Page 197 of The Rules
“Don’t remind me.”
Ben didn’t laugh. Didn’t gloat. But when he spoke again, his voice was quiet fire.
“I won’t.”
A pause.
“But I’ll remember.”
Chapter 44
Benjamin
Ben woke to warmth.
She was curled against him, breath slow, her leg tangled with his, the arch of her foot resting at his calf, her thigh pressed tight against his. Their hips aligned, the contact intimate, inescapable. His arm still lay across her waist, anchoring her to him.
Too close. Too familiar.
Her face was tilted toward his, lips parted slightly, lashes fanned like soft brushstrokes against her cheek in the pale morning light. She looked peaceful. Stripped of the sharp edges she usually wore like a warning.
It should have felt wrong. Reckless.
But it didn’t.
It felt inevitable.
The way her body fit to his, how her breathing matched his without trying—it was something he’d resisted longer than he wanted to admit. And now, with her in his bed, in his arms, her warmth pressed along the line of his body, he couldn’t bring himself to move.
Not with the low ache in his abdomen that signaled the familiar, automatic annoyance of a morning hard-on—one that had nothing to do with her. Just his body being a bastard of habit. But now, with her pressed up against him, it felt like the worst possible joke. He shifted slightly, discreet and careful, not to pull away but to avoid the awkwardness of her noticing.
Not arousal. Just inconvenience. And a frustrating lack of control.
Then—she moved.
A subtle shift. Her leg sliding fractionally, tightening the contact between them.
Hefelt the change instantly—the delicate halt of her breath, the slight tension that whispered awareness through her body.
Stillness—but not sleep.
She was awake.
And thinking.
Ben didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
But he knew her well enough to know exactly what was happening in that sharp, silent pause.
Her mind was already spinning—already calculating the distance, the damage, the quickest path to denial. Already planning how to make this moment mean less than it did.
And that's when he said it. Voice low. Still rough with sleep. Soft, but cutting.
“Stop thinking.”
She froze, and he felt it instantly—the faint hitch in her breath, the tension thrumming beneath his hand along the curve of her spine. It wasn’t dramatic. It was subtle. The kind of reaction no one else would catch, but he’d learned to read it like a tell.
That stillness. The prelude to withdrawal. The moment she started building walls, brick by trembling brick.
