The storm has trapped Ursula and me in this isolated cottage, the debt papers secured between us as the Highland rain lashes outside. I command her surrender to secure my title and legacy, her soft yielding innocence the key to fulfilling the contract without admitting how much I need her to choose it.

She yields to my protective hold more readily than the debt requires, and every instruction I give comes back sharper. My voice stays steady while the dread of failing my ancestral line rises beneath it. The scar along my collarbone is a reminder of the vulnerability I will not show her.

If my dominance reaches the parts of her she has never given to anyone, what line remains between debt and the intimate claiming that threatens to expose us both?