Chapter 25 – Ben
Chapter
Twenty-Five
BEN
The passage smelled like cold stone and old secrets — my secrets — every time I used it. Tonight it felt like a vein, pulsing me straight to her heart.
I stopped outside the hidden panel to her room and pressed my scarred palm to the wood. On the other side, she was waiting. Blindfolded, probably. Hands knotted in her lap the way they always were when fear and anticipation fought for space inside her.
She thought she’d betrayed Mr. Stonewood.
She thought Jacob had ruined her.
She had no idea the man who’d held her last night — the one who’d whispered her name like a prayer while buried deep inside her — was the same monster about to walk through that door and punish her for it.
My chest burned with something too jagged to be jealousy. It was worse. It was the knowledge that I’d done this to myself. One unguarded night. One moment where I’d let Jacob take the wheel and forgotten the mask entirely.
And now I had to discover what kind of woman she really was when the blade was at her throat.
Would she sacrifice the groundskeeper to save herself and her grandmother? Or would she try to shield the man she thought she’d fallen for, even if it cost her everything?
Either answer would destroy something. The only question was what I could live with afterward.
And now I had to make her pay for it.
I flexed my hand, feeling the pull of scar tissue across my knuckles.
The same hand that had traced her spine with reverence hours ago would bruise her tonight.
Not because I wanted to hurt her — God, no — but because the game demanded blood when rules were broken.
Because if I didn’t sell the rage, Henry’s careful machinery would grind to a halt.
Because the only way to keep her here, keep her mine, was to make her believe the monster was real.
And he was.
I was.
I pushed the panel open.
The hinges didn’t creak. Nothing in this house made a sound it wasn’t supposed to.
Chrissy sat on the edge of the bed, blindfold already in place — black silk against pale skin. Her breathing hitched the second the air shifted. She knew it was me. Not Jacob. Never Jacob again, not if I could help it.
Once this game was over, we’d both have to face the truth about who I was, and the fact that Jacob had never really existed. There was only Ben, and I wasn’t sure how she might take that.
“On your knees,” I said, voice low, stripped of anything soft.
She slid to the floor without hesitation, knees hitting the rug with a muffled thud that went straight to my cock and straight to my gut in equal measure. So damn obedient. So damn trusting. Every instinct in my body snarled.
Good girl… my ruined girl.
She was the angel I was about to break a little more, and the one I’d piece back together afterward, whether she hated me for it or not.
“Mr. Stonewood,” she breathed, voice soft. “I — I’m ready to accept whatever consequences you see fit.”
She bowed her head like a sinner in church, praying a prayer of confession.
My throat tightened. I stepped inside, shutting the door behind me with a click that made her flinch.
Excellent. Fear meant she cared.
“Do you know,” I said, walking slow circles around her, “why you’re being punished today, Miss Jones?”
She exhaled shakily.
“Because I broke the rules.”
“Which ones?”
She paused, swallowing hard.
“The ones about… about the staff. About your groundskeeper. Henry said when I arrived that there was to be no fraternization with the staff.”
“And yet you were discovered this morning with my groundskeeper in your goddamned bed.”
Her breath stuttered.
“Please don’t punish Jacob for that. It was all my idea, not his. I could have sent him away, and I didn’t—”
She cut herself off and I let her squirm for a painfully long moment before I spoke.
“Tell me exactly what you did,” I murmured, coming to stand in front of her. “Let me hear it from your own lips.”
Her cheeks flushed crimson beneath the blindfold.
“I kissed him, which breaks another rule. And more than that, if I’m being a hundred percent honest with you, sir.”
“You kissed my employee… and more,” I repeated, letting ice drip from every syllable. “In my house. During my selection process. And you thought there would be no consequences?”
“No,” she whispered. “I knew there would be. I’m not asking to be forgiven for what I’ve done. I’m asking you not to hurt him for a choice I made.”
My jaw locked, and I had to resist the urge to put my fist through the wall.
I would burn the world to nothing but cinders before I truly hurt her, but she didn’t know that. She didn’t know she was kneeling in front of the man she wanted to protect.
“Tell me,” I said softly. “Why shouldn’t I fire him for touching what’s mine? Tell me why I shouldn’t cut off every single fucking piece of him that had the audacity to touch what belongs to me. Tell me why I shouldn’t fucking bury him for touching you, little doll.”
