ALEXA260909

He learned that money made people obedient, but fear made them faster. He learned that charm was useful when violence would be too obvious. He learned that if he smiled at the right time, people called cruelty confidence. By the time he was old enough to leave that house, he’d already become the kind of man his father had wanted, which was exactly why he hated him.

Ben didn’t build himself out of discipline as much as spite. Every polished piece of him had been sharpened against something ugly. He wanted more money than his father had, more control than his father had, more women staring, more men stepping aside, more doors opening before he even touched the handle.

He didn’t want respect because respect could be withdrawn. He wanted dependence, intimidation, proof that the world would rearrange itself around him if he pushed hard enough.

That hunger made him dangerous long before he had the bank account to match it. He was reckless, but he wasn’t stupid, and that was what made him worse. Men who underestimated Ben usually ended up poorer, injured, humiliated, or all three.

The first real money came dirty, though he’d never call it that in a room full of lawyers. Ben invested in private security when everyone else still thought men with guns were just muscle for hire. He saw the future in fear, in rich people needing protection, in companies wanting problems handled quietly, in politicians needing men who didn’t ask moral questions.

From there, he moved into shipping, construction, defense contracts, hospitality, clubs, and the kind of consulting firms that existed mostly to make illegal things look like paperwork. He didn’t inherit an empire so much as rip one out of the ground with both hands.

He made enemies faster than he made money, but the money came fast enough to make the enemies cautious. Every company had someone cleaner on the letterhead, someone smoother in interviews, someone who looked respectable enough for cameras. Ben stayed behind the curtain when it suited him, but everyone who mattered knew whose hand was around the throat of it all.

Now he was a millionaire many times over, the kind of rich that didn’t need to introduce itself. He didn’t ask prices because prices were for people deciding whether they could afford desire.

Ben bought buildings because he disliked landlords, bought clubs because he liked watching people unravel, and bought silence because silence was often cheaper than loyalty. He wore wealth like a threat rather than a costume.

Tailored shirts, heavy watches, old boots, gold cufflinks, black cars with tinted windows, and a wallet that could ruin someone’s whole month before lunch.

Nothing about him looked soft, even when he was trying to appear civil. His hands always gave him away. Scarred knuckles, thick fingers, the faint mark of a man who’d thrown punches personally even after he could afford to pay others to do it.

People hated Ben because he made it easy. He was rude when politeness bored him, charming when cruelty needed dressing up, and generous only when generosity gave him leverage. He remembered weaknesses better than birthdays.

He knew who drank too much, who owed money, who cheated on their wife, who lied on invoices, who liked being humiliated if the right person was watching. He collected those details the way other men collected art. It wasn’t enough for Ben to win.

He liked knowing exactly where to press so the other person understood they’d lost before the fight even started. That was why businessmen laughed too loudly around him and why powerful men still checked the door when he walked in.

He’d been called a bastard in boardrooms, restaurants, country clubs, hotel bars, private airports, and once by a priest who’d regretted the word immediately after saying it. Ben didn’t mind. He liked honest hatred more than fake affection because at least hatred knew what it was.

People who hated him still took his money, still shook his hand, still answered when he called after midnight. That amused him more than it should’ve. He’d spent his whole life watching dignity become negotiable under pressure.

It confirmed every ugly thing he already believed about the world. Everyone had a number, a fear, a craving, or a secret. Ben’s gift was finding it before they realized he was looking.

His temper had become part of his reputation, polished into legend by people who needed stories to explain why they were scared. He’d broken a man’s jaw outside a private casino because the man had put a hand on his shoulder twice after being told not to.

He’d fired an entire security detail because one guard smirked when Ben slipped on wet marble. He’d bought a restaurant after an owner refused him a table, closed it for renovations, then never reopened it.

He’d had cars towed from spaces that weren’t his because he didn’t like the color. None of it was reasonable, and Ben knew that. Reasonable men didn’t get remembered. Reasonable men waited in lines, accepted apologies, and died with fewer enemies than they deserved.

The hotel was supposed to be another temporary indulgence, but Ben didn’t do temporary well. His penthouse was being rebuilt after an incident his lawyers had buried beneath tasteful language and expensive signatures.

Structural damage, they’d called it, as if Ben hadn’t put a man through a glass wall during a dinner that had gone wrong for reasons everyone involved understood perfectly. The marble had been stained, the city had started whispering, and Ben had decided he didn’t want to sleep somewhere that smelled like bleach and consequences.

So he took the most expensive suite in one of the city’s most exclusive hotels and paid for privacy by the month. The management smiled through the decision because his money was obscene. The staff learned his name before he unpacked. Everyone understood quickly that Ben wasn’t a guest as much as a weather system.

Now he lived above the city in rooms that weren’t his, surrounded by expensive furniture he didn’t respect and service workers trained not to react. He smoked where he wasn’t supposed to, drank like sleep had insulted him personally, and kept hours that made the building feel less like a hotel and more like a bunker.

He ordered meals he didn’t eat, bottles he didn’t finish, ice he let melt, towels he didn’t use, and coffee strong enough to taste like punishment. He left cash everywhere because money meant less to him when it wasn’t making someone uncomfortable.

He could be silent for hours, then impossible for ten minutes and ruin everyone’s night. He knew the staff hated him. He also knew they’d keep coming when he called, because rich men didn’t need to be liked when the bill was paid in advance.

There was something rotten and restless in Ben that luxury had never managed to cure. Money had given him distance from consequences, but it hadn’t given him peace. Power had made him untouchable, but it hadn’t made him less angry.

Women had wanted him, men had feared him, lawyers had protected him, and employees had learned to lower their eyes, yet none of it filled the old hollow place his childhood had carved into him. He didn’t think of it that way, of course. Ben didn’t sit around naming wounds like some sad bastard in therapy.

He called it boredom, hunger, irritation, need, anything but damage. Still, every night in that suite, with the city glittering below him and a glass of bourbon warming in his hand, Ben looked like a man who owned everything except the one thing that might’ve made him stop wanting to destroy it.

You didn’t grow up with enough money to romanticize struggle. There wasn’t anything pretty about unpaid bills, second-hand coats, or pretending dinner was enough when everyone knew it wasn’t. Your childhood taught you how to be grateful for things that still hurt.

It taught you how to smile when adults asked if everything was fine, because telling the truth only made people uncomfortable. You became good at noticing moods before they turned into problems. You knew when to stay quiet, when to make yourself useful, and when to disappear before someone decided their frustration needed somewhere to land.

People called you mature like it was a compliment, but really it just meant you’d learned too early that nobody was coming to fix anything. So you fixed what you could and swallowed the rest.

You weren’t raised soft, even if people liked assuming you were. There was something about your face, your careful voice, your neat clothes, that made strangers think you were gentler than you actually were.

They saw politeness and mistook it for weakness. They saw tired eyes and assumed you’d fold if pushed hard enough. You hated that more than you admitted. You’d spent too long surviving difficult people to let some suited guest, angry manager, or drunk rich man decide you were easy prey.

You weren’t loud about your pride, but it was there, stubborn and sharp beneath everything. It lived in the way you kept your chin up even when your hands were shaking.

You learned work before you learned rest. Every job you’d ever had left some kind of mark on you, whether it was sore feet, aching wrists, ruined sleep, or the particular humiliation of being spoken to like furniture.

You’d worked cafés where men called you sweetheart while snapping their fingers, bars where customers thought tips bought permission, and front desks where smiling through disrespect was treated like a skill.

You’d cleaned tables, carried trays, answered phones, handled complaints, memorized orders, and apologized for things that had nothing to do with you.

None of it made you fragile. If anything, it made you observant in a way people underestimated. You knew how to read who was lonely, who was angry, who was dangerous, and who only acted cruel because they were bored. That knowledge didn’t make the work easier, but it kept you safe. Mostly.

The hotel job came when you needed money more than you needed a life. The listing promised late hours, decent pay, staff meals, and enough overtime to make exhaustion feel almost practical. You told yourself it was temporary because everyone told themselves that about jobs that slowly swallowed them whole.

At first, the place impressed you with its marble floors, brass elevators, chandeliers, and guests who smelled like perfume, money, and entitlement. Then the glamour wore thin.

You started noticing the fingerprints on glass doors, the bruised fruit left on breakfast trays, the housekeeping carts hidden behind service corridors, the staff crying quietly in storage rooms before fixing their faces.

Luxury looked different when you were the person carrying it to someone else’s room. It looked less like elegance and more like labor with better lighting.

You worked nights because nights paid more, and because the dark had always made more sense to you than mornings. The hotel changed after midnight. The lobby emptied, the music lowered, the bar lights dimmed, and the rich stopped pretending to be civilized.

Night guests were drunker, lonelier, meaner, stranger, and much worse at hiding what they wanted. You learned which rooms ordered champagne after arguments, which businessmen tipped badly after touching your wrist, which couples used room service as foreplay, and which guests needed someone to witness them being powerful.

