"Relax, Chloe. Think of it as a routine medical intervention."
Victor's voice was low and magnetic, carrying an unquestionable professional authority.
The rough pads of his fingers pressed against my inner thigh. My skin there was burning hot. I couldn't tell whether it was from the steam in the sauna or from the desire raging wildly inside me.
I lay stiffly on the wooden sauna bench, both hands clutching the towel beneath me.
My reason screamed at me to push him away and run.
He was my brother-in-law, Liam's older brother.
But the moment his large, calloused hands truly touched my skin, every bit of strength I had to resist seemed to drain out of me.
With the calm precision of a doctor, he easily pulled away the last piece of fabric I had been using to cover myself.
Exposed beneath his intensely invasive gaze, I closed my eyes in shame. My lashes trembled.
I could feel his eyes moving over my body, almost like a physical touch, until they finally stopped at the most private part of me.
"Relax, Chloe. I'm a doctor. To me, you're only a patient who needs help."
Victor's voice was soft and reassuring, but his movements were nothing like his composed tone.
His warm palm settled over me. The rough pads of his fingers carried a shivering kind of magic as he began his so-called examination.
It was only a light, testing touch at first, but it was enough to make me suck in a sharp breath.
A fierce current shot from his fingertips straight up my spine. In an instant, my body went soft beneath him, melting helplessly and opening to him even more.
"This is what Liam means by 'dry'?"
Victor laughed. Quiet, sharp, with no warmth in it. The sound bounced off the walls of the small sauna, pure mockery.
"Looks like my i***t brother isn't just useless. He's blind too. You're already soaked."
Hearing him talk about my body like that—and tear Liam apart in the same breath—made my face burn. And underneath all of it, somewhere I didn't want to look, a thrill I couldn't name.
"He... he said I was too tight," I bit my lip and whispered it, barely above a breath. "Like sandpaper..."
Victor's eyes darkened.
His finger pressed harder. Pushed deeper.
"Ah..."
Caught off guard, I arched my slender neck and let out a soft, sweet cry.
"What does he know?" Victor's voice was cold, edged with something close to disgust. "There is nothing physically frigid about you. Your tightness is a treasure wasted on a mediocre man who can barely last three minutes. He can't handle you because he's weak. Not because you're broken."
His words landed like a fist breaking through glass.
Every cruel thing Liam had ever said to me, every night I'd lain awake convinced something inside me was wrong—it all cracked apart at once.
I wasn't broken.
Liam was. Liam had been all along.
"That said," Victor went on, his tone shifting back into something almost clinical, like he was actually delivering a diagnosis, "There is something wrong with you. Prolonged emotional repression combined with an unsatisfying marriage has given you what we call stress-induced pelvic floor spasm. Your body has been unconsciously rejecting Liam's touch. That's why it tenses up defensively the moment he tries."
I blinked up at him through the haze, looking into that handsome, deceptively gentle face. My head was spinning.
"Then... how do I treat it?"
"Standard medical instruments won't touch a spasm this deep." Victor looked down at me, his eyes dark enough to swallow me whole. "What you need is a very particular kind of physical dilation therapy."
"Physical... dilation?" I echoed, dazed.
"That's right." The corner of his mouth curved into something dangerous. "You need a man who's exceptionally well-endowed. Someone who can give you deep, forceful physical dilation. Every. Single. Day. Only raw masculine power can stretch those clenched muscles open, retrain your body, wake up the sensitivity you've been buried under for so long."
I shook my head, more tears slipping down my cheeks. "This is insane... Where am I supposed to find a man like that? And if Liam ever found out—"
"You don't have to find anyone."
Victor cut me off. He straightened up suddenly, and his long fingers came to rest on the edge of the towel at his hips.
Under my stare, the white towel slipped free and dropped to the wet wooden floor.
My eyes flew open. The breath died in my throat.
What stood in front of me now was a body built like a weapon—every line of him carved, packed with explosive strength. But what made my blood run cold, what stole the air out of my lungs, was what hung between his thighs.
Beyond anything I'd thought a man could be. Thick veins twisting along its length, the whole of it brutal and feral and so heavy with menace I couldn't look away.
And suddenly Mia's voice came back to me—the broken pleading from the other room, the sobbing, the begging.
"Too big."
"I can't. "
"I can't take it."
Now I understood.
This wasn't something a normal woman could handle.
"I'm sorry to startle you, Chloe." Victor watched my stunned expression, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction. "I'll be honest with you. I have a rare condition. Macrophallus. My size is something most women simply can't accommodate. It's the reason Mia has been avoiding my bed for so long."
He took a single slow step forward. The full weight of his presence closed over me, suffocating.
"You have a spasm condition. You need extreme dilation. I'm exceptionally endowed. I need a woman tight enough to take all of me." Victor's voice dropped into something rough and silken at once, the kind of voice that bypassed thought entirely. "Chloe. We were made for each other. Let me be your medicine. Let me deliver the treatment myself."
Looking at this body built like a weapon. Feeling the raw possessiveness coming off him in waves. The last thin thread of reason in my mind snapped.
He was Liam's brother. My husband's brother. This was a sin. This crossed every line I'd been raised to respect.
But after months of cold cruelty from the man who was supposed to love me, months of being told I was broken, frigid, defective—
How was I supposed to say no to this?
I said nothing.
I just trembled, and slowly, slowly, let my legs fall open.
Consent without words. Surrender without language.
Victor's throat worked. Hard.
Then he was on me. Like a predator who'd finally locked onto its prey. He dropped over me, his hands closing around my waist with bruising force, and pressed the scalding, brutal weight of himself against my trembling entrance.
The sheer size of him sent a shock of pressure crawling up my spine to the back of my skull.
"Chloe." His teeth caught my earlobe. His breath came hot and ragged against the hollow of my throat. "Once I start, I'm not stopping. Not for anything."
His back tensed. Every muscle in him gathering. He was about to drive into me—all of him, all at once—
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Footsteps. Just outside the sauna.
Then Liam's voice came through the glass door, edged with impatience. Clear and unmistakable.
"Victor? You in there?"
Every drop of blood in my body went to ice.
My eyes flew to the frosted glass door, wide and stricken.
The handle was turning slowly.