Page 224 of The Rules

It sounded like a vow. It felt like a warning.

Katherine exhaled sharply, her hips twitching beneath him in frustration. She didn't want teasing, didn't want this slow torture of pleasure. She wanted him. Now. Here. Inside her.

Her body burned with need as she gazed up at Ben, his eyes dark and hungry above her. The restraint in his movements was beautiful torture—each touch deliberate yet somehow not enough. She couldn't bear it any longer, this careful distance he maintained even as he worshipped her body.

"Ben," she pleaded again, softer now, tugging at him, pulling him upward like she could anchor him to her body. "Please."

She watched his expression shift, saw something fracture behind his eyes at the sound of his name on her lips.

He shuddered, as if her voice had torn something loose inside him—something he’d tried too long to keep buried.

He pressed his forehead to hers, their breaths colliding and mingling, the air between them charged with something deeper than heat. Katherine felt the tension in his muscles, the tight coil just beneath his skin. Not from lust.

From feeling.

From restraint held too long.

Their hands moved—not with urgency, but intention.

His thumb brushed across her bottom lip, slow and gentle, a touch that saidI’m here. Her palm slid up his side, across the ridges of his ribs, tracing the lines of a body she didn’t want to possess—she wanted toknow. Her fingers drifted up his spine, to his shoulders, memorizing the slope of bone beneath heat-dampened skin.

Connection, not chaos.

And then—he pushed inside her.

Slow.

Devastating.

Inch by inch, she stretched around him, her breath breaking in a choked gasp as her body welcomed his. Her legs wrapped tighter around his hips, her eyes fluttering closed as he filled her, deeper and deeper, until there was no part of her he hadn’t touched.

This wasn’t about urgency.

It was about beingknown.

Ben groaned against her shoulder, low and guttural, and the sound rippled through her like a pulse. It sank into her bones, into the space where they joined—that deep, aching place that throbbed with the weight of him, the truth of him. She clung to him not to steady herself—but to hold onto the moment. Because this wasn’t about excitement.

It was aboutcloseness.

Katherine felt her world narrow to just this—Ben's body moving against hers, within her, claiming every inch of her withdeliberate precision. His hips moved in a rhythm that was neither rushed nor lazy, but controlled and purposeful, grinding into her with just enough pressure to leave her wrecked and still wanting more.

She felt everything. Every thick, deliberate thrust as he pushed inside her. Every nerve set alight where he dragged against her most sensitive places. The weight of him pressing her into the mattress felt like an anchor in a storm she hadn't known was raging.

Her nails found his back, scoring down his skin—not to hurt, but to hold. To saydon't gowithout having to form the words with her trembling lips. To keep him there, with her, inside her, where everything made sense.

"Fuck," he breathed, voice raw, teeth clenched tight as he fought for control.

Her body tightened around him in response, a helpless reaction to the sheer intensity of Ben—of being surrounded by him, filled by him, drowned by him.

They fell into rhythm together—not frenzied, not wild. Just... deep. Intimate. They moved like time had stopped. Like the world had ended. Like nothing else mattered but this connection between them.

Every thrust became a conversation neither could voice aloud. Every slow grind was a confession buried too deep for words. Katherine's breath caught with each movement, her body responding to his in perfect synchronicity.

Minutes dissolved around them. Hours seemed to bleed away. There was no destination they were racing toward—only the moment. Thefeelof him. The weight. The closeness that made everything else fade into insignificance.

This wasn't about release. It wasn't about chasing pleasure.

It was about feeling something—anything—other than everything else that had brought them here. The fear. The anger. The violence. The uncertainty.