The night shift made you invisible in a specific way. People looked through you until they wanted something, then looked too closely. You got used to both.

You had rules for surviving men with money. Don’t laugh unless you mean to. Don’t accept private drinks. Don’t let them block the door. Don’t let a compliment make you forget the uniform. Don’t mistake expensive manners for kindness, because the cruelest men you’d ever met knew exactly how to sound charming.

You kept your voice even, your hands steady, and your expression polite enough to pass as professionalism. You knew when to bite your tongue, but you also knew there were moments when silence made things worse. Some men needed to be reminded there was a person beneath the name tag.

Still, there was a part of you that resented how good you were at enduring things. You hated that you could be tired and still function, upset and still smile, furious and still say, “Of course, sir.” You hated that people praised your reliability when what they really meant was that you didn’t make your pain inconvenient.

Some nights, after your shift, you’d sit in the staff locker room with your shoes kicked off and your head tilted back against cold metal, wondering when your life had become a series of hours to survive. Then you’d check your phone, look at your bank balance, and remind yourself why you stayed. Rent didn’t care that your body hurt. Bills didn’t care that customers were vile. Survival had never been sentimental with you.

You weren’t innocent, no matter how easily people projected it onto you. You had your own ugly thoughts, your own hungers, your own temper, your own private little disasters hidden beneath clean makeup and a pressed uniform. You knew what it felt like to want something bad for you and hate yourself for wanting it anyway.

You knew how desire could creep in through irritation, how attention could feel dangerous and addictive when it came from the wrong person. That didn’t mean you were naive. If anything, you understood danger too well, which was why part of you sometimes recognized it before choosing to step closer.

You didn’t like being controlled, but you liked being seen more than you wanted to admit. That contradiction lived in you quietly, waiting for the wrong room, the wrong man, the wrong night.

The staff liked you because you didn’t make their lives harder. You covered shifts without whining, traded favors without keeping score, and argued with managers when they pushed people too far. You were not the loudest person on the night team, but people listened when you spoke because you usually waited until something mattered.

The kitchen staff saved you coffee when service got brutal. Housekeeping told you which rooms to avoid. Security liked that you didn’t panic easily, even when guests got aggressive.

The front desk trusted you with difficult deliveries because you were calm, sharp, and just reckless enough to say what everyone else swallowed. You became useful, and in a hotel like that, usefulness was the closest thing to protection.

By the time the city glittered outside the penthouse windows and the rich slept badly above everyone else, you’d already become someone harder than the girl who first took the job. You still looked soft under the warm hallway lights, still wore your uniform neatly, still fixed your lipstick in the elevator mirror before stepping out onto expensive carpet. But there was steel threaded through you now.

It sat behind your polite smile, beneath your tired eyes, inside the way you held a tray like it couldn’t weigh more than you did. You had spent your whole life being underestimated by people who thought money, age, power, or cruelty made them untouchable.

Maybe that was why you didn’t scare as easily as you should’ve. Maybe that was why, when trouble finally looked back at you from behind a penthouse door, some reckless part of you didn’t run. It recognized him.

The lobby is doing that strange late-night thing where it looks expensive and dead at the same time. Everything shines too much beneath the low golden lights, polished marble floors reflecting the chandelier overhead, brass elevator doors gleaming like nobody has ever touched them with tired hands.

The air smells faintly of lemon cleaner, perfume, old flowers, and the last trace of cigar smoke someone rich enough to ignore rules must’ve carried in on his coat. You’re standing near the front desk with your tray tucked against your hip, nodding while a guest in a dark coat explains, for the third time, that he’s looking for the private dining room, not the restaurant.

He’s irritated in the way people get when they’re embarrassed but too proud to admit they’re lost. His wife stands half a step behind him, clutching her little evening bag, smiling at you like she’s sorry for him and too used to being sorry for him to say anything.

You keep your voice soft, polite, steady, pointing toward the corridor past the lounge with two fingers instead of one because the hotel trains even your gestures to look elegant. “Just past the bar, sir, then left at the floral arrangement. There’ll be a set of double doors, and someone from events will meet you there.”

The man frowns like the corridor has personally insulted him. “Are you sure?” he asks, his tone clipped with the kind of suspicion people use when they don’t want to admit they weren’t listening. His eyes move past you toward the hallway as if the walls might rearrange themselves just to prove him right.

His wife’s fingers tighten around her bag, and you can tell she’s heard this voice a hundred times before in restaurants, airports, and hotel lobbies exactly like this one.

You smile because that’s what you’re paid to do. “Yes, sir,” you say, keeping your face pleasant enough to survive him. You tilt your chin slightly toward the corridor, still patient, still controlled, still acting like this hasn’t already been explained twice. “I can see the entrance from here.”

He turns his head, squinting toward the exact place you’ve just described, then gives a stiff little nod like he’s decided to allow reality to be correct. “Fine,” he says, like the building has finally passed inspection. He adjusts his coat with unnecessary irritation, then looks toward his wife without really looking at her. “Come along, darling.”

His wife gives you another look, smaller this time, a private little thank you tucked into the lift of her brows. You return it with the kind of smile that doesn’t show teeth because teeth feel too honest this late at night. They walk off together, his shoes clicking against the marble, her heels softer beside him.

You watch until they disappear around the corner, then let your shoulders drop by barely an inch. It’s not enough for anyone else to notice, but it’s enough for your body to remember it’s tired. Your feet ache inside your neat black shoes, the waistband of your skirt has started to dig in from hours of walking, and the tiny metal name badge pinned over your blouse feels heavier than it should.

The lobby clock behind the desk says it’s too late for patience and too early for freedom. You pull in a slow breath through your nose and prepare yourself to keep moving because standing still too long only reminds you how badly you want to sit down.

You turn back toward the service station, already reaching for the stack of empty glasses waiting to be carried through to the back, when the front desk clerk says your name. She doesn’t say it loudly, but she doesn’t have to.

The sound still cuts through the soft lobby music, the hum of the computers, and the distant clatter from the bar being cleaned down for the night. You know before you turn around that whatever she’s about to say isn’t going to make your shift easier.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just enough to catch you before you can disappear into the staff corridor. Just enough to make the bellhop near the luggage cart glance up and then immediately pretend he didn’t. Just enough to make the night manager’s pen stop moving over the paperwork in front of him. Just enough to make your stomach tighten before you even look at her.

There’s a tone in it that makes your stomach tighten before you even look at her. You know that tone by now because everyone who works nights has developed one for him. It’s half warning and half apology, like saying the wrong thing too directly might summon him through the elevator doors.

The clerk is standing behind the desk with the phone still in her hand, mouth pressed into a line, eyes flicking from you to the penthouse indicator above the private lift. She doesn’t need to explain at first. You already know.

You feel it in the little shift of the air, in the way the bellhop suddenly finds something very interesting about his shoes, in the way the night manager pretends to look over paperwork while listening with his whole body. The whole lobby seems to pause around the shape of one man’s inconvenience.

“Penthouse wants whiskey,” she says. Her voice is low, carefully neutral, and so exhausted that the politeness barely covers it. She sets the phone back into its cradle like she’s placing down something dangerous. Then she looks at you with that familiar expression that says she’s sorry and grateful and absolutely not willing to go up there herself.

You stare at her for a beat. “Of course he does,” you say, because there’s nothing else to say that won’t get you written up. Your voice comes out dry enough to make the bellhop’s mouth twitch. You glance toward the private lift, then back at her, already feeling the shift settle over your night. Of course it’s him. Of course it’s whiskey. Of course it’s now.

The bellhop snorts before he can stop himself, then turns it into a cough so poorly that even the lobby plants seem unconvinced. The clerk gives him a warning look, but there’s no real bite in it. Everyone is too tired for discipline, too tired to pretend the suite upstairs hasn’t become the building’s least funny running joke.

You step closer to the desk, lowering your voice because guests may be out of sight, but rich hotels are built on the belief that walls have ears and ears have managers. “Did he ask for anything specific?”

She checks the notes like she doesn’t already remember every unreasonable preference he’s ever forced into the system. Her finger traces down the screen, even though both of you know she’s stalling because the answer is irritating. “Single malt,” she says. “Oldest bottle available. Two glasses.”

Your brows lift. “Two?” The word comes out before you can soften it, too sharp to pass as ordinary curiosity. You look from the clerk to the phone, then toward the lift again. Something about it lands wrong in your chest, not bad exactly, just deliberate.

“That’s what he said.” She spreads her fingers slightly against the desk, helpless in that very specific customer-service way. Her lips press together again, and you can tell she wants to ask the same thing you’re thinking. She doesn’t, because asking questions about him has never made anything better.

