Chapter 15
Benjamin
Two weeks. That’s how long it’s been since she disappeared from the floor. Since he heard her scream. Since everything changed.
And now—she’s here.
Dressed like sin. Standing like a storm. Acting like none of it ever happened.
Ben stands in the doorway, taking in the sight before him. Blondie, bathed in golden light, silk clinging to every curve.
She shifts her weight to one hip, and his eyes track the movement with sharp focus.
He lets the moment stretch, watching the subtle tension in her shoulders. The way her fingers flex like she’s holding something back.
Then—click. The door shuts behind him. Quiet. Final.
They’re alone.
"I was beginning to think you weren't coming," she says, voice rich with mock disappointment.
He chuckles under his breath as he methodically rolls up his sleeves. The sound is low, controlled, promising. "That would imply I didn't want to be here."
Blondie's head tilts, one perfect eyebrow arching. A smirk plays at her painted lips. "A man like you? Wanting something? That sounds dangerous."
He moves toward her with measured steps, closing the distance until his presence becomes a tangible force.
Heat radiates between them, her silk dress the only barrier. She holds her ground, chin lifted in silent challenge.
Ben lifts his hand with deliberate slowness, drawing one finger along the inside of her wrist. His gaze catches on the purple bruise marring her elbow. He catalogs it, files it away, but his expression reveals nothing.
A tiny hitch in her breath gives her away.
He leans in close, voice dropping to a dark whisper near her ear.
"You have no idea how much."
Ben wraps his fingers around her wrist, applying just enough pressure to feel her pulse quicken beneath his touch. Not harsh, not demanding - simply a reminder that tonight, the rules have shifted. He watches as she adjusts her stance, unconsciously responding to his silent claim.
Leaning forward, he lets his breath ghost over the sensitive skin at her neck, his lips hovering close enough that she can feel their heat without contact. "Tonight, you don't get to touch me."
She lets out a quick breath - caught between a laugh and something darker. "That's my rule," she challenges, but her voice wavers slightly, betraying the effect he has on her.
His lips curve into a predatory smile. "Not tonight."
Before she can respond, he strips the tie from his neck with lethal efficiency. She arches a questioning brow, but offers no resistance—not even as he circles behind her, a predator claiming his territory.
His movements unfold with deliberate patience, almost worshipful in their precision.
He captures her wrists behind her back, binding them with silk that whispers against her skin—secure enough to command, slack enough to torment.
Her breath fractures, and he savors the sudden flutter of her pulse beneath his fingertips.
Only then does he steer her to the couch, positioning her with quiet dominance, her bound hands pressed against the cushions behind her. Restrained. Possessed. Precisely where he's orchestrated her to be.
Ben attacks his shirt buttons with calculated slowness. One release. Two. Three. He notes how her gaze clings to his fingers, catches the unconscious sweep of her tongue wetting her lips. Something primal unfurls inside him at her undisguised hunger.
The shirt falls away, abandoned like an oath he intends to honor. He luxuriates in each second, acutely aware of how his measured unveiling unravels her composure.
"That's one way to put on a show," she remarks, clinging to her playful facade though her voice has thinned, betraying her uncertainty.
He laughs, the sound rumbling from deep in his chest,
rich with unspoken intent. "And I'm just starting."
With calculated precision, he adjusts his stance, sliding one knee between her legs. The position is perfect - exactly as he planned.
A sharp gasp escapes her lips, making his lips curl with satisfaction.
"Something wrong?" he asks, voice low with dark amusement.
Blondie's breath catches as her thighs press against his muscular leg, the pressure landing exactly where he intended.
He studies every micro reaction - the flex of her bound fingers, the way her teeth dig into her bottom lip hard enough to leave marks.
The sight of her fighting for control is intoxicating.
"You're an ass," she manages, voice strained with frustration.
Ben chuckles, the sound deliberately menacing as he leans down, hovering his lips just above her throat without making contact. "You'll be calling me something else soon enough."
He feels her shudder but notes with approval that she doesn't pull away. His breath ghosts over her skin as he maintains the torturous almost-contact.
