Chapter 23
Belle
The drive back suffocated me.
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass, watching the town blur past in streaks of gray and green and water. My pulse hadn't settled. My skin still felt tight, overheated, like I'd been marked from the inside out.
I kept replaying it.
The booth. His hand dragging me into his side instead of across from him.
The way his fingers curled around my wrist—firm, possessive, final.
The punishment under the table that wasn't a punishment at all, or maybe it was, maybe that was the point.
The look on his face when he'd said it, when he'd admitted something I wasn't supposed to hear: No one has ever been mine before.
My chest constricted.
I hated that it mattered. Hated that my pulse had stuttered when he'd said it, that my stupid, traitorous heart had twisted sideways, that some small, pathetic part of me had wanted to be his.
Too warm.
Too exposed.
Too seen.
When he parked in front of the bookstore, I was already reaching for the door handle before the engine cut. Escape. Distance. Space to breathe without his eyes on me, without his voice curling around my thoughts, without—
He caught my wrist.
"Belle."
I froze.
My hand hovered over the door, breath caught somewhere between my ribs and my throat. Because his voice—it wasn't commanding. Wasn't demanding. Wasn't the razor-edged tone he used when he gave orders.
It was soft.
Too soft.
The kind of soft that made something inside me crack open when I needed it locked tight.
I didn't turn around. Didn't look at him. Couldn't.
"Let me go," I whispered.
His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist, right over my pulse. Once. Twice. A slow, deliberate caress that made my breath hitch despite everything.
"Not yet."
I swallowed hard, eyes burning, hating the way my body leaned back toward him without permission, hating the way my wrist stayed exactly where it was instead of pulling free. Hating how much I didn't want him to let go.
His grip loosened—not releasing, just giving me the choice. And that was somehow worse. Because now I had to decide. Stay. Or run. And I didn't know which terrified me more.
He looked like he wanted to say something but didn't. Just released my wrist. Stepped back. Let me go.
The bookstore swallowed us whole. Quiet. Still. The kind of silence that magnified every breath, every footstep, every unspoken thing crackling between us like static.
I moved between the aisles on instinct, needing something to do with my hands, needing distance even though he followed two steps behind.
I felt his eyes tracking my movements—the way I paused at fiction, the way I straightened a crooked spine, the way my fingers trembled when they touched the shelves.
He kept his hands in his pockets. Casual. Unhurried. Like we hadn't just—like he hadn't just—
"What's your favorite book?"
I stopped dead.
The question landed wrong. Too gentle. Too normal. Too human after everything that had just happened.
I turned slowly, pulse hammering.
My voice came out low, shaking with anger I hadn't let myself feel since lunch. Since the booth. Since his hand guiding mine under the table while the restaurant hummed around us, oblivious.
"You're asking me that now?"
He lifted a brow, expression unreadable. "Yes."
I laughed—but it came out bitter, sharp-edged, nothing like the sound he'd coaxed from me earlier.
"After what you did to me at the restaurant?" My voice climbed despite my effort to control it. "After humiliating me?" Heat flooded my cheeks, my throat, my chest. "You want to talk books?"
He didn't flinch. Didn't step back. Didn't look away. Just watched me with those dark, unreadable eyes that saw too much, knew too much, understood exactly what he'd done to me and how thoroughly it had worked.
"I thought you enjoyed it."
The words hit like a slap.
Because he was right.
I had.
God help me, I had.
My hands fisted at my sides, nails biting into my palms hard enough to hurt. "That's not the point."
My voice cracked on the last word, betraying me, exposing the truth I couldn't admit even to myself.
That the humiliation had burned. That the pleasure had been worse. That some terrible, traitorous part of me had wanted exactly what he'd given me.
And he knew it.
He'd always known it.
He took one step closer. Not rushed. Not aggressive. Just inevitable, like gravity, like the tide, like something I should've seen coming but couldn't escape.
"Belle. I know you liked it."
The words settled between us—undeniable, damning, true in a way that made my skin flush hot with shame and fury and something I refused to name.
I glared at him, hands shaking at my sides, hating him, hating myself, hating how exposed I felt under that steady, knowing gaze. "Yeah. Maybe I did."
The admission tasted like acid. Like surrender. Like the worst kind of truth.