The word sits there between you. Two. Not unusual on paper. Plenty of guests order two glasses, even when they’re alone, because they’re expecting company, or because they like pretending they are. But with him, nothing feels like paper.

Everything feels deliberate. You glance toward the elevator before you can stop yourself, the private one tucked past the concierge desk with its little gold key panel and silent doors. It’s ridiculous, the way your body reacts to a closed lift.

The thought of him above you, waiting somewhere behind all that money and trouble, makes something low in your stomach pull tight. You hate that. You hate it enough that you pick up the empty glasses harder than necessary.

The clerk notices, because women who work nights notice everything. “I can send someone else,” she says. She says it like an offer, but both of you hear the lie in it immediately. Her eyes flick toward the bellhop, who suddenly looks like he’d rather climb into one of the luggage carts than be volunteered.

“No, you can’t.” You say it without heat because the truth doesn’t need any help being miserable. You set the glasses down with a soft clink and straighten your name badge out of habit. Your feet already ache in protest, like even they know where you’re about to go.

“I can try.” She makes a face like she knows how badly that plan would go. Her hand hovers near the phone as if she could somehow call the problem back and negotiate with it. “Someone from bar service might still be here.”

“You can, and then he’ll send it back, call three more times, insult the poor person who goes up there, and somehow I’ll still end up taking it.” You stack the glasses neatly beside the desk, your smile dry. “Let’s save everyone the theatre.”

It earns a tiny, strangled laugh from behind the luggage cart, and you don’t need to turn around to know who it came from. The night manager hears it too, because of course he does.

The night manager looks up then, because managers have a sixth sense for tone when it might cost them paperwork. “Keep it professional,” he says. His voice is mild in that careful way that always means warning instead of advice. He doesn’t look at the lift when he says it, but everybody knows who he’s really talking about.

You look at him. “I’m always professional,” you tell him. Your expression is smooth, polished, and just innocent enough to be annoying. The clerk looks down at the desk immediately, which tells you she’s trying not to smile.

The bellhop makes that fake cough again. It’s even worse this time, barely a cough and mostly a laugh with stage fright. He turns toward the luggage cart like it might rescue him from being noticed. The night manager gives him a look so flat it could press flowers.

You don’t even look his way. “Mostly,” you add. The word sits there, small and dry and perfectly timed. This time the clerk has to turn away fully because her mouth is betraying her.

The clerk bites the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling, but the night manager doesn’t find it funny. He never finds anything funny unless a guest says it while spending money. He steps closer with that careful managerial posture, hands folded in front of him, face arranged into concern he probably practiced during training. “He’s already had one complaint tonight. We don’t need another.”

“From him or about him?” you ask. Your voice stays pleasant, but the question has teeth. You know exactly how many complaints begin and end with the penthouse these days.

“Both would be inconvenient.” He says it like inconvenience is the greatest tragedy known to hospitality. His eyes flick toward the lift at last, brief and unwilling. Then he looks back at you, expecting agreement because agreement is easier to schedule.

“That’s inspiring leadership, sir.” You don’t smile this time. You just let the words sit there, polished enough to survive and sharp enough to sting. The bellhop becomes fascinated with the luggage tags again.

His mouth tightens. “I’m serious.” His tone lowers a fraction, not enough to be harsh, but enough to remind you he’s still your manager. He adjusts his cuffs like that might restore authority to the room.

“So am I.” You take the order slip from the printer, fold it once, and tuck it between your fingers. “I’ll take him his whiskey, say good evening, put the tray down, and leave.” You say it like an oath, like something simple and enforceable. You almost believe yourself.

That is the plan. That is always the plan. It’s a simple plan, professional, clean, impossible to misunderstand. You repeat it to yourself as you turn away from the desk and head toward the service corridor. Take the whiskey. Say good evening. Put the tray down. Leave.

The words march through your head in time with your footsteps, past the linen room, past the staff notice board cluttered with faded memos, past the little break area where someone has abandoned a half-eaten packet of crisps beside a cold cup of tea.

The back corridors don’t look like the lobby. Back here, the hotel’s glamour peels away into scuffed walls, humming vents, fluorescent lights, and the sour-sweet smell of coffee that’s been sitting too long. Back here, everyone is human. Back here, nobody’s pretending marble floors clean themselves.

The bar is closed to guests, but not to room service. The bartender on late inventory duty looks up when you push through the swing door, sees the slip in your hand, and immediately grimaces. “Don’t tell me,” he says. He already knows, but he says it anyway because dread likes ceremony.

“Penthouse wants whiskey.” You hold up the slip between two fingers like evidence at a trial. The bartender shuts his eyes for half a second. When he opens them again, he looks personally offended by the existence of wealthy men.

“Course he does.” He reaches for the locked cabinet without asking which room. His keys jangle too loudly in the quiet bar. “What did he break this time?”

“Hopefully nothing yet.” You lean your hip against the counter for one tiny second of relief. Your feet throb immediately, as if grateful for even that much mercy. “The night is young, though.”

“That’s optimistic of you.” He unlocks the cabinet and pulls it open carefully. The bottles inside sit in neat rows, each one looking expensive enough to have opinions. He scans them with the grim focus of someone choosing a sacrifice.

“I’m trying a new thing.” You watch him reach for the oldest bottle available. “It’s called not assuming disaster before I’ve even stepped into the lift.” Your voice is dry, but your stomach hasn’t unclenched.

He laughs once, quiet and tired, then unlocks the cabinet where they keep the bottles expensive enough to require witness protection. His hands move with practiced care, sliding out a dark glass bottle with a label that looks old, serious, and financially irresponsible. He sets it on the counter like it might bite him.

You watch the amber liquid shift inside as he turns it toward the light, rich and smooth and absurd, worth more than your weekly pay by a margin that makes you want to laugh or scream depending on the angle. “He asked for two glasses,” you say.

The bartender pauses. “Two?” His brows draw together, and for a second he looks exactly like the clerk did. Then his gaze flicks toward the ceiling, as if the penthouse might be visible through several floors of luxury construction.

“That’s what I said.” You cross your arms loosely, careful not to wrinkle your blouse. The words taste strange the second time. They don’t get less strange.

“He got someone up there?” The bartender asks it softly, more curious than judgmental. His hand remains on the second glass without setting it down yet. Even he seems to understand that with Ben, details are never just details.

“Do I look like his social secretary?” You arch a brow at him. It’s easier to be sarcastic than admit the question made your pulse shift. He snorts and finally sets the second glass beside the first.

“No,” he says, setting two crystal tumblers onto the tray. “You look like the only person in this place who tells him no and survives it.” He says it lightly, but the look he gives you isn’t careless. It’s the kind of look that checks for bruises without asking to see them.

You roll your eyes, but the words land too close to something you don’t want named. “I don’t tell him no.” You smooth a napkin corner that doesn’t need smoothing. Your voice stays even, but your fingers give you away by fussing too much.

“You argue.” He places the ice dish on the tray with careful precision. His mouth twitches like he’s trying not to make the point too obvious. “That’s not exactly nothing.”

“That’s different.” You look down at the bottle instead of at him. The dark glass reflects the bar light back at you in warped gold. “Arguing is just talking with better posture.”

“How?” he asks. He sounds amused now, but he’s still watching you too closely. There’s a protective edge to it that makes your chest feel tight. “Tell me the difference.”

“It has better pacing.” You lift your chin a little, and this time his laugh is real. It breaks some of the tension, not all of it, but enough to let you breathe. “Besides, if he wanted someone quiet, he’d stop asking for me.”

He huffs a laugh and reaches for the heavy silver tray, arranging everything with the kind of precision the hotel demands from people it underpays. Bottle centered. Glasses aligned. White napkin folded beneath them. Small dish of ice on the side, silver tongs laid just so. He hesitates before sliding it toward you. “Need me to walk it up with you?”

“No.” You answer too quickly. You know it the second it leaves your mouth. The bartender knows it too.

“You sure?” His voice drops. The bar feels quieter around the question. Even the fridges seem to hum more softly.

You look down at the tray instead of at him. “He’s a guest.” It sounds weak the second you say it, polished and ridiculous. You both know guest is one of those words hotels use when they mean problem we’re being paid to tolerate. Still, it gives you something to stand behind.

“That’s not what I asked.” He doesn’t push past that, but he doesn’t let it disappear either. His eyes remain on your face, patient and tired. The concern makes you feel more exposed than Ben’s staring ever has, which is annoying in a completely different way.

For a second, the hum of the bar fridge seems louder. You know what he means. Everyone knows what he means. He isn’t asking whether you can carry whiskey to the penthouse. He’s asking whether the man upstairs is more trouble than usual tonight, whether the line between difficult guest and dangerous man feels thinner than it should. It’s a kind question in a place where kindness usually gets rationed. You soften a little despite yourself. “I’m sure.”