Leaning in closer, he brushes his lips against her ear and whispers, "Ben."
Her whole body goes rigid for just a moment - exactly the reaction he was hoping for. Her sharp intake of breath tells him she wasn't prepared for that level of intimacy.
"Just in case you feel like screaming it," he taunts, his voice a silken promise.
She responds with only a sharp, breathless exhale. Perfect. That's his cue to move lower.
He traces his lips along her throat, each touch deliberately light and fleeting. A maddening rhythm designed to unravel her. The warmth of his breath ghosts across her skin as he maps every sensitive spot with maddening restraint.
Blondie's composure fractures beneath his careful attention. He feels her squirm against him, patience clearly evaporating as need takes over. A breathless moan wraps around her words as she huffs:
"You talk too much."
The callback makes his lips curl against her skin. She's throwing his own words back at him - clever girl. He grins, letting his teeth graze her collarbone as he murmurs:
"That so?"
His hands drift up her sides, fingers find the delicate straps and ease them down her shoulders, like unwrapping something he’s waited far too long to touch. The fabric whispers as it falls, pooling at her waist. Her sharp intake of breath when he exposes her breasts makes his own control waver.
A groan tears from his throat at the sight of her. He drags his thumbs over her nipples, watching intently as they harden under his touch. The way her back arches, pressing into his hands, sends heat coursing through him.
"Ben," she breathes—a confession more than a name.
His name in her mouth—breathless, ragged—strikes like lightning through his veins.
Benjamin watches her lips form those three letters, a surrender that hits harder than any touch.
The sound ignites something ancient and savage within him, breaking whatever chains of restraint still held.
He captures one peaked nipple between his lips, drawing it into his mouth.
His tongue circles the sensitive flesh deliberately, learning what makes her breath hitch, before he applies just enough pressure with his teeth to make her body jolt against his. Her sharp response feeds the darkness coiling inside him, demanding more.
"You wanted me to shut up, sweetheart," he says against her skin, satisfaction clear in his voice. "I'm just following orders."
He feels the moment she starts to yield, her body softening beneath his ministrations. But he's not ready to let her fall apart. Not yet.
Benjamin sinks to his knees before her, a predator in supplication yet still lethal in his devotion.
The world beyond her dissolves into meaningless shadow.
His focus narrows with savage intensity, consuming every detail of her—the slight tremor in her thighs, the imperceptible hitch in her breathing as he raises his gaze to meet hers through the veil of his dark lashes, watching recognition of her power and peril flicker across her face.
"Ben—" His name falls from her lips, soft and uncertain.
"Shh." The command is velvet-wrapped steel, brooking no argument. He watches satisfaction curl through him as she obeys, falling silent save for her quickened breathing.
His lips trace a path down her stomach, each kiss a deliberate torment.
He worships her skin with his mouth, marking every sensitive spot, learning what makes her shiver.
His hands slide up her thighs, fingers finding the delicate lace between them.
The fabric is drenched—evidence of how badly she wants this.
He hooks his fingers into the waistband, tugging just enough to make her hips lift slightly in anticipation. Then, with a smirk, he lets the lace snap back into place.
The sound she makes—God. It's desperate and frustrated and wanting, wrapped into one broken whimper that shoots straight through him.
"You're—" she starts, voice wrecked.
"Cruel?" He finishes for her, satisfaction dripping from every word. "You love it."
She doesn't deny it. Can't deny it. Her silence speaks volumes, and Ben drinks in every second of her surrender.
He lowers his mouth to her center, pressing a kiss against the soaked lace. He starts gentle, letting her feel the warmth of his breath through the thin barrier. Her thighs quiver under his hands as he increases the pressure, dragging his tongue along her covered flesh with deliberate precision.
The moment his tongue makes firm contact, she jerks violently, her head falling back against the couch as a raw gasp tears from her throat. The sound sends heat coursing through him, his own desire building with every reaction he draws from her.
