On the second floor of the warehouse in their own private room, Madison and Zion spent their time being intimate. Madison straddled Zion’s hips, knees sunk deep into the mattress on either side of him, her mouth moving slow and deliberate along the strong column of his neck. Each kiss left a faint sheen of heat; she could feel his pulse jumping under her lips.

“Gotta talk to you ‘bout somethin’, Maddy,” he said, in a low voice full of reluctance.

“Hm?” “I got a letter of consideration. My folks are really thinking ‘bout meeting them and if they do, I'mma have to go,” he said. Madison went still, then pulled back far enough to see his face. In Paradise, letters of consideration were informal proposals sent between families to explore potential marriages. While Madison's family had received and rejected several such letters, Zion's family was known for securing advantageous marriages through similar arrangements. “What are you going to do if your parents accept?” Madison asked, though she already knew the answer.

Zion sighed, “Let's just hope they don't.” “You're going to have to get married eventually,” she said flatly.

His jaw flexed. “I ain’t marryin’ nobody but you.”

The words caused a flutter in Madison's stomach. For a second, she couldn’t breathe. Then she leaned down and kissed him hard, trying to pour everything she couldn’t say into the slide of her tongue against his.

When they broke apart, both breathing faster, his hands had slipped under her tank top, palms hot against the curve of her back. But he knew their boundaries well. Her virginity wasn’t hers to give away; it belonged to whichever companion house she would enter to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. A man could bed a hundred mistresses and still brag for the rest of his life if one of them had been untouched when he took her.

Everything else, however, was fair game, and they’d long since learned every inch of that territory with mouths and fingers and the desperate push of bodies in the dark.

They slept with whoever they wanted outside these walls, no jealousy, no claims. Yet every time they came back here, it felt like coming home. Zion’s voice dropped to a rough whisper against her lips as he rolled her beneath him. “I can find an excuse - tell my folks I left for church early or somethin’ - if you can stay here with me tonight.”

“You know I'm Daria's ride. She’ll go crazy if I don’t bring her home.” “We’ll figure something out, just say you'll stay with me,” he said.

“Okay,” she breathed.

He smiled then, small and real, like the world could wait a few more hours.