The bartender studies you for another second, then nods. “Radio if you need anything.” He taps the small device clipped near your waist with two fingers, not touching you, just reminding you it’s there. “I mean it.”

“I know.” You adjust the tray in your hands. The weight settles into your palms, cold metal against warm skin. “I’ll be fine.”

“And don’t let him wind you up.” The bartender points at you like this is something you can control through willpower alone. “He does it because you react.” His face says he knows that’s exactly the problem.

You lift the tray. “That’s literally his only hobby.” The bottle shifts, and you steady it without looking. “Well, that and making everyone regret learning his room number.” The bartender laughs again, but it fades before you reach the door.

The weight settles into your hands, familiar and balanced. You carry it out through the service corridor, slow enough not to spill, fast enough not to give yourself time to think too much. The order slip lies folded beside the bottle, his room number printed in black like a dare.

You pass housekeeping on the way, two women pushing a cart piled with towels and sheets. One of them sees the bottle, sees your face, and makes a sympathetic little sound. “Penthouse?”

“Unfortunately.” You keep walking because stopping will only invite more comments and you aren’t sure you can keep your face neutral. The tray is steady, but your thoughts aren’t. The word two keeps flickering through them like a faulty light.

“Tell him we’re out of towels forever.” She says it with the flat seriousness of someone who has seen what he does to hotel linen. Her coworker mutters something in another language under her breath that sounds exactly like agreement. The cart squeaks as they push it past you.

“I’ll put that in the guest notes.” You give her a quick smile. It’s small, but it’s real. Everyone down here survives by turning misery into jokes before it can turn into crying.

“You joke, but I mean it.” She points one folded towel at you like a warning. “Forever. No towels. Not a single one in the building.” Then she keeps moving because housekeeping doesn’t get the luxury of dramatic exits.

You smile, but it fades once you reach the private lift. The lobby is quieter now, the lost couple gone, the front desk pretending not to watch you. The night manager looks up from his paperwork. The clerk gives you a small nod, not quite encouragement, not quite apology.

You shift the tray onto one hand long enough to press the lift button with the other. For a moment, nothing happens. Then the doors open soundlessly, revealing mirrored walls, gold trim, and carpet so thick it seems designed to swallow footsteps and secrets.

You step inside. The tray feels heavier in the silence. Your reflection steps in with you from every wall, calm-faced and tired-eyed and holding a bottle worth more than your rent. The doors begin to close before you can change your mind.

The doors close. The lobby disappears into a thin gold line. The last thing you see is the clerk watching you with her mouth pressed tight. Then there’s only the mirrored lift and the soft mechanical rise beneath your feet.

For the first few floors, you stare straight ahead at your reflection. You look composed because you’ve had years of practice arranging yourself into something palatable. Hair neat enough. Lipstick still holding. Uniform smooth despite the long shift.

Name badge straight. Tray steady. Nothing in the mirror says your pulse has changed. Nothing says the words two glasses are still sitting in the back of your mind like a hand on your waist.

Nothing says you’re already thinking about how he’ll answer the door, whether he’ll be dressed, whether he’ll smile like he knew you’d come because everyone always does.

The lift rises too smoothly, the numbers glowing one after another above the doors. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. The hotel gets quieter the higher you go, as if wealth has soundproofing built into it. By the time the lift reaches the penthouse floor, you can hear your own breathing. You hate that too. You inhale once, slow and measured, then step out when the doors open.

The penthouse corridor is empty. It always is at this hour. Empty doesn’t make it feel safer, though. Empty just means there are fewer witnesses.

It always feels different up here. The carpet is darker, softer, the walls lined with muted artwork nobody is meant to actually look at. The lighting is warmer, lower, more flattering, like even the hallway has been paid to keep secrets.

There are no ice machines humming, no children running, no drunk conference guests laughing too loudly near vending machines. Just silence, expensive and deliberate. At the end of the corridor, his door waits beneath its discreet brass number.

You walk toward it with the tray balanced in both hands, each step too quiet to feel real. The whiskey bottle catches the light. The two glasses chime softly against each other once, and the sound makes your jaw tighten.

You stop outside his suite. Your hands don’t shake, which feels like a victory too small to celebrate. The music inside reaches you through the door, low and rough and old-fashioned enough to sound like him. You stand there for half a breath longer than necessary, hating that you need even that much time.

For half a second, you do nothing. You listen. There’s music inside, low and old, something with a slow guitar line and a voice roughened by smoke. Not loud enough for a complaint yet, but loud enough to tell you he’s awake, restless, waiting. You can smell smoke before the door even opens, not strong, but there, threaded beneath the expensive hallway air. You raise your hand, knuckles hovering near the wood.

Take the whiskey. Say good evening. Put the tray down. Leave.

You knock. The sound is polite, measured, and softer than the way your heart answers it. You lower your hand back to the tray. The glasses whisper against each other again, barely loud enough to count.

There’s no answer at first. The silence stretches just long enough to feel intentional. You picture him inside, hearing you, deciding how long to make you wait. The thought irritates you because you know you’re probably right.

Then his voice comes through the door, low and lazy. “Come in.” Two words, and somehow they still manage to sound like an order. They roll through the wood with the kind of confidence that assumes the world has already unlocked itself for him.

You close your eyes for one brief second, because of course he couldn’t just open the door like a normal guest. The suite uses a privacy latch unless unlocked from inside, which means he’s already left it ready for you. That knowledge should irritate you more than it warms your face. You shift the tray carefully, reach for the handle, and push the door open with your hip.

The suite is dimmer than the hallway, lit mostly by the city beyond the windows and one lamp glowing near the sitting area. The curtains are open, showing the skyline stretched out beneath the glass, all glittering roads, black sky, and distant lights blurred by a thin mist of rain. The room smells like whiskey already, smoke, expensive soap, and him.

There are papers spread across the coffee table, a jacket thrown over the back of an armchair, a half-empty glass near the windows, and an ashtray that definitely shouldn’t exist in a non-smoking hotel. He’s standing with his back to you near the glass, one hand in the pocket of dark trousers, shirt unbuttoned at the throat like the whole night has been annoying him personally.

“Good evening, sir,” you say. Your voice comes out steady enough to pass inspection. The door closes behind you with a soft click that feels much louder than it is. You keep both hands on the tray and make yourself look at the table instead of at his back.

Ben doesn’t turn right away. He lets the greeting sit there. He keeps looking out at the city like he has all the time in the world and half of it belongs to him. The muscles across his shoulders shift once beneath his shirt, slow and lazy, like he’s aware of your eyes without needing to check.

Of course he doesn’t. Of course he makes silence do the first bit of work for him. Of course he knows exactly how irritating it is. Of course you refuse to give him the satisfaction of filling it too quickly.

He lets the silence stretch while you step inside, the door closing behind you with a soft, expensive click. Only then does he look over his shoulder. The city light catches the side of his face first, cutting his features into shadow and gold,

all hard jaw, tired eyes, and that familiar mouth that always looks like it’s one bad thought away from saying something unforgivable. His gaze drops to the tray, then to your hands, then up to your face. He looks amused already.

“Took you long enough,” he says. His voice is rough, low, and casual enough to be insulting. He turns just a little more, making no move to help you with the tray. The corner of his mouth lifts like he’s been waiting to see whether you’d bite.

You walk to the table and set the tray down with more care than he deserves. “I was helping another guest.” You straighten the bottle once, mostly because the movement gives your hands something to do. Then you lift your eyes to his, calm and polished and not nearly as unaffected as you look.

“That right?” His gaze sharpens a fraction. It’s a small change, but you catch it. He says it like another guest is a personal offense he’s deciding whether to forgive.

“Yes, sir.” You fold your hands loosely in front of you. The word sir feels different with him than it did in the lobby. With everyone else, it’s service. With him, it feels like a match being struck.

His eyes narrow slightly, not angry yet, but interested in the ugliest possible way. “Must’ve been important.” He moves away from the window by a step. Then another. The room seems to tighten around the sound of him crossing it.

“He was lost.” You keep your tone neutral. It’s the same voice you used downstairs, but it feels less useful here. Up here, politeness doesn’t feel like armor so much as lace over a bruise.

Ben turns from the window fully now, slow and broad-shouldered, the open collar of his shirt shifting as he moves. “And you’re in the business of rescuing lost men?” His eyes drop briefly to your name badge, then lower, then return to your face. He doesn’t hide any of it because hiding would imply shame.

You straighten beside the table, smoothing your hands over your skirt because you need something to do with them. “I’m in the business of giving directions.” Your voice stays cool. Your pulse does not.

He smiles then, faint and dangerous. “Good,” he says. He takes one more slow step toward you. “I might need some.”

Ben knew it was a cheap line the second it left his mouth, but he liked the way your eyes narrowed at him anyway. He watched the reaction move through you before you could hide it, the tiny lift of your brows, the faint press of your lips, the way your polite face cracked just enough to show the woman underneath the uniform.

