Chapter 5 #2
"I disagree," she argued weakly. "I strongly disagree with that hypothesis."
I chuckled darkly. "Let's test it."
I moved my hand inward. I found her slick, wet heat. She was soaked. Ready for me.
I groaned, the sound vibrating in my chest. The control I prided myself on was fraying. The urge to just take was overwhelming. But I channeled it. I poured all that aggression into my focus.
I found her clit with my thumb.
I didn't stroke. I just pressed. Firm. Unyielding.
Ivy screamed. It was a muffled, shocked sound. Her back arched off the desk, her legs wrapping around my waist instinctively.
"Ben!"
"I've got you," I promised, holding her hips tighter. "I've got you. Stay with it."
I started to move.
It wasn't gentle. I wasn't a gentle man. I played defense. I checked people into the boards. My movements were rhythmic, consistent, and demanding. I rubbed her with the flat of my thumb, finding the rhythm that made her hips snap forward to meet me.
"That's it," I whispered, watching her face.
Her head was thrown back, exposing the long, elegant line of her throat. Her lips were parted, her expression a mask of pure, unadulterated bliss. She looked like a fallen angel. She looked like a ruin.
"Tell me what you feel," I demanded.
"Fire," she gasped. "Pressure. I feel... I feel like I'm going to explode."
"Then let go."
"I can't... I don't know how..."
"Yes, you do. Stop thinking. Stop trying to look pretty. Stop trying to be perfect." I sped up my rhythm, adding a second finger to slide inside her, just shallow, just teasing the entrance.
The dual sensation—the stretch and the pressure—pushed her over the edge of coherence.
"Ben... Ben, please..."
"Give it to me, Ivy. Give me your control."
I leaned down and captured her mouth in a searing, bruising kiss.
It wasn't romantic. It was a claiming. I devoured her gasp. I tasted her desperation. My tongue swept into her mouth, mimicking the rhythm of my hand between her legs.
She broke.
I felt the tension coil in her body, tight as a bowstring, and then snap.
She clamped down on my finger, her inner muscles pulsing violently. She screamed into my mouth, her body bowing off the desk, shuddering with the force of her release.
I held her through it. I kept my hand moving, milking every last drop of pleasure from her, refusing to let her come down until she was completely, utterly spent.
"Good girl," I growled against her lips. "So good."
She slumped against me, her body going boneless. If I hadn't been holding her, she would have slid off the desk.
We stayed like that for a long time. The only sound in the room was her ragged breathing and the wind howling outside.
My own body was painfully hard. I was throbbing, aching for release. But I didn't take it.
This was about her. This was the lesson.
I slowly, reluctantly, withdrew my hand.
Ivy whimpered at the loss of contact. She kept her face buried in my chest, hiding.
"Don't hide," I said, lifting my hand to cup the back of her head. "Look at me."
She shook her head. "I can't. I'm... I'm a mess."
"You're beautiful."
The words slipped out. Unplanned. Unauthorized.
She froze. Slowly, she pulled back. Her face was flushed pink, her lips swollen from my kiss, her eyes dazed and glassy. Strands of blonde hair were stuck to her damp forehead.
She looked at me with a mixture of awe and terror.
"You..." she started, then cleared her throat. "You didn't..."
She glanced down at my sweatpants. It was obvious I hadn't finished.
"I'm fine," I said, my voice tight.
"But..."
"The deal was I teach you," I said, stepping back slightly to put some dangerous distance between us. I needed to cool down before I did something reckless, like throw her onto the bed and finish what we started. "I don't get a reward for doing my job."
Ivy slid off the desk, her legs wobbling. She grabbed the edge of the wood for support.
"That wasn't a job," she whispered. "That was..."
"Anatomy," I supplied, trying to rebuild the walls I had just smashed down. "Physiology. Endorphins."
"Bullshit," she said softly.
She straightened up. She looked at me, and her eyes weren't dazed anymore. They were sharp. Seeing.
"You liked having the control," she said. "You liked making me fall apart."
"Maybe."
"And you liked that I let you."
I stepped toward her again, unable to help myself. I brushed a thumb over her swollen lower lip.
"I liked," I murmured, "that for five minutes, you weren't Ivy St. James, the ballerina. You were just mine."
The truth of it hung in the air. Heavy. Undeniable.
She leaned into my hand. "I think... I think I could get used to that."
"Careful, Princess," I warned, pulling my hand away. "You might get addicted."
"Too late," she whispered.
I turned away, grabbing a towel from my dresser to wipe my hands. My heart was pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
I had thought this deal would help me control the situation. I thought if I gave her what she wanted, if I satiated the curiosity, the tension would break and we could go back to being roommates.
I was an idiot.
I hadn't broken the tension. I had poured gasoline on it.
I looked at her in the reflection of the dark window. She was watching me, her eyes hungry, her body relaxed for the first time since she’d arrived.
I was in so much trouble.
"Go to sleep, Ivy," I said, my voice rough. "Lesson's over."
She picked up her Kindle and her water bottle. She walked to the door, limping slightly less than before.
At the threshold, she paused.
"Ben?"
"Yeah?"
"Same time tomorrow?"
I closed my eyes, a groan building in my throat.
"Yeah. Same time tomorrow."
She smiled—a genuine, soft smile that hit me harder than the orgasm had—and slipped out the door.
I waited until I heard the click of the lock.
Then I walked into the bathroom, turned on the cold shower, and prepared for a very long, very cold night.
Two Days Later
The "New Normal" was terrifyingly comfortable.
We had a routine.
Morning: Coffee. I made it (black for me, with milk and a packet of stolen sugar for her). We drank it in silence at the island, usually with Jax or Rook bustling around us, oblivious to the fact that the air between us was charged enough to power the eastern seaboard.