If he'd asked—if he'd given me the choice, the space, the freedom to refuse—I would have. Without hesitation. Without a second thought.
I would've said no.
And we both knew it.
Still…
"So that gives you the right to take?" My voice shook, rage and desperation tangling until I couldn't tell them apart. "To do whatever you want?"
He stepped closer. Predatory. Controlled. Every movement deliberate, focused entirely on me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered, the only thing worth hunting, worth claiming, worth keeping.
"You're mine." His voice dropped—low, certain, terrifying in its conviction. "I have a right to do whatever I want to you."
The words slammed into me.
I shook my head violently, stepping back until my spine hit the bookshelf behind me, nowhere left to run, nowhere left to hide.
"No. I am not yours. I am not something you own."
His expression flickered—something raw and unguarded breaking through the controlled surface. Not anger. Not arrogance. Possessiveness, yes—but deeper than that. Hurt. Desperation. Something that looked dangerously close to fear.
He closed the remaining distance between us. His hand came up—not to grab, not to restrain, just to touch. Palm flat against the shelf beside my head, caging me without contact, giving me space while taking it all away.
"You are," he said quietly. Too quietly. The kind of quiet that meant he believed it with everything he had, believed it so deeply that my denial couldn't touch it, couldn't change it, couldn't make it any less true.
"Even if you hate it."
He stepped closer.
I backed into the shelf, spine hitting hardwood, books shifting above me. The air turned electric—charged with everything we weren't saying, everything I couldn't admit, everything that pulsed between us like a living thing.
"Belle."
My name in his mouth sounded like a prayer. Like a curse.
"Look at me."
I refused. Kept my eyes fixed on the floor, the shelves, anywhere but the dark heat I knew I'd find in his gaze. If I looked—if I met those eyes—I'd be lost.
Two fingers slid beneath my chin. Tilted my face up with unbearable gentleness. No escape.
Our lips hovered inches apart. His breath ghosted across my mouth, warm and unsteady, and I realized with a jolt that he was trembling too. That this control cost him something. That beneath the dominance and certainty, something fractured and desperate clawed its way to the surface.
I whispered, voice breaking, "You can't just take whatever you want."
He exhaled shakily—the first real sign he was losing control, that I affected him, that this mattered beyond possession, beyond the contract, beyond everything that should've kept us apart.
"Watch me."
Our mouths crashed together. Not soft. Not sweet. Not gentle. Angry. Desperate. Starved. Like we'd been circling this moment for weeks, like every argument and punishment and forced intimacy had been leading here, building toward this collision that felt inevitable and catastrophic and right in a way that terrified me.
I melted. Hated that I melted. Hated that my body surrendered before my mind could catch up, that my lips parted for him, that my hands fisted in his shirt and dragged him closer instead of pushing him away. Hated that I wanted this more than anything.
His groan vibrated against my mouth—raw and helpless and utterly undone.
And that was when I realized he wanted this as badly as I did. Not the control. Not the dominance. Not the power.
This.
