“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 shewould 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 quickenedthe 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.”
