Chapter 13 #2
Her words landed harder than he expected.
For a flicker of a moment, Benedict almost stepped back.
He had seen her try. Not enough perhaps, but it had been real.
She had been trying. And still she stood here, defiant, her nose in the air, pretending she did not care about the suitors or the whispers—or pretending she did not know how badly that mouth made him want to taste her.
Before Benedict could say another word, Anastasia was already speaking. She was not done with her rant, not yet.
Her voice was shaking with anger now, and Benedict was petrified of what might happen if she burst into tears. He had no idea how to console sobbing women, but he was sure that seeing Anastasia cry would break him.
“If you think that I do not know what people say about me, then you are sorely mistaken. This is the life I have had to live, and I have endured it for God knows how long. I know what they whisper about me behind my back and what they say to my face. I know that my being under your roof is detrimental to your own reputation, but I have tried.” She drew a breath, her chest rising and falling, eyes bright as glass.
“Yet, you keep me here like some prisoner, even when I have tried to leave. What else will you do, Your Grace? Tie me up so I cannot escape? Drag me to the altar by force?”
The challenge vibrated in the air between them, and that was when his control snapped.
“You are right about one thing, Miss Dawson.” His lips brushed her ear without touching. “If I tie you…” He let the words curl slowly and lethally, savoring the way she stiffened. “…you will not be able to escape me.”
Every warning bell in Benedict’s head clanged at once.
This was madness. She was unsuitable—everything he had sworn to avoid.
But she was also standing there, breathless and unflinching, and something dark and reckless inside him thrilled at it.
He knew he was crossing a line and yet, God help him, he no longer cared.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow bursts as he trailed a single finger from the corner of her cheek down to her jawline, a touch so light it felt like a claim. She looked as though she had run the length of the estate, even though she had not moved an inch.
His hand lingered at her jaw, testing the tremor beneath her skin before he let it drop, his palm hovering at her throat. He could feel her pulse hammering there—wild, defiant, betraying her in a way her eyes refused to. The thrill of it was dangerous, addictive.
“So…” he murmured, his voice rough with desire and warning all at once. “Would you like me to tie you up, drag you to the altar, and hand you to the very first man I see?”
Her gaze snapped to his, eyes blazing, lips set in a line of pure defiance. “I will not bend to your will,” she spat, each word cutting like glass.
He would have believed her if she had said that and moved away from him, but she had not. She was still frozen to the spot, unmoving. She stayed pinned between his body and the door, frozen yet unyielding, and it only made him want her more.
“Is that so?” His mouth curved into a wolf’s smile. “Bend over my desk, Miss Dawson. And don’t you dare refuse me.”
Anastasia let out a sharp, scandalized gasp, the sound exactly what he had expected. She had never been this close to a man like him before—he knew it—and the air between them vibrated with something that felt like the edge of a cliff.
“It seems you have lost your head, Mr. Straton. I will not do as you say,” she said, but the edge in her voice wavered, betraying her steadiness.
Benedict caught it instantly. She was still standing there, chin high, but her pulse beat fast at the base of her throat, and her hand had not risen to push him away. For all her defiance, she had not moved away from him.
“Are you sure you will not, Miss Dawson? I will not ask this kindly a second time.” He let a wolfish smile curl across his lips.
Without waiting for her answer, he reached for her wrist. The small hand fit hot and tense under his fingers as he pulled her toward the desk.
He waited for her to jerk back, to fight, to spit another refusal.
She did not. He pressed her down, and the sound of her palms hitting the polished wood cracked through the study. Her chest flattened against the desk.
“I told you,” she breathed, though the words trembled. “I will not—”
But the protest broke off in a gasp as he caught her other wrist and drew both behind her back, binding them swiftly with the ribbon he had torn from her own gown.
Her fingers flexed against the constraint.
For a wild heartbeat, he thought she would fight—hoped she would, because then he would have to release her.
Instead, she lay still.
A dangerous thrill ran through him. The tremor under her skin, the scent of her hair so close it felt like a taunt—he was balanced on the knife-edge between control and surrender.
He leaned down until his breath fanned her ear. “You are not permitted to make a sound,” he murmured, his voice low enough to vibrate against her skin. “If you do, it will be added to your punishment.”
Slowly, Benedict lifted her dress, not with the haste of a man overcome but with the deliberate care of someone savoring each inch. It felt like sacrilege and worship all at once. The fabric slid up, inch by inch, revealing her pale, trembling ankles, then the smooth whiteness of her thighs.
He swallowed hard. He should stop. A rational man would stop here. But he had never been rational where Anastasia was concerned. She was bent over his desk, hands tied with her own ribbon, and he was far past the point of retreat.