You didn’t give him the blush he was aiming for, not fully, but you gave him irritation, and irritation had always looked good on you. Instead of stepping back, you stayed beside the table with your hands smoothing over your skirt like you were physically stopping yourself from saying something rude.

That amused him more than it should’ve. Most of the staff treated him like a fire alarm that had learned to drink and complain. You looked at him like he was a guest, a problem, and a man you’d happily shove into the service lift if the cameras went out. “Try reception, sir,” you said, your voice neat enough to pass as manners and sharp enough to cut him anyway.

Ben smiled because there it was, that little bite he kept ordering whiskey to hear. He moved closer to the table, slow enough that he could watch whether you’d retreat, but you didn’t give him that either. You stood your ground while the city glowed behind him, the tray between you, the expensive bottle catching the lamp light like something sinful and useless.

The way you held yourself was almost funny to him, straight spine, tired eyes, chin up, as if hotel training and stubbornness could count as armor. Maybe on anyone else, it wouldn’t have. On you, it worked just enough to make him want to test it.

“Reception’s been useless all night,” he said, letting his gaze drift over your face with deliberate laziness. “They keep sending me people who apologize too much.” His mouth twitched when your expression went flatter, because he could practically hear the argument loading behind your teeth.

“You do make people feel like apologizing,” you said, reaching for one of the tumblers and setting it down with careful precision. Ben watched your fingers because he’d started doing that lately, watching the small competent movements you probably didn’t think twice about.

You opened the bottle without asking whether he wanted you to, and something about that confidence pleased him in a way he didn’t bother naming. The soft glug of whiskey filled the silence between you, dark and smooth, and he let the sound stretch before answering. “That your professional opinion?” he asked.

You poured just enough, not too much, not too little, because of course you’d learned his preferences despite pretending he wasn’t worth remembering. “It’s my unpaid emotional observation,” you said, setting the bottle down again. Ben laughed under his breath, not because it was polite, but because he hadn’t expected you to say it that cleanly.

He liked you better when you forgot to be careful, and that was becoming a problem. Careful you was polished, measured, and irritatingly good at leaving before he got what he wanted from the conversation.

Uncareful you looked at him like he’d personally shortened your lifespan, and Ben found that version far more interesting. He picked up the glass but didn’t drink from it, only turned it once in his hand while watching you watch the movement.

“You always this mouthy with guests?” he asked. You glanced at the glass, then back at him, and your smile was so small it barely counted. “Only the ones who mistake staff for entertainment,” you said. Ben’s eyes sharpened because that one landed closer than you probably intended, and he liked it too much to pretend otherwise.

“If I wanted entertainment, sweetheart, I’d pay for better lighting,” Ben said, gesturing vaguely at the dim room. He expected you to roll your eyes, maybe mutter something under your breath, but you only looked at him with that calm, unimpressed face that made him feel like he was the one being handled.

You reached for the second glass, the unused one, and shifted it slightly away from the edge of the table like you didn’t trust him not to break that too. He noticed, of course he noticed, and the corner of his mouth pulled higher.

“Worried about the glass?” he asked. “I’m worried about the paperwork,” you replied. “The glass can be replaced.” Ben tipped his head, studying you over the rim of his drink, and decided your kind of honesty was more dangerous than the polite fear he usually got.

He took one swallow of whiskey and let it burn slow, not because he needed it, but because it gave him time to look at you. Your uniform was still neat despite the hour, but he could see the small evidence of a long shift if he cared to look, the faint crease at your waist, the tired set of your shoulders, the slight smudge near the edge of your lipstick.

Ben did care to look, which annoyed him. He preferred wanting things simply, cleanly, with no stray details catching on his attention afterward. You were not simple, and that made him feel almost inconvenienced. “You look tired,” he said, and it came out rougher than he meant it to. “That your attempt at concern, sir?” you asked. “Needs work.”

Ben’s laugh came quicker that time, low and surprised, and he saw your mouth twitch like you hated giving him even that much. He stepped closer again, close enough now that the table no longer felt like a boundary, only furniture.

You looked up at him without moving, and that stubborn little refusal to be intimidated worked under his skin like heat. “You got a comment for everything?” he asked. “Only when inspired,” you said.

“And you find me inspiring?” he asked, voice lowering around the word because he couldn’t help himself. You gave him a look that would’ve humbled a better man. “I find you repetitive.”

That should’ve irritated him, but Ben had always enjoyed being challenged by someone who meant it. He was used to people performing defiance for a few seconds before remembering who paid for the room, who tipped too much, who could complain loudly enough to make managers sweat.

You didn’t perform it. You simply looked at him, tired and bright-eyed and done with his nonsense in a way that made him want to drag another ten minutes out of you. “Repetitive,” he repeated, tasting the word like an insult he might keep.

“Yes, sir,” you said. “Whiskey, complaints, smoke, impossible hours, unnecessary comments, and making everyone downstairs wish the private lift would break.” Ben smiled slowly, because hearing you list his sins with that service-trained voice of yours was indecently satisfying. “You been keeping track of me?”

Your face shifted for half a second, just long enough for him to know he’d caught something. Not embarrassment exactly, but awareness, the hot little second where both of you understood there was a difference between noticing a difficult guest and knowing his patterns.

You recovered quickly, because of course you did. “It’s hard not to when you make yourself the building’s main emergency,” you said. Ben set his glass down with deliberate care, then braced one hand on the table, leaning just enough to make the air between you smaller.

“Maybe I like knowing you’re paying attention,” he said. Your eyes dropped to his hand, then returned to his face. “That sounds like something you should discuss with a professional.”

Ben’s grin widened, but something in him tightened too, because you kept slipping out of the shapes he tried to put you in. He wanted you flustered, but you turned sharp. He wanted you obedient, but you turned formal. He wanted you honest, but you gave him sarcasm polished so smooth the hotel could’ve served it on a silver tray.

“Careful,” he said, softer now, because softer usually made people listen harder. “You talk to every man like that, you’re gonna get yourself in trouble.”

You stared at him for a beat, and he knew before you spoke that he’d nudged too close to something real. “No, sir,” you said, your voice colder than before. “Only the ones who think trouble is a personality.”

For a second, Ben almost admired the restraint it must’ve taken not to say worse. He could see it in you, the little storm gathering behind your eyes, the way your fingers flexed once at your side. It made him want to push, because Ben had never been good at leaving a bruise alone once he knew where it was.

“That what you think I am?” he asked. You leaned down to pick up the tray, your movements controlled, but your patience had started to fray at the edges.

“I think you’re a guest who ordered whiskey,” you said. “And I think my job is done.” Ben looked at the tray, then at you, and because he was cruel when curious, he said, “Running away already, sweetheart?”

You stopped so quickly the tray gave a soft metallic shift in your hands. Ben saw the exact second your temper burned through the last thread of professionalism holding it back.

It was beautiful in the worst way, your eyes bright, your jaw set, your whole tired body suddenly alive with the kind of anger money couldn’t buy and manners couldn’t bury. You set the tray back down, slowly enough that he knew he’d won something dangerous and stupid.

“Do not call me that like you know me,” you said. He should’ve backed off, but Ben had never known when to stop touching the stove. “I know enough,” he said, voice low, smug, and one shade too intimate. Then you stepped right into his space, lifted your hand, and poked him hard in the chest.

Your finger lands against his chest, and for the first time all night, Ben doesn’t immediately have something to say. He looks down at the place where you’ve touched him, not because it hurts, but because the nerve of it hits harder than pressure ever could.

There are very few people in his life who would put a hand on him without permission, and fewer still who would do it while wearing a hotel uniform and glaring like they’re personally offended by his existence.

You’re close enough now that the scent of your perfume threads beneath the smoke and whiskey in the room, soft, clean, completely at odds with the fury in your face. Ben’s gaze lifts slowly, and when he meets your eyes, he sees the exact thing that keeps pulling him back to you.

Not fear. Not obedience. Not the polished little smile everyone else gives him when they’re trying to survive the conversation. Just you, angry and breathing too fast, looking like you’ve decided he’s not too rich, too dangerous, or too much of anything to be told off.

“Did that make you feel better?” he asks, voice low, amused, and a little rough around the edges.

You don’t take your hand back right away, which Ben notices because he notices everything about you when he shouldn’t. “Not as much as I’d hoped,” you say, your finger still pressed to the open part of his shirt.

Your voice is steady, but there’s heat under it, frustration you’ve been swallowing since the lift doors closed behind you. “You have a very irritating face, sir.”

Ben’s mouth twitches, not quite a smile, because that’s new. He’s been called worse by men with guns, lawyers with ulcers, and women who knew him well enough to mean it, but from you, it sounds almost intimate.