His expression didn't shift. Didn't gloat. Just waited.
"But why demand it? Why take? Why not ask?"
His head tilted—not mocking, not cruel. Curious. Like he genuinely didn't understand the question, like asking had never occurred to him, like consent was a language he'd never learned to speak.
"If I had asked, you would've said no."
My breath stuttered. Caught. Trapped between denial and the brutal honesty I couldn't escape. Because he was right. Painfully, devastatingly right.
If he'd asked—if he'd given me the choice, the space, the freedom to refuse—I would have. Without hesitation. Without a second thought.
I would've said no.
And we both knew it.
Still…
"So that gives you the right to take?" My voice shook, rage and desperation tangling until I couldn't tell them apart. "To do whatever you want?"
He stepped closer. Predatory. Controlled. Every movement deliberate, focused entirely on me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered, the only thing worth hunting, worth claiming, worth keeping.
"You're mine." His voice dropped—low, certain, terrifying in its conviction. "I have a right to do whatever I want to you."
The words slammed into me.
I shook my head violently, stepping back until my spine hit the bookshelf behind me, nowhere left to run, nowhere left to hide.
"No. I am not yours. I am not something you own."
His expression flickered—something raw and unguarded breaking through the controlled surface. Not anger. Not arrogance. Possessiveness, yes—but deeper than that. Hurt. Desperation. Something that looked dangerously close to fear.
He closed the remaining distance between us. His hand came up—not to grab, not to restrain, just to touch. Palm flat against the shelf beside my head, caging me without contact, giving me space while taking it all away.
"You are," he said quietly. Too quietly. The kind of quiet that meant he believed it with everything he had, believed it so deeply that my denial couldn't touch it, couldn't change it, couldn't make it any less true.
"Even if you hate it."
He stepped closer.
I backed into the shelf, spine hitting hardwood, books shifting above me. The air turned electric—charged with everything we weren't saying, everything I couldn't admit, everything that pulsed between us like a living thing.
"Belle."
My name in his mouth sounded like a prayer. Like a curse.
"Look at me."
I refused. Kept my eyes fixed on the floor, the shelves, anywhere but the dark heat I knew I'd find in his gaze. If I looked—if I met those eyes—I'd be lost.
Two fingers slid beneath my chin. Tilted my face up with unbearable gentleness. No escape.
Our lips hovered inches apart. His breath ghosted across my mouth, warm and unsteady, and I realized with a jolt that he was trembling too. That this control cost him something. That beneath the dominance and certainty, something fractured and desperate clawed its way to the surface.
I whispered, voice breaking, "You can't just take whatever you want."
He exhaled shakily—the first real sign he was losing control, that I affected him, that this mattered beyond possession, beyond the contract, beyond everything that should've kept us apart.
"Watch me."
Our mouths crashed together. Not soft. Not sweet.
Not gentle. Angry. Desperate. Starved. Like we'd been circling this moment for weeks, like every argument and punishment and forced intimacy had been leading here, building toward this collision that felt inevitable and catastrophic and right in a way that terrified me.
I melted. Hated that I melted. Hated that my body surrendered before my mind could catch up, that my lips parted for him, that my hands fisted in his shirt and dragged him closer instead of pushing him away. Hated that I wanted this more than anything.
His groan vibrated against my mouth—raw and helpless and utterly undone.
And that was when I realized he wanted this as badly as I did. Not the control. Not the dominance. Not the power.
This.
The kiss deepened, turned ravenous. His hands framed my face like I was something precious he'd spent his whole life searching for, and I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything except kiss him back with everything I had.
Everything I'd been holding back. Everything I'd sworn I'd never give him.
Everything.
His hands were everywhere—rough, desperate, like he was trying to memorize me through touch alone.
The shelf dug into my back, books rattling around us, but I didn’t care.
Couldn’t care. Not when his mouth was on mine, not when his fingers traced the waistband of my jeans, not when every breath between us felt like a confession.
I gasped against his lips, my voice breaking on his name. "Gideon—"
He stilled.
Just for a second.
But it was enough.
His blue eyes locked onto mine, searching, demanding, needing—and that was what shattered me. The way he looked at me like I was the only thing that mattered, like my answer was the only thing that could break him.
"Do you want me to stop?"