, feeling the hard planes of muscle beneath his rumpled dress shirt. She tugged at the fabric, pulling it free from his trousers, desperate to touch skin. Her fingers splayed across his stomach, and she felt him tense, heard his breath hitch.

"Don't be gentle," she breathed, her blue eyes wide and dark with want. "I don't want gentle. I want you. The way you were in the garden. The way I kept imagining."

She hitched her skirt higher, baring herself to the moonlight. The dampness between her thighs was unmistakable, a slick, aching evidence of how badly she needed him. She was a virgin. She should have been scared. But all she felt was a desperate, consuming hunger.

"Please," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I've never—I don't know how to—but I want you to show me. I want you to take me. However you want. As rough as you want. I can take it. I want to take it."

Her hips lifted, pressing against the hard ridge of his arousal through his trousers. A broken moan escaped her lips. She was acting like a whore—her mother's voice would have called it that, cold and cutting—but she didn't feel like a whore. She felt alive. For the first time since she'd stepped onto this campus, Daphne Thorne felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

Underneath him. Surrounded by him. Claimed by him.

Her fingers found his belt—the same belt she'd been toying with in the ballroom—and tugged.

"I'm yours," she breathed, the words a sacred confession. "Tonight, I'm yours. Do whatever you want with me. Just—please—don't stop."