He hums against her, pleased by how responsive she is to his touch. His fingers drift lower, teasing at the edges of the lace but never quite giving her what she needs.
"So sensitive," he murmurs against her, satisfaction dripping from his words.
Blondies hips buck forward, seeking more pressure, more friction, more of anything he'll give her. The desperate movement makes his blood run hot, but he maintains his torturous pace.
He traces patterns through the fabric, each stroke of his fingers calculated to drive her mad without pushing her over the edge. Every touch pulls another moan from her lips, the sounds growing more desperate with each passing second.
A growl builds in his chest as her wetness seeps through the lace. The taste of her, even through the fabric, is intoxicating. He's no longer just teasing - he's fully invested in taking her apart piece by piece.
Fuck. I could get addicted to this.
His teeth graze her through the lace—sharp enough to make her feel it, but not enough to hurt.The jolt of sensation against her most sensitive spot draws a soft, startled cry from her lips—pleasure, high and breathless, torn straight from her core.
Ben slips his fingers beneath the lace, claiming her with a touch that leaves no room for denial.
She’s soaked—hot and aching for him—and the feel of it robs him of breath.
His lungs seize, every nerve lit with the realization that there’s nothing hesitant about her want.
It hits him like instinct—raw, undeniable, already pulsing through his bloodstream.
"Fuck, you're soaked for me," he snarls, his voice stripped to gravel. The words emerge shattered, exposing the cracks in his control that her response has created.
He plunges his fingers deeper, each movement calculated with a precision that wars against the thundering demand in his blood. He hooks them inside her, finding that secret place that makes her body convulse. Every stroke deliberate—a tactile promise of what's to come.
His mouth joins the invasion, tongue flattening against her clit with deliberate pressure, dragging slow, maddening strokes that make her hips jerk. He alternates the rhythm—flicking, then pausing to suck softly, lips sealing around her like a promise.
His fingers never falter, thrusting with relentless control as he forces discipline into every movement, refusing to let the savage need clawing at his insides dictate the cadence of her pleasure.
Blondie fractures above him. Her head slams back, spine bowing as a sound—half-scream, half-surrender—tears from somewhere deep within her. Her thighs clamp around his shoulders, muscles seizing as her body hovers in that exquisite space between torture and release.
Benjamin drowns in her essence, consumed by the violent tremors coursing through her frame at his ministrations, when the harsh rap against wood fractures their cocoon.
He tears himself away, every sinew in his body seizing with primal, undiluted fury.
"Alright, guys, fun's over. Fire alarm's gone off. Probably nothing, but we're evacuating the club. Wrap it up." Ian's voice filters through the door, irritatingly amused.
Blondie's head falls back against the couch, a devastated sound escaping her throat. She was right there, right on the edge, and now—
Ben's voice drops to something lethal. "You better be fucking joking."
"Do I sound like I'm joking? Move your asses." Ian's response drips with dry sarcasm, clearly enjoying this interruption far too much.
Ben stays exactly where he is, crouched between her thighs that still tremble around him. He closes his eyes for a beat, letting out a slow breath through his nose. The interruption grates—but he reins it in. He’s not some impulsive teenager.
He knows how to wait. Doesn’t mean he likes it.
Blondie shifts beneath him, her voice light, teasing.
"Looks like you’re out of time."
He lifts his head, eyes narrowing—not in anger, but with that quiet, assessing look that always comes before a calculated response.
“Is that what you think?” His voice is low. Even. But it hums with promise.
She smirks—but he catches the flutter in her pulse. The way her breath stutters for half a second. She knows. This isn’t over. Not even close.
He leans in, eyes never leaving hers as he reaches for her lingerie—fingers steady as he adjusts the lace back into place. Then her strap, sliding it gently over her shoulder. His touch is careful, intimate. Possessive.
He finishes what he starts. Always.
Not tonight. But soon.
Without a word, he undoes the knot binding her wrists, brushing his knuckles against her skin in a touch more deliberate than necessary.
Then he rises, smooth and composed, and holds out his hand to her.
"Let’s go," he says simply.