Her breath hitched. Hard.
“I… I asked him to,” she said. “And it wasn’t fair to him. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of him. Please… punish me, not him. I’ll take whatever punishment you give. I’ll take all of it if you just spare Jacob… please.”
God.
She had no fucking idea what that did to me.
“And if I told you,” I said quietly, crouching down so my mouth brushed her ear, “to choose his punishment?”
“No.” The word broke out of her like a sob. “I won’t condemn him. I won’t. Do whatever you want to me, but don’t make me choose something cruel for someone innocent who doesn’t deserve it.”
I closed my eyes.
Innocent. She thought I was innocent. She thought Jacob was the one she needed to protect, rather than herself.
“You protect him with such devotion,” I murmured, letting my jealousy seep through. “If I allow you to remain in the game, how do I know you won’t leave me the first chance you get? For him? Or someone like him?”
She lifted her chin, blindfold still on, but her spine straightening like she was looking me dead in the eye.
“Because I gave you my word,” she said. “And my integrity is all I have. I made a mistake, a stupid, reckless, selfish mistake. But if you choose me — if I win this game — I give you my word that I will be loyal to you. I won’t betray you. Not ever.”
Something in me snapped completely.
“Then you’ll accept your punishment,” I growled, pulling her to her feet, voice shaking with everything I would not, and could not, say.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Good girl.”
She shivered as I turned her and threw her onto the bed. She bounced once in the center of the mattress, but she didn’t reach for the blindfold, and she didn’t try to run.
“Lie face down and put your hands above your head,” I ordered.
She did as she was told and I removed my belt, using it to bind her wrists to the headboard. I pressed her down into the mattress.
Her back arched instinctively, offering herself up like she knew exactly what she deserved. The sight of her like this — bound, blindfolded, and trembling — blew my self-control out of the water.
I stripped off my shirt, letting it fall to the floor, then climbed onto the bed behind her. My hands gripped her hips hard enough to bruise, yanking her ass up until she was on her knees, chest pressed to the sheets, completely exposed to me.
“You fucked the help,” I snarled against her ear, grinding my clothed cock against her bare skin. “Right under my nose. In my house. Like a desperate little whore who couldn’t keep her legs closed for five goddamn minutes.”
She whimpered, but didn’t deny it, and didn't fight the accusation in my voice.
“Tell me what you think you deserve for that, Chrissy.” My teeth grazed the shell of her ear, then sank into the soft lobe, biting hard. Not enough to break skin, but enough to make her cry out. “Tell me what kind of punishment a faithless little slut like you deserves.”
She gasped, body jerking against the restraints.
“Whatever… whatever you give me, sir. I deserve it all. Hurt me. Mark me. Do whatever you want, but only to me. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Not good enough,” I growled, dragging my nails down her back, leaving red trails that made her arch and sob.
“I acted like a whore, and I betrayed you, and I’m so fucking sorry. Please, sir—”
My hand cracked down on her ass, cutting off whatever she’d been about to say… once, twice, three times in rapid succession, harder than any night before. The sound echoed in the room like gunshots. Her skin flushed deep red immediately, and she cried out in pain.
“That’s my good girl, admitting what a pathetic whore you are. Taking your punishment so well already.”
I bit down on her shoulder next, harder, sucking the flesh into my mouth until I felt her shake and she screamed for me, loud and long. When I pulled away, I knew there’d be a mark on her pale skin, dark, blooming, marking her as mine.
“Why did you do it? Why did you spread your legs for him? Was it because he was gentle? Because he looked at you like you were something precious?”
She shook her head, her cries of pain completely incoherent.
“Answer me,” I demanded, biting the curve where her neck met her shoulder, teeth sinking in until she keened. “Why him? Why not wait for the man who’s going to own you for the rest of your fucking life?”
“Because—” Her voice broke on a sob as I marked her again, lower this time, teeth clamping on the soft flesh of her upper back. “Because with him I felt… seen and wanted, not like a prize to be won, but like a person.”
The words gutted me. I froze for half a second, then lost it completely.
