Chapter 22 Bennett #2
Every time the vibration grazed close to her clit, she pulled it away again, thighs trembling like she was fighting herself. Little did she know it was a losing battle.
“Spread yourself open for me,” I growled. “Let me see how wet you are.”
She obeyed instantly, widening her legs to expose her slick, swollen center.
Fuck, she’d been made for this. For me.
Bella had told me during our last night together, after I’d pinned her wrists above her head and coaxed another orgasm out of her with my tongue, that she liked it when I took control like this. Specifically because it helped quiet everything else in her head.
All the worries, the sensory nightmare, the ten different trains of thought that usually ran at once, they all went silent under my voice and hands.
It was the one time she didn’t have to decide anything. She could just feel.
That worked for me. I’d always preferred to take a more dominant role in the bedroom, and with Bella, I was downright feral. There was something about knowing I could unravel someone with nothing but my words—the ones that had taken me years to find—and the right grip.
And maybe, when the mood was right, a toy or two.
“Circle your clit,” I ordered.
She swirled the curved tip around her clit. Her back arched off the pillows, a broken, little moan spilling out.
“That’s it,” I growled. “Look at you, so needy. You love it when I tell you what to do, don’t you, baby?”
“Yes,” she gasped, hips rocking helplessly.
“That’s my good girl,” I said, the praise rolling out low and deliberate. “Keep teasing. You don’t get to come until I say. Not until you’re dripping down your thighs and begging me for it.”
Her eyes fluttered, but she didn’t look away. She just nodded, her breath coming faster, and did exactly what I told her.
“Bennett.”
My name came out shaky, needy. Exactly how I wanted her.
“Not yet, baby,” I growled. “Slide it lower. Trace your entrance with just the tip.”
She dragged the vibrator down, pressing the rounded head against her opening. Each shallow dip made her gasp. Her hips started rocking on their own, trying to take more, but she stopped herself.
“You’re being so good for me, Arabella. Look at you, all flushed and open and desperate. A fucking vision.”
My fist moved faster now, the sight of her torturing herself pushing me dangerously close to the edge.
“I want—” She broke off on a whine as the toy slipped over her clit again. “I need it inside me. Please.”
“Not yet.” I squeezed the base of my cock hard, staving off the ache. “Rub your clit with it until you’re shaking. I want you right on the edge before I let you fuck yourself.”
Bella’s eyes fluttered shut for a second, then snapped open again, fixed on me. She pressed the vibrator directly to her clit now, steady pressure, the gentle buzz making her whole body jolt.
“Oh, fuck!” Her free hand fisted the sheets. Her thighs started to quiver uncontrollably. “Bennett, I’m—”
“Don’t come, baby,” I ordered, voice rough. “Hold it. Just a little longer.”
She sobbed out a breath, pulling the toy away at the last second, chest heaving. Her pussy clenched on nothing, shiny and swollen and begging.
Fucking Christ.
The sight of her spread wide for me, trembling, waiting for my next word—hit me harder than a fastball to the ribs.
All I could think about was how badly I wanted to be there right now. Not on a screen or twelve-hundred miles away with ice packs melting on my knees, but buried balls-deep inside her cunt, feeling those desperate clenches around my cock.
Nobody else had ever seen her like this, and if I had it my way, they never would.
I wanted to ruin her. I wanted to be the first one to stretch her open, to feel her come apart from the inside.
To pin her down and fuck her slow until she was crying my name, and then flip her over and take her hard until she couldn’t remember her own.
I wanted to be home. With her. Right fucking now.
“Please,” she whimpered.
“Please what? Say it.”
“Please, let me . . . put it in my pussy.”
I couldn’t have denied her if I wanted to.
“Go ahead, baby,” I said. “Slow. Let me watch every inch disappear inside that greedy cunt.”
She didn’t hesitate. She lined the toy up and pushed, a long, trembling moan tearing out of her as it slid home, inch by inch.
“God, yes.” I groaned, stroking myself hard and fast now, the slick drag of my fist almost too much. “Just like that. Take it deep, baby.”
Her head fell back, eyes fluttering shut as she started to move. First, shallow thrusts. Then deeper, the wet sounds obscene even through the phone speaker. The sight punched the air from my lungs.
“That’s my good girl,” I rasped, voice shredded. “Fuck yourself just like I would. Slow and deep, then faster when you can’t stand it anymore.”
“Bennett.” My name broke on her lips, half plea, half prayer. “It feels— I’m so full.”
“You’re not full yet, baby,” I growled, thumb swiping over the head of my cock, gathering the precum and spreading it down my length. “Not until it’s me stretching that tight, little pussy and making you take it exactly how we both want. Hard enough you feel me for days.”
The rhythm of the toy faltered as she climbed closer to the peak.
“Imagine me holding you down.” I stroked faster. The pressure coiled hot and urgent at the base of my spine. “Pounding into you, filling you up until you can’t think straight.”
“Yessss! That’s what I want. Please.”
She could beg all she wanted; I wasn’t finished with her yet.
“Pretend it’s me finally giving you what you’ve been waiting for, what only I get to give you.”
She groaned. “God, Bennett. It’s you. It’s always been you.”
Those words undid me.