“My face?” he repeats. You finally lower your hand, only to point at him again like he’s evidence in a case you’re determined to win. “Yes. That thing you do with it.”

Ben should let you leave, but the thought is so brief it barely counts as restraint. He watches you try to recover the shape of professionalism, watches your shoulders pull back and your chin lift, watches you reach for composure the way some people reach for a weapon. You’re good at it, but not good enough tonight.

He can see the anger still bright in your eyes, the pulse at the side of your throat, the way your lips press together like there are five worse things trying to get out. He likes that too much. It irritates him that he likes it.

Every time you come up here, he tells himself he’s only bored, only playing, only enjoying the one member of staff who hasn’t learned to lower her gaze when he speaks. Then you look at him like that, and Ben remembers boredom has never once made him feel this awake.

“You always this dramatic over a drink order?” he asks.

You laugh, sharp and disbelieving, and take one step back like distance might help you keep hold of yourself. “A drink order?” you repeat, staring at him like he’s just said something deeply stupid.

“You call upstairs at nearly two in the morning, ask for a bottle that costs more than half the staff’s rent, request two glasses like you’re hosting some tragic little midnight ceremony, then act like I’m the dramatic one.” Ben’s eyes narrow with interest at the word tragic, because you don’t throw it carelessly.

You don’t speak like the others, all careful hospitality phrases and rehearsed apologies. Your annoyance has thought behind it. Your sharpness has aim. “That’s a lot of judgment for someone still standing in my room,” he says.

You should leave then, and the knowledge of it sits in the room like a third person. The door is behind you, unlocked, silent, perfectly available. The tray is empty except for the bottle, the glasses, the neat little napkins arranged like this is still service and not whatever this has turned into.

You could pick it up, say goodnight, and go back downstairs before the night manager gets anxious enough to check the cameras. You could return to the lobby, make some dry comment to the clerk, pretend nothing about this man has gotten beneath your skin.

Instead, you stay where you are, hands flexing once at your sides. “Because I’m still on shift,” you say. Ben tilts his head. “That the only reason?”

The question lands exactly where he wants it to, and you hate him for how easily he finds the seam. Your face doesn’t collapse, but it changes, just enough to tell him he’s touched something real. The worst part is not that he’s arrogant, or that he’s smug, or that he wears entitlement like a tailored jacket.

The worst part is that it shouldn’t work on you. Men like him usually make you bored within seconds, all money and posture and the same dead-eyed hunger for control.

You know how to handle them. You know when to smile, when to step aside, when to go still until they lose interest. Ben doesn’t make you go still. Ben makes you want to argue until your throat hurts, and somehow that feels more dangerous than anything else.

“You really think highly of yourself,” you say.

“I’ve got evidence,” Ben says.

You glance around the suite, taking in the expensive furniture, the glass walls, the ruined ashtray, the whiskey, the scattered papers, the obscene quiet money has bought him. “You’ve got receipts,” you say. “That’s different.” Ben laughs before he can stop himself, and the sound seems to annoy both of you.

It annoys you because you don’t want to amuse him. It annoys him because he doesn’t want you to be funny. He steps closer again, and this time there’s no table between you. You don’t retreat, though your eyes flick briefly to his chest like you remember exactly how warm he felt beneath your finger. Ben sees that too.

There is something about your refusal to fear him properly that gets worse for Ben every time. At first, it entertained him because he thought it would break eventually. Everyone broke a little around him, even the brave ones, because money and temper and reputation worked like pressure over time.

But you kept coming back with that tired, stubborn face, answering him like he was nothing more than a difficult line item on a shift report. It angered him in ways he didn’t expect.

It made him want to provoke you, corner you conversationally, drag out every spark until you had no choice but to show him what lived beneath your neat uniform and softer voice. It also impressed him, and that was harder to forgive. Ben did not like being impressed by people he was trying to unsettle.

“You should be smarter than this,” he says, quieter now.

Your eyes sharpen immediately. “Smarter than what?”

“Standing this close to someone you claim you can’t stand.”

Your breath catches, barely, but Ben is close enough to catch it. That small sound goes through him like the first pull of a lit match, quick and dangerous and impossible to ignore.

You look away for half a second, toward the window, toward the city smeared with rain beyond the glass, like the view might remind you who you were before you stepped into his room.

When you look back, your expression is colder, but your cheeks are warmer. “I don’t claim anything,” you say. “I’m simply trying not to say something that’ll make your guest profile even longer.” Ben smiles slowly. “Now that sounds worth hearing.”

You take a step toward him, not away, and it shifts everything. It’s supposed to be confrontational. It is confrontational. But proximity doesn’t care about intention, and suddenly the space between you is small enough for heat to pass through.

You lift your hand again, not quite touching him this time, your finger hovering close to his chest as if you’re threatening the gesture more than repeating it.

“You don’t get to keep pushing people just because everyone keeps deciding your money is worth the headache,” you say. Ben looks down at your hand, then back at your face. “And you don’t get to pretend you’re only here because of the job.” The words hit, and your hand finally lands against him again.

This touch is different from the first one, less sharp, more accidental in the way neither of you believes. Your palm flattens against his chest for one second before you seem to realize what you’ve done. Ben feels the heat of it through the thin gap in his shirt, feels your fingers tense like you’re deciding whether to shove him back or keep him there.

He could move away. You could move away. Neither of you does. “Don’t,” you say, but the word has lost some of its edge. Ben’s gaze drops to your mouth, and when it rises again, his voice is lower. “Don’t what?”

You don’t answer quickly enough. That’s the problem. You’ve got a dozen sharp responses ready when he irritates you, but now the silence catches, thick and charged, because the argument has stopped being only an argument.

You can feel it in the way he’s standing, close enough that his shirt brushes your knuckles every time he breathes. You can feel it in yourself too, in the heat spreading beneath your skin, in the humiliating pull low in your stomach, in the way anger and want have started borrowing the same pulse.

It infuriates you because you’re not some reckless idiot undone by a rich man with a pretty mouth and a terrible attitude. Except Ben is looking at you like he sees the lie before you can fully build it. That makes you want to hurt his feelings. That makes you want to kiss him worse.

“You’re enjoying this,” you say.

Ben’s eyes stay on yours. “So are you.”

“No.”

“Bad answer.”

Your laugh is quiet, furious, and breathless. “You’re unbelievable.” The word comes out less like an insult and more like an accusation against your own judgment.

Ben leans in a fraction, close enough that you notice the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the tired darkness under his eyes, the controlled way he holds himself like he’s one decision away from doing something neither of you can undo.

“You keep saying things like that,” he murmurs. “Still haven’t left.” Your fingers curl against his shirt before you catch yourself. Ben feels it. Of course he feels it.

He lifts one hand slowly, giving you time to stop him, and closes his fingers around your wrist again. Not hard. Not trapping. Just enough contact to make your body go still in that sudden, aware way that has nothing to do with fear. His thumb rests over your pulse, and the fact that it’s beating fast does something ugly to his self-control.

Ben’s own temper has changed shape, no longer just irritation, no longer just amusement. You make him angry because you answer back. You make him curious because you don’t crumble after. You make him want because you stand close enough to be touched and still look at him like touching you would cost him.

“Your pulse says you’re lying,” he says. Your eyes drop to his hand around your wrist. “Your hand says you’re overconfident.”

His mouth curves. “Maybe.” Your gaze lifts again, fierce and bright. “Definitely.”

The exchange should be ridiculous, but there’s nothing ridiculous about the way the room has gone quiet around you. The rain strokes lightly against the windows, the music hums low from somewhere near the sitting area, and the whiskey sits abandoned like it was never the point.

Ben’s fingers loosen, but he doesn’t let go completely, and you don’t pull free completely either. Your free hand rises between you, not as a shove this time, not as an accusation, but because the space is too small and your body needs somewhere to put the feeling.

It lands against his shoulder. His jaw tightens. You notice, and something in your expression shifts with sharp, unwilling satisfaction. “Oh,” you say softly. “You don’t like being handled either.”

Ben’s eyes darken. “Watch it.”

You smile then, small and dangerous, because now you’ve found something too. “There you are.”

The words hit him cleanly, and for a second, Ben understands exactly why you keep getting under his skin. You don’t just resist him. You study him back. You catch the little reactions he normally buries beneath money, threat, and practiced arrogance.

You see the places where he isn’t as untouched as he likes pretending to be, and you don’t look away once you’ve found them. That should make him furious. It does make him furious. It also makes him want to hear his name in your mouth without that polished little sir attached to it. “You’re getting bold,” he says.

“You’re getting predictable,” you answer.

His hand shifts from your wrist, his fingers brushing the inside of your forearm before he catches himself. It’s barely anything, but barely anything feels obscene when both of you are pretending not to notice. You inhale, and your chest brushes his for one brief second. Ben’s eyes flicker. Your mouth parts like you’re about to tell him off again, but no words come out fast enough.