“So tell me…” His voice came out in a low rasp as he bent close to her ear.
“Why is it you insist that you find me insufferable, and yet…” His hand slid between her thighs, his fingers pressing against heat and slickness.
She drew in a sharp, staggering breath that vibrated against his palm. “…you are this wet?”
She knew she had been caught red-handed as her lips parted in a gasp that was half outrage, half something else entirely.
“I am not,” she bit out, the words trembling.
“Oh, is that so, Miss Dawson?” His laugh was low, dangerous, almost a growl.
He dipped his fingers again, parting her folds, rubbing slow circles over the swollen bud until she shuddered under his hand.
Then he drew his fingers back, slick with proof, and held them where she could see, inches from her face.
“Then how,” he murmured, “would you explain this?”
Anastasia swallowed but said nothing, her eyes flashing even as her lips stayed closed.
Benedict’s own control thinned to a filament. God help me, why won’t she break? He leaned close again, his mouth brushing her ear without quite touching.
“And now,” he said, voice low and lethal. “You will learn why you should not lie to me.”
She stiffened when his palm came down hard on her backside, the sound sharp in the quiet study. The cry that tore from her lips was half whimper, half moan—and it set his blood alight. Damnation, Benedict thought savagely, I would burn kingdoms to hear that sound again.
“You will stay silent,” he murmured in her ear, his breath hot, his tone a command edged with steel. “Not one sound. Or I stop.”
Her body quivered against the desk, but her lips pressed together, trembling with the effort of holding back what threatened to escape. He felt the tension in her shoulders, the defiance in the rigid line of her spine. She was fighting him, fighting herself, and it only made him harder.
His hand slipped back between her thighs, his fingers teasing her slick folds, circling her swollen bud.
He started slowly, deliberately, until she writhed under his touch, then quickened the pace just enough to drag another choked sound from her throat.
His jaw clenched. He wanted to taste her, to bury himself where she was sweetest, but he forced himself to restrain, to draw it out.
Unable to resist, he brought his fingers to his lips and sucked, her flavor coating his tongue. A groan escaped him, low and rough, and his hand gripped her hip in warning as she whimpered at the sight.
“Careful, Miss Dawson,” he whispered darkly. “You are playing a game you cannot win.”
Her muffled whine nearly undid him. He bent closer, so near that his lips brushed the shell of her ear. “One more,” he warned harshly, his voice a growl of lust and threat combined. “And I end this. Is that what you want?”
“No,” she whispered before she could stop herself, the word tumbling from her lips like a secret.
A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. “That’s what I thought.”
He slid a finger into her, her tight heat gripping him instantly, and swore under his breath. She was impossibly snug, her body resisting even one finger, and the thought of his cock buried there made his pulse thunder.
“Will you behave yourself from now on?” he asked softly, almost gently, though his tone left no room for rebellion.
Her chin lifted stubbornly. “Never.”
“You lie,” he murmured, sliding his finger deeper, twisting just enough to make her bite down on her lip. “You always lie.”
Her nails dug into the polished wood of his desk, her body taut with tension. He pressed harder, stroking until her hips betrayed her, shifting back against his hand. Her breath tore out in shuddering bursts, and still she clung to her defiance.
“Mr. Straton, I—”
“Say it properly,” he whispered. “Say it, and I will let you come.”
“No,” she gasped, her voice raw, her defiance cracking at the edges.
Benedict chuckled darkly, adding another finger, stretching her, savoring the way she clenched around him.
“Then you will break on my hand instead. But you will break, Anastasia, and I want to hear my name on your lips when you do.”
Her muffled cry nearly undid him, her body arching helplessly, surrender written not in her words but in the wild, desperate way she moved against him. And finally—finally—the word slipped out of her mouth, ragged and unwilling.
“Yes. Yes, I will behave. Your Grace.”
Benedict thrust harder, savoring the way she trembled and tightened around him, her muffled screams breaking her vow of silence when he finally let her release. Victory coursed through him like fire, but it was laced with something darker, more dangerous—a taste too sweet, too intoxicating.
At last, he withdrew, releasing her wrists slowly, savoring the sight of her flushed cheeks, her wild eyes, her legs trembling beneath her. He straightened, his voice low, roughened by everything he had just restrained himself from doing.
“Good,” he said. “Now go, Miss Dawson. Do not provoke me again. I cannot promise I will be so… restrained next time.”
“Yes, Y-your Grace.”
She turned to leave, her steps unsteady. He had meant to teach her a lesson. Instead, as he watched her go, fire still raging in his veins, he felt undone.
No… not undone. Conquered.