His scarred fingers found your shoulder, brushing against it with a touch that felt both deliberate and impossibly light. In the mirror before you, his gaze held yours—not directly, but through your reflection, unwavering, intent.

Slowly, almost ceremoniously, he began to loosen the laces of your corset. Each thread slipped free beneath his hands as though time itself had softened, stretched to accommodate the intimacy of the moment.

His thumb traced the line of your spine, unhurried, drifting downward along the gentle curve of your back until it came to rest at your lower spine. There, his touch pressed—firm, grounding.

“I don’t like the thought of you wearing this, princess,” he murmured, his voice quieter now, edged with something softer, harder to name. “It’s too tight.” His breath brushed warm against your neck. “What if you can’t breathe, tonight… in the crowd, beneath all those eyes?”

At last, the corset loosened completely, slipping away from your body and falling to the floor in a hush of fabric. His gaze followed the motion only briefly before returning to you—to the bare expanse of your back, now unguarded.

There was a quiet reverence in the way his fingertips traced you again, softer this time, almost hesitant—as if aware he had already crossed a line he could not uncross.

He should have stopped. Should have reminded himself of the hour, of the waiting carriage, of the ball.

But he didn’t.

“Stay,” he said at last, the word low, nearly swallowed by the silence between you. “Just for tonight… stay a little longer. Indulge me.”