I ripped my pants open, freeing my cock, and drove into her in one brutal thrust… no warning, no prep, just raw possession. She screamed into the mattress, her body clenching around me like a vice.
“You are mine,” I snarled, pulling out and slamming back in, hips snapping with punishing force. My mouth found the side of her neck again, biting down hard enough to leave a ring of teeth marks that would last for days. “Every inch of you. Every breath. Every fucking moan.”
I pulled out and marked her everywhere I could reach, the backs of her thighs, ass, shoulders, back. Bites, bruises, sucks that would bloom purple and ugly and perfect. Proof.
I slammed back into her tight little pussy and she sobbed my name — not Jacob’s, not anymore — just broken pleas and gasps as I fucked her like I hated her. Like I needed to brand myself into her bones so deeply she’d never forget who she belonged to.
“Ben, please—”
“Why?” I demanded again, one hand fisting in her hair, yanking her head back so I could bite the column of her throat. “Tell me why you let him inside you when you knew you were mine.”
“Because I thought—” she choked out, body shuddering around me as I thrust deeper, harder, unhinged. “I thought I’d never have gentleness again, and I wanted that for myself, just once, before I submitted to you for the rest of my life. I thought you’d only ever take me apart.”
I roared — actually fucking roared — and flipped her onto her back, wrists still bound, spreading her legs wide. I drove back inside her, eyes locked on where we joined, watching myself claim her over and over.
“Then take this,” I hissed, leaning down to bite her collarbone, her breast, the soft underside until she was covered in my marks.
“Take every brutal inch of me owning you. Because gentle is over, little doll. You wanted him? Fine. I can accept the logic behind the mistake you made last night, but now you get me — all of me — until you never think of anyone else again.”
I fucked her harder, one hand around her throat, squeezing until her face turned red and she gasped for air, only then did I loosen my grip just the slightest bit. I bit her lower lip, tasting salt from her tears.
“Say it,” I growled into her mouth. “Tell me who you belong to. Scream it so every fucking person in this house hears what a perfect little whore you are for me.”
“You!” she cried out, voice breaking as her body tightened around me. “I belong to you!”
“Louder,” I demanded, thrusting viciously, my free hand pinching her nipple until she arched off the bed. “Scream it like the desperate slut you are. Let them all know you’re my perfect little whore.”
“I belong to you!” she screamed, raw and ragged, loud enough that it echoed through the walls. “I’m your perfect little whore! Only yours!”
“That’s my good girl,” I praised, voice dropping to a rasp as I marked her one last time, teeth clamped tight on the swell of her breast when I pulled her legs open wider, driving into her without mercy.
“So fucking perfect, taking my cock like you were made for it. My loyal little angel, even when you’re being a filthy whore. ”
She trembled beneath me, breathless and ruined.
And when she was on the edge of breaking? I said it.
“You’re going to carry my child.”
She froze.
“I don’t care if you win this game or not,” I murmured against her throat. “You belong to me, and I’m going to make sure there’s no undoing that.”
Her fingers curled into tight fists as she tugged against the belt restraining her wrists, helpless and wanting and terrified.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, sir.”
She came with a shattered cry, clenching around me so hard my vision whited out. I followed seconds later, spilling deep inside her with a guttural groan, teeth buried in her neck one final time.
I collapsed over her, panting, scarred chest heaving against her marked skin. My marks. Everywhere.
She was sobbing quietly now, her body trembling beneath me. I didn’t pull out, and I didn’t untie her yet.
Instead, I pressed my ruined face to her throat, my lips brushing the freshest bite.
“You passed, baby,” I whispered, voice raw. “You protected him. You chose loyalty over survival.”
She stilled, her breath catching.
I kissed the mark I’d just made, soft and reverent.
“You’re still in the game, Chrissy. And God help us both… you’re more mine now than ever.”
Afterward, she lay beside me, boneless, her quiet breaths warming my chest. The blindfold still rested over her eyes, her mouth soft with exhaustion.
She fell asleep like that, trusting me despite every reason she shouldn’t.
I watched her for a long time, memorizing her steady breathing, the rise and fall of her chest, and all the livid marks I’d left on her skin.
And for the first time since deciding to bring her here… I was genuinely terrified because I knew she’d never forgive me when she learned the truth.