His mouth was not a question. It was an annexation.
Kaia had been kissed before—clumsy, wet fumbles behind the stables with the stable boy, polite pecks on the hand from suitors who smelled like lavender and desperation. This was neither. This was the taste of dark tobacco, expensive whiskey, and absolute, terrifying authority.
He tasted like a man who didn't just want; he took.
She should have pushed him away. She should have slapped that handsome, arrogant face and run back to the safety of the ballroom, to the suffocating corset and Victoria's lectures. But when his tongue swept into her mouth, tangled with hers in a slow, deep rhythm that made her toes curl in her silk slippers, Kaia didn't push.
She pulled.
She grabbed the lapels of his velvet coat, dragging him closer, her body betraying her common sense with treasonous enthusiasm.
He groaned—a low, rough sound that vibrated against her chest—and broke the kiss, breathless. His forehead rested against hers, his breathing harsh. In the moonlight, his silver-grey eyes burned like molten steel.
"You have a sharp tongue, little sheep," he whispered, his voice stripped of all courtly polish. "I wonder if it's just as talented elsewhere."
Kaia's breath hitched. The innuendo was so blunt, so filthy, it felt like a slap. "You are no gentleman."
"I told you," he growled, his hands sliding down her waist to grip her hips through the thin muslin of her dress. "Tonight, I am no one."
He lifted her.
It wasn't a struggle. With a display of casual strength that made her head spin, he hoisted her up and sat her onto the cold stone plinth of the weeping nymph statue. Now, she was eye-level with him. The power dynamic shifted, but he was still the one in control.
"Spread your legs," he commanded.
It wasn't a request. It was an order, delivered in a tone that expected immediate obedience.
"Excuse me?" Kaia bristled, her rebellious streak flaring up even as heat pooled low in her belly. "You don't get to give me orders just because you have a nice jawline."
Aeron stared at her. For a moment, the mask of the "Golden Saint" flickered. He looked amused. Genuinely amused. "Is that so? Then why are your knees already parting?"
Kaia looked down. He was right. Her body was reacting to the command before her brain had even processed the insult. She flushed, a hot tide of color rising up her neck.
"That," she hissed, "is a muscular spasm."
"Liar," he murmured. He stepped between her legs, the heavy velvet of his coat brushing against her bare shins where her dress had ridden up. "Let me see you."
He reached out—not with the rough haste of a drunkard, but with the terrifying precision of a scholar. His bare hands, now free of the white gloves, grasped the hem of her pale blue dress.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he began to lift the fabric.
"If anyone sees us..." Kaia whispered, her voice trembling.
"Then let them look," Aeron said, his eyes locked on hers. "Let them see what ruin looks like."
He pushed the fabric up to her waist, bunching the expensive silk and muslin until her legs were bare to the cool night air.
Kaia felt exposed. Vulnerable. The moonlight washed over her pale skin, the sheer silk stockings held up by lace garters. She instinctively tried to close her legs, to hide, but Aeron's hands were there, warm and large, holding her knees apart.
He didn't touch her intimately. Not yet. He just... looked.
His gaze traveled over her legs like a physical caress, tracing the line of her calf, the curve of her thigh. It was voyeuristic. It was possessive. He was memorizing her.
"Beautiful," he breathed, the word sounding almost like a curse.
His gaze moved higher, stopping at the curve of her hip where the dress was bunched.
There, stark against her pale skin, was a small, heart-shaped birthmark.
He traced it with his thumb. The contact was electric, skin-on-skin, a jolt that went straight to her core.
"A heart," he mused, his voice dark. "How ironic. Do you have one, little sheep? Or is it just ice in there?"
"Fire," Kaia gasped as his thumb moved inward, brushing the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. "It's fire."
"Show me."
He dropped to his knees in the dirt.
Kaia gasped, her hands tangling in his golden hair—it was softer than it looked, like spun silk. "What are you doing?"
"Worshipping," he muttered.
He didn't fumble. He didn't ask. He knew exactly where to touch. His hands slid up her thighs, pushing the fabric higher, his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh. He found the slit in her open drawers—scandalous, practical things—and he didn't hesitate.
When his mouth touched her, Kaia forgot her name. She forgot her sister. She forgot the Emperor.
He was... precise.
He wasn't frantic. He worked her with a slow, rhythmic intensity that felt like torture. He used his tongue like a weapon, finding the sensitive bundle of nerves and teasing it, circling it, but never giving her the pressure she needed.
"Please," she whimpered, her hips bucking involuntarily. "More."
He pulled back, just an inch. "Beg me."
She opened her eyes, hazy with lust, to look down at him. He was looking up at her, his lips wet, his eyes dark with a hunger that terrified her. He wanted her to break. He wanted to see her unravel.
"Please," she begged, her pride crumbling into dust. "Please, touch me."
"Good girl."
He returned to his work, but this time, there was no mercy. He used his hand and his mouth in a synchronized assault that shattered her.
Kaia bit her own lip to stifle a scream. She couldn't be loud. They were twenty feet from the ballroom. The danger was a physical thing, a knife pressed to her throat, and it only made the pleasure sharper.
When the climax hit, it was blinding. She arched her back, her nails digging into his shoulders, her entire world narrowing down to the friction of his tongue and the heat of his breath.
She came apart in his arms, sobbing silently into the night.
Aeron stayed there for a moment, resting his forehead against her thigh, breathing in the scent of her—whiskey, lavender, and sex.
He stood up slowly. He looked wrecked. His hair was messy, his lips were swollen, and his eyes were wild. The "Paragon" was gone. The "Sinner" was standing in the moonlight, looking at her like he wanted to devour the rest of her.
"I need to know your name," he said, his voice raspy.
Kaia blinked, the reality of what they had just done crashing down on her. She was a Taryn. He was... someone important. If they knew names, this became real. This became treason.
"No," she whispered, scrambling off the plinth and shoving her dress down. Her hands shook as she adjusted her bodice. "No names. This... this was the whiskey. It was a mistake."
"It was the most honest thing you've ever done," he countered, reaching for her.
She dodged his hand. "Goodbye, stranger."
Kaia turned and ran. She ran through the hedges, past the weeping willow, and back toward the safety of the suffocating ballroom, leaving the golden-haired man standing alone in the dark, clutching a single white silk glove.