Page 245 of The Rules
His breath steadied first, control returning to him as it always did. Hers took longer, little aftershocks still making her tremble against him. Ben pulled back slightly, just enough to look at her face.
He watched her as she came down from her high, taking in every detail. She was flushed, ruined—head tilted back, lips parted around shallow gasps, eyes dazed and barely open.
And fuck—he’d never seen anything more beautiful.
But there was one more thing he needed to do.
His hand trailed down between them, fingers sliding through the slick heat still pulsing between her thighs. He pressed twofingers into her slowly, deliberately, curling them as he moved. She gasped—sharp, instinctive—her muscles clenching around him as if her body still didn’t want to let go.
He stroked once. Deep. Precise. Just enough to make her hips twitch.
Then he dragged his fingers back out, gliding through the mess of her—sweat, arousal, and everything he’d just given her. He lifted his hand, slow and deliberate, holding her gaze.
Kath’s lips parted without hesitation.
He pressed his fingers past them, and she sucked him clean, her tongue flicking over the pads as her eyes fluttered closed. Benjamin groaned, low and approving.
"That’s my good girl," he said, voice raw—hoarse from control he barely held. "Suck it all down. Remember exactly who just ruined you."
Her chest rose and fell in wrecked, uneven waves.
Benjamin straightened. Smooth. Unhurried. He fastened his pants with practiced precision—like he hadn’t just undone her completely, like he could do it again without breaking a sweat.
“That?” His smile tilted—lazy, confident, with just enough sharpness to cut. “That was me being generous.”
He let his gaze travel down her—flushed, open, wrecked—and exhaled slowly, like a man appreciating his own precision. The outcome of something carefully executed.
“You’ll remember it.” A pause. Measured. Calculated.
“I made sure of that.”
Chapter 52
Katherine
Katherine sat rigid at the battered wooden table, the edge of her coat brushing sticky tile beneath her boots. The pub was barely lit—just a few dim bulbs buzzing overhead, and a broken jukebox warbling a slow, haunting tune in the far corner.
The place smelled of spilled beer, cigarette and a loneliness that had settled deep into the walls. It was the kind of place people came to disappear.
And Nicholas Reeves looked like he was trying.
He paced in front of her, a shadow cut against the blood-red flicker of the neon sign outside the window. It strobed over his face in intervals—red, then dark—highlighting every ragged breath, every tremor in his hands.
She watched him without blinking. No sudden movements. No raised voice. Just the simmering press of her presence.
This was their witness. Their link to Crawford. And he looked like a man already halfway to vanishing.
"You ghosted me before," she said, her voice sharp but steady, slicing through the low hum of music and the distant creak of the building settling. "You were supposed to meet me. You knew how important this was. And now you finally show up?"
His boots crunched over broken glass as he froze, eyes wild, breath shallow. The sweat on his forehead caught the light just right—he looked haunted. Hollow.
"I shouldn't have come," he muttered, almost to himself.
Katherine’s chin locked, but she forced her hands to stay loose on the table, fingers resting lightly near a ring left from an old beer glass. She couldn’t push too hard. Not yet.
But the tension in her chest coiled tighter.
"But you did," she said, lowering her tone, weaving in calm with command. "Which means part of you still knows what the right thing is."