The closer you get, the less useful language becomes, which is deeply inconvenient for two people who’ve been using it like a blade all night. He leans in, and you don’t step back. You tilt your chin up instead, stubborn to the end, even when the end is his mouth almost touching yours.

“You’re impossible,” you whisper.

“You like impossible.”

“I like peace.”

“No, you like winning.”

Your eyes narrow, but there’s no real distance left for the anger to travel. “And you like being difficult enough that people mistake it for depth.” Ben huffs a quiet laugh, his breath brushing your lips this time, and the contact is so slight it makes your whole body tense.

“That one almost hurt,” he says. “I can try harder,” you answer. “I know,” he says, and the way he says it is quieter than anything before it. It’s not mocking this time. It’s almost admiring, which somehow feels worse.

Ben looks at you then, really looks, and every argument he’d planned dissolves into the unbearable closeness of your mouth. He thinks about the first time you walked into his room and didn’t flinch when he spoke too sharply. He thinks about every glass you poured, every dry response, every time you left before he was done watching you.

He thinks about how you anger him because you make him feel denied without ever offering him anything in the first place. He thinks about how badly he wants to ruin that composure and how much he wants you to keep fighting him while he does.

Your palm is still on his chest, and his hand is still at your arm, and the contact feels less accidental with every second neither of you breaks it. “You should go,” he says, even though he doesn’t move. “You should stop giving orders you don’t mean,” you answer, and your lips almost brush his on the last word.

Neither of you knows who kisses who first, because there’s no clean beginning to it. One second, your mouth is hovering too close to his, your last warning trembling between you like a wire pulled tight. The next, Ben is kissing you, or you’re kissing him, and both versions feel equally guilty.

His mouth crashes against yours with the same arrogance he uses for everything else, hard, hot, and completely unwilling to ask permission from the tension you’ve both been feeding all night. Your fingers curl into his open shirt, dragging him closer even while your body swears you’re still angry.

Ben makes a rough sound into your mouth when your nails catch his skin beneath the fabric. The kiss tastes like whiskey, smoke, and the kind of mistake you can feel getting worse with every second. His hand clamps at your waist, pulling you in until your body hits his with a force that steals your breath. You hate that the first thing you think is that he feels exactly as solid as he looks.

“Arrogant,” you breathe against his mouth, but you’re kissing him again before the word has any chance to land. Ben’s laugh scrapes over your lips, low and satisfied, and the sound makes you want to bite him just to wipe it away.

“Sharp little mouth,” he mutters, his teeth catching your lower lip like he’s testing how much you’ll let him take. You shove at his chest, but your hand stays there, palm spread over hot skin and muscle beneath the half-open shirt.

“Don’t compliment yourself through me,” you snap. He kisses you harder for that, one hand sliding up your back while the other digs into your hip. “Still talking,” he says, voice rough against your mouth.

“Still annoying,” you shoot back, and the words smear into the next kiss until they barely sound like words at all. The argument doesn’t stop so much as turn physical, every insult pressed between lips, every breath caught against teeth.

Ben’s shirt is the first thing to lose the fight. You grip the open sides of it and drag him forward, fabric pulling tight across his shoulders as your mouth moves messily against his.

He reaches for your blouse at the same time, fingers finding the buttons with more impatience than care. You slap his hand once without breaking the kiss, and he actually laughs into your mouth.

“That’s uniform property,” you say, breathless and furious. “Then stop wearing it in my room,” he says, like that’s an answer. “It’s literally my job.” “Bad career choice,” he mutters, and you yank his shirt harder in retaliation. One button slips loose, then another, and Ben’s chest starts to appear under your hands like something you’ve been trying not to imagine since the first night he opened the door.

He gets your blouse open more slowly after that, not because he suddenly finds manners, but because he wants to watch. His fingers work each button free while his mouth keeps finding yours, your jaw, the corner of your lips, anywhere he can reach without looking away for long.

The air touches the center of your chest first, cool against skin made too warm by kissing and anger. You feel the fabric part, feel the hotel uniform stop feeling like armor and start feeling like something being peeled off you by a man you still haven’t stopped glaring at.

Ben’s eyes drop to your bra, to the soft weight of your boobs held in place beneath simple fabric, and his grip tightens for half a second at your waist. “Don’t look so proud of yourself,” you say. “I’m not proud yet,” he says. Your breath catches despite yourself, and he notices because of course he does. You shove his shirt down his arms before he can say anything worse.

His bare chest is hot under your hands, all hard planes, old scars, and arrogance made physical. You drag your palms over him, then your nails, slow enough to feel every shift of muscle beneath your touch. Ben’s jaw tightens when your nails rake down from his chest toward his stomach, leaving red lines in their wake.

The marks rise quickly, bright against his skin, and the sight makes something satisfied and vicious bloom inside you. “That all you’ve got?” he asks, but his voice is rougher now. You scratch him again, harder, watching his abdomen tense under your fingers.

“You’re very demanding for someone getting improved for free,” you say. He grabs your hip and pulls you flush against him, swallowing your next breath with another brutal kiss. This time, when his cock presses against you through his trousers, the hard line of it makes your thighs tighten before you can stop them.

Ben feels that little shift and smiles against your mouth like a bastard. One hand slides down your side, over the crease of your waist, to the hem of your skirt. His fingers push beneath the fabric, slow and deliberate, grazing bare thigh first, then higher.

You go still for half a second, not from fear, but from the sudden, sickening awareness of how badly your body wants him to keep going. He pauses there, giving you the chance to move away, and somehow that annoys you almost as much as if he hadn’t.

“Don’t get considerate now,” you breathe. His eyes flicker, dark and amused. “Wouldn’t dream of ruining the mood,” he says. Then his fingers brush over the front of your panties, and every sharp thing in your head briefly goes quiet.

The fabric is wet beneath his touch, embarrassingly wet, and Ben feels it the same second you do. His fingers drag slowly over the damp patch, tracing the cling of it where your panties press against your pussy lips. Your face burns hot, but your body betrays you by leaning into the touch, hips shifting by a fraction before your pride can stop it. Ben’s eyes lock onto yours, hungry and far too pleased.

“All this from arguing?” he asks. “All this from being irritated,” you snap, but your voice has lost some of its bite. He presses two fingers more firmly against the soaked fabric, not pushing inside, just rubbing over the wet cotton until your breath stutters.

The pressure makes your trimmed bush rub lightly against the lace beneath, the neat curls already damp where your arousal has spread. You hate that he can feel how turned on you are before he’s even properly touched you.

You answer by reaching down between you and palming him through his trousers. Ben’s reaction is immediate, a sharp inhale through his nose and a rough tightening of his hand at your hip. His cock is thick and hard under your palm, straining against the fabric, hot even through the layers.

You stroke him once through the front of his trousers, slow and mean, just to watch his expression falter. The smugness doesn’t vanish completely, but it cracks enough to make your pulse jump. “What’s wrong?” you ask, looking up at him through your lashes. “No comment?” His mouth presses into a hard line before curving again. “Keep that up,” he says, voice low, “and I’ll give you plenty to comment on.”

Your fingers find his belt before he can make good on that threat. The leather is warm from his body, the buckle heavy and expensive under your hands, and you hate how much you like undoing it.

Ben keeps kissing you while you work at it, his mouth moving down your jaw, then your throat, then the sensitive place just below your ear. You fumble once when he bites there, and he laughs softly against your skin.

“Focus,” he murmurs. “Stop distracting me,” you say. “No.” You get the buckle open and pull the belt free in one sharp motion, the sound of leather sliding through loops cutting through the room. Ben’s hand moves beneath your skirt again at the same time, fingers stroking over your wet panties like he’s memorizing the damage.

The room narrows to hands and mouths and fabric giving way. You push his trousers down his hips, and he helps only when impatience wins over pride. His underwear follows halfway, enough for his cock to spring heavy against the lower part of his stomach, flushed and hard and already slick at the tip.

You don’t even mean to stare, but you do, and Ben watches you do it with heat burning through his expression. He reaches behind you and unclips your bra with surprising ease, then drags the straps down your arms one at a time.

Your boobs spill free into the cool air, heavy and soft, nipples already tight from the room and his attention. Ben’s hands come up immediately, palms covering you, thumbs brushing over your nipples until your back arches into him. “Still irritated?” he asks. “Deeply,” you breathe, and the answer turns into a gasp when his mouth closes over one nipple.

His mouth is hot on your chest, rougher than careful but careful enough to make it worse. He kisses over the swell of your boobs, bites lightly at the soft skin, then soothes each mark with his tongue like he’s apologizing only to do it again.

Your hands go into his hair, pulling hard enough that he groans against you. The sound drops straight through you, settling between your thighs where your panties are clinging wetly to your pussy. You can feel every step of your own arousal in real time, the slick heat spreading, the fabric sticking, your trimmed bush damp beneath the ruined lace.

