The city was quiet beneath the dawn, but Justina couldn’t hear it.

Her wrists still tingled where Carson’s tie had bound them, silk pressing so tight it left faint imprints in her skin. She lay sprawled across the sheets, every muscle languid, her body spent in ways she didn’t want to admit.

Carson had broken her last night or maybe she had broken herself, giving in, answering his touch with shameless cries she could never take back.

And yet, even in the haze of pleasure, she hadn’t ...