She gasped at the swiftness as he crushed his lips hard against hers. This act of possession could in no way be a mere exploration. There was nothing tender about it. Instead, it was consuming. She could feel all the anger and desire that he held hostage within him rising to the surface.
She tried to push back, with her fisted hands pressing against his chest, but Benedict did not let her go. His other hand wrapped around her waist, holding her in place as he devoured her lips. Mint and desperation spread across her tongue, making her compliant even as her mind tried to battle against what her body wanted. His mouth lingered in that one, prolonged, insatiable kiss. His throat could not help but release a hungry sound—onethat called to her own desire so that she could no longer help but kiss him back.
Finally, he pulled back, his eyes dark and filled with desire. He was going to teach her to think twice before poking or speaking back at him.
“Get on your hands and knees,” he barked.
For a heartbeat, she froze, her chest heaving and not knowing how to proceed. But slowly, she lowered herself onto the bed, her hair spilling forward as her gown shifted with the movement. Benedict watched, his gaze on her like fire and brimstone as he lifted her skirts.
He had wanted to do this since the last time she had been in his study, and now he finally had the chance. She just had to be so goddamn sharp-mouthed.
What he saw surprised him because she was already thoroughly drenched in her juices. He had never met a woman who got sopping wet over a kiss.
The sight of her, wet and ready and undone, undid even the tightly wound parts of him. Dark hunger zinged in his blood.
“Tell me, Anastasia,” he muttered, his fingers brushing lightly, cruelly against her heat. “Is this for me?”
Anastasia’s head whipped around, her lips parted, but she held her tongue. She would not give him that satisfaction, and he could tell.
“Very well,” he murmured. “Then listen carefully.”
His hand tightened on her hip.
“By the time I am done with you, the only name your lips will remember is mine.”
Anastasia sucked in a breath.
“Benedict—”
He did not let her speak before his lips crashed down on hers, swallowing every word she was about to utter. The second kiss carried more demand. It was searching for her compliance. Her permission. Yes, he was eager and urgent, but he also wanted her to show him she liked it, too, before he moved on to the rest of her body. He lowered himself between her thighs, and the moment his mouth touched her, it made her cry louder.
“You better be quiet, or you will be punished,” he warned, and the threat made her gasp again. She buried her face in the pillow, muffling the sound, clutching at the sheets with desperate fingers as her entire body trembled.
Benedict explored her folds with slow, agonizing care. He traced the most sensitive parts of her with his hot, wet tongue. It was torture. It was feather-light, but it added just the right fuel to her aching need. She shuddered and gasped when his mouth settled over her mound to suck gently, a slow descent into madness that made her hips move of their own accord.
Anastasia shuddered when his mouth settled higher, sucking gently, coaxing her toward a madness she could not outrun. Her hips moved of their own accord, chasing him. He held her still with his hands, forcing her to take it at his pace.
He flicked his tongue against her bud as she writhed and whimpered. She was spiraling, aching for the release he was coaxing closer and closer, until suddenly, he stopped. His mouth kissed her inner thigh. The sudden absence of intense pleasurefelt like a bucket of ice over her.
Her cry was one of desperation. She turned to him, eyes blazing. “I did not make as much as a peep. How dare you?”
Benedict’s lips brushed her thigh, his voice a whisper and a command all at once.
“Say it. Remind me whose name you are supposed to cry out.”
She wanted to be defiant, he could tell, because it was embedded in her very nature. But her body betrayed her, trembling with need. Her voice broke, and she let out the words, completely breathless, “Yours.”
“Say it properly,” he demanded again, without raising his voice.
“Benedict.”
His name tumbling from her lips made him even hotter, and with a groan, he claimed her again. His mouth claimed her without mercy.
He was licking, slurping, and sucking at her wetness, his tongue darting in and out of her in quick succession. His pace was frantic. He was relentless in the way he plundered the most intimate part of her. The way he pressed down hard and deep, mimicking what he truly wanted to do to her. He was still as his lips devoured her to the bone, and the only name that fell from her lips was his in desperate gasps.
Anastasia’s body tightened, trembling on the edge, and then she shattered beneath him. Her cry tore through the room, muffled by the pillow, his name falling from her lips exactly as he had promised.
Benedict lifted his head, chest heaving, his mouth wet with her taste. For once, there was no smugness in his expression, only something so raw it scared him. The sound of his name falling from her lips had set something alight in him that he could not explain.