My fist tightened, stroking hard and fast now, chasing the edge I’d been riding since the second she’d spread herself open for me. “That’s right, baby. Only me. Only ever me.”
Her back arched off the bed, a sharp cry tearing from her throat. “Please, let me come.”
“Come for me, Arabella,” I snarled. “Now.”
Her whole body locked up on a sharp, broken cry, back arching off the bed as the orgasm ripped through her.
The toy disappeared deep inside her cunt, buried to the hilt, and I watched her pulse around it. Wave after wave. Her fingers still worked her clit through the shudders while my name spilled from her lips like a prayer.
That was it. I was fucking gone.
Pleasure slammed into me, white-hot and blinding. My cock jerked in my fist, thick ropes spilling over my knuckles and stomach, hips thrusting into my hand like I was driving into her. I rode it out with Bella’s name on my lips, my vision whiting out for a second as the release tore through me.
“Fuck, Bella—” I panted.
I was still catching my breath, hand sticky and useless at my side, when I saw her shiver.
A tiny aftershock rippled through her shoulders. The toy slipped from her fingers, landing softly on the bed, before she curled slightly inward. Her arms wrapped around her body like she didn’t quite know what to do with all that intensity now that it was over.
Something fierce and tender twisted in my gut. She needed grounding now. Somebody to pull her back gently.
And I was just the man for the job.
Her eyes fluttered open and found mine instantly. “Hi,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
“Hi.”
I did my best not to grin like an idiot.
“You did so good, baby.”
She gave a shaky laugh. Her cheeks were flushed with a deep rose; her dark curls clung to her forehead. I wanted my hands on her more than I wanted my next breath.
“Sit up and drink some water, okay?” I nodded toward the bottle I knew was on her nightstand. “Slow sips.”
She reached for it without looking away from me, unscrewed the cap with trembling fingers, and took a few obedient swallows. A drop escaped the corner of her mouth and trailed down her chin. I had to fight the urge to groan.
“That’s my girl.”
She set the bottle down and curled back up, pulling the blanket halfway up her bare body. “I feel kind of floaty,” she admitted, voice small and raw. “Is that a word? Like everything’s soft and loud at the same time.”
“That’s normal after something that big. Just breathe with me, alright?” I took a slow, careful inhale and let it out. She followed, her shoulders loosening a fraction with every breath.
We stayed like that for a long minute—me waiting for her to settle and her watching me watch her.
“I wish you were here,” she said quietly. “Holding me.”
There was no hiding the smile this time. “If it makes you feel better, I’m cuddling the shit out of you in my head right now.”
She made a tiny sound, half sigh, half whimper, and burrowed deeper into the pillows at her back.
I felt it in my chest like a brand. Fierce protectiveness, bone-deep affection, and a hunger that wasn’t even close to being satisfied.
“You okay?”
She nodded, slow and dreamy. “Really, really okay.”
“That wasn’t, uh, too much?”
“Bennett.” She said my name like she was tasting it, like it was something sweet. “I think it’s pretty obvious that I loved it.”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah?”
She laughed under her breath, embarrassed but sure. “It felt like— Like the volume on my body got turned all the way up and you were the only one who knew how to work the remote. Does that make sense?”
Relief crashed over me so hard, I had to close my eyes for a second. When I opened them again, she was staring at me, head tilted to one side.
“I thought maybe I pushed too hard,” I admitted quietly.
“You didn’t.”
“Good. Because the second I’m home, we’re doing that in person. And I’m not stopping until you can’t walk straight.”
Her eyes went wide, then sparkled with that shy, eager excitement I loved.
Loved.
The word hit me square in the chest, sudden and undeniable.
Because it wasn’t just that I loved the way she looked right now—flushed and rumpled and grinning at me through a phone screen—or the way she saw the world in bright, precise detail that made everything feel new.
I loved her.
All five-foot-six of complicated, brilliant, fiercely independent, farm-visiting, honey dust-licking woman curled up on my pillow, twelve-hundred miles away.
And as much as I hated to admit it, the realization didn’t feel like fireworks. It felt like standing on the edge of the warning track, staring down a runner barreling toward home, knowing that one wrong move would turn everything to shit.
“When will you be back?”
“Not soon enough,” I said, voice steady even if nothing else was. “But I’ll call you tomorrow.”
She hummed, content. I brushed my thumb over the screen like I could touch her cheek and make this, us, work by sheer force of will.
“Go to sleep, baby. I’m right here.”
She did, lashes fanning dark against her cheeks. Within minutes, her breathing evened out completely, lips parted on soft, sleepy exhales. Only then did I end our call.
And just like always, as soon as the line went dead and I was left alone in the dark, the monsters came out to play.
These weren’t the kind that hid under the bed either. No, these fuckers sat square on my chest, familiar as the scar on my throwing hand.
They told me that I was selfish for wanting Bella. Taunted me about my life built on headlines and hotel bills. Warned me that no love would be powerful enough to protect Bella from the cameras or, even worse, the rabid fans.
I could feel my throat beginning to close.
Worst of all, they echoed the thing I already knew in my bones—Bella deserved better.
Someone who could give her calm instead of chaos, whose body wasn’t held together by tape and rehab and a half-hearted prayer. Loving her didn’t scare me—hurting her did.
And unfortunately, the monsters knew that, too.