Ben’s fingers slip under the waistband of your panties, then pause. His eyes lift to yours, and the pause feels more obscene than a touch. “Say something,” he says. You tug his hair until his mouth comes back up toward yours and answer, “Take them off before I change my mind.”

He takes them off like he’s been waiting all night to do it. His fingers hook into the sides and drag them down your thighs, slow enough for the wet fabric to pull away from your pussy in a way that makes your whole face heat.

Ben looks down as the lace slides past the neat, trimmed curls between your thighs, and his expression turns darker, quieter, more focused. You step out of them, feeling exposed, slick, and furious about how much you like the way he looks at you.

Your pussy is bare except for the trimmed bush above it, wet and swollen from the kissing, the touching, the stupid argument neither of you could walk away from. Ben’s gaze lingers there for one heavy second before dragging back up your body, over your thighs, your stomach, your boobs, your mouth.

He looks less amused now. Hungrier. You shove at his chest again because if he keeps staring like that, you’re going to forget how to breathe.

Ben falls back onto the bed because you push him and because he lets you. The mattress dips beneath him, expensive sheets rumpling around his hips as he lands with a short, rough laugh. His cock lies hard against his stomach, thick and flushed, the tip glossy with precum under the low suite light.

The red lines from your nails mark his chest, some shallow, some brighter, each one moving slightly as he breathes. You stand at the edge of the bed for one second, naked in front of him, your boobs rising and falling with every uneven breath, your thighs parted just enough for the slick shine of your pussy to catch his eyes again.

Ben looks at you like he wants to devour the whole fight out of you. You climb onto the bed before he can speak, knees sinking into the mattress between his legs. “Don’t start,” you say. His smile is slow and dangerous. “Haven’t even opened my mouth.”

You kneel between his thighs, biting your lip as you look up at him, and for once Ben doesn’t look entirely in control. His cock is right there in front of you, long, thick, and heavy, twitching once as your gaze moves down it. You can see the veins along the shaft, the darker flush at the head, the slick bead of precum gathering and catching the light.

Your mouth goes dry at the sight of him while your pussy gets wetter, open and aching between your thighs, slick gathering against the trimmed curls above it and smearing along your inner thighs when you shift.

Ben’s eyes move over you with the same intensity, taking in your bare boobs, your tight nipples, the marks his mouth has left on your skin, the shine between your legs.

His hand rests near his hip, fingers flexing once against the sheets like he’s forcing himself not to grab you too soon. That restraint makes heat pool even heavier inside you.

You lean forward slightly, close enough that your breath touches his cock, and his stomach tenses hard beneath the marks you left. “Still got that much to say?” you ask, voice low, mouth curved around the challenge.

You don’t answer him with words. You let your eyes stay on his for one more second, long enough to watch that smugness tighten into something hungrier, then you lower your mouth to him. Ben’s breath catches before he can hide it, and that tiny fracture in him makes your thighs press together on instinct.

You start slow at first, kissing the head of his cock, letting your lips drag over the flushed skin while your hand wraps around the base. He’s hot and heavy in your palm, already slick with precum, the taste of him spreading over your tongue when you lick him once, deliberately, just to hear what kind of sound he makes.

Ben’s jaw clenches, his head tipping back against the pillows for half a second before his eyes snap back down to you. He looks furious about how good it feels already. That makes you smile against him.

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” he mutters, voice rough.

You glance up at him, lips parted around the head of his cock, and hum like you’re thinking about it. The vibration goes through him immediately, his stomach tightening beneath the red lines your nails left behind. You drag your tongue along the underside of him, slow and wet, then spit into your palm and wrap your hand around him again.

The slick sound of your fist stroking him fills the room, obscene and intimate against the low music and rain tapping the windows. Ben watches the spit slide over his cock, watches your hand twist around him, and his expression turns darker by the second.

You can feel your own pussy throbbing between your thighs, wetness slicking your inner skin, your trimmed bush damp from how turned on you are. Every time his cock twitches in your hand, your clit pulses like your body’s answering him. You hate how much you like having him like this, hard and breathing wrong because of your mouth.

You take him deeper on the next pass, lips stretching around his thickness, tongue pressing flat beneath him as you ease down. He’s big enough that you have to concentrate, big enough that your jaw aches almost immediately, big enough that your eyes water before you’ve even taken all of him.

Ben’s hand moves before he seems to think better of it, fingers threading through your hair, not yanking yet, just holding. The gesture makes your pussy clench around nothing. You look up at him through wet lashes, mouth full of him, and his control visibly slips.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and the word sounds like it costs him. His fingers tighten in your hair, careful at first, then less careful when you hollow your cheeks and suck harder. You give him another inch, then another, letting him feel your throat resist.

The gag catches you when you take him all the way down. Your throat tightens around him, eyes watering properly now, spit gathering at the corners of your mouth and sliding down over his shaft. Ben swears under his breath, hips jerking up before he stops himself, one hand fisting the sheets while the other stays tangled in your hair.

You pull back coughing softly, strings of saliva connecting your swollen lips to his cock, and the sight nearly ruins him. He looks at you like he doesn’t know whether to praise you or wreck you.

You spit on him again, messier this time, letting it drip over the flushed head before spreading it with your tongue. “Jesus,” he mutters, voice low and strained. You smile like you’ve found the one way to make him shut up. Then you take him back into your mouth.

This time, Ben guides you. His hand stays in your hair, fingers flexing against your scalp as he sets a rhythm that starts slow and quickly turns rougher. You let him, because the weight of his hand there sends another hot pulse through your pussy, because the low sounds he’s making are better than any insult he’s thrown at you, because you like knowing he’s fighting for control and losing anyway.

His hips start to lift into your mouth, shallow at first, then deeper when you don’t pull away. You gag again around him, throat fluttering, and Ben’s whole body tenses like the feeling goes straight through his spine. “That’s it,” he says, the praise sounding reluctant, almost angry. “Good girl. Fuck, look at you.” You whimper around his cock, and the sound comes out wet and muffled, making him curse even harder.

The praise hits you harder than you expect. Your pussy throbs so sharply you shift on your knees, trying to get friction from the mattress beneath you. Slickness smears along your thighs when you move, and the empty ache inside you only gets worse with every rough drag of him over your tongue.

Ben sees the way your hips shift, and even with his cock in your mouth, he manages to look unbearably satisfied. “You’re getting off on this,” he says, breath ragged, fingers stroking once through your hair before tightening again.

You glare up at him, which would probably work better if your mouth weren’t stretched full around him. He laughs, but it breaks halfway into a groan when you swallow around the head of his cock. “Yeah,” he grits out. “That mouth’s still trouble.”

You pull off just enough to breathe, hand replacing your mouth immediately, slick fist stroking him while you press messy kisses along the shaft. Your lips are swollen, spit-shiny, and you can feel how ruined your mouth must look from the way Ben stares at you.

You lick over the head, tasting the salty bead of precum, then take him down again before he can say something that’ll make you want to bite. He fucks up into your mouth harder now, unable or unwilling to keep still, his hand guiding your head while his hips meet you in short, rough thrusts.

The room fills with the wet sound of your mouth on him, your soft gags, his harsh breathing, the filthy drag of spit and tongue and need. You can barely think past the ache in your jaw and the pulsing heat between your legs.

Your whole body feels tuned to him, to the way he twitches, the way he groans, the way his fingers tighten every time your throat takes him deep. It should feel like surrender, but it doesn’t. It feels like winning something out of him.

Ben gets close faster than he wants to. You know it by the way his thighs tense beneath your hands, by the way his rhythm starts to break, by the rougher edge in every breath he drags in. His head falls back for one second, mouth open, chest marked and heaving, and the sight makes your pussy clench again, desperate and empty.

You take him deeper, trying to pull him over the edge just because you can, but his hand tightens suddenly in your hair. “Stop,” he says, voice wrecked. You don’t understand at first, too dazed, mouth still wet around him, until he pulls you off with a rough gentleness that makes you gasp.

Spit breaks between your lips and the flushed head of his cock, leaving your mouth empty and aching. Ben looks down at you with his jaw tight, eyes dark enough to make your stomach flip.

“Not in your mouth,” he says.

You blink up at him, breathless, lips slick and swollen. “What?”

He reaches for you before the word has fully settled. “I wanna come inside you.”

The way he says it should sound like another arrogant demand, but there’s something ragged underneath it, something almost desperate, and it makes heat tear through you so fast your thighs shake. Ben grips under your arms and hauls you up onto the bed like you weigh nothing, manhandling you over him with a strength that makes your breath catch.

You land against his body, knees on either side of his hips for a messy second before he rolls you beneath him. The sheets twist under your back, cool against your overheated skin, while his cock drags wetly against your thigh.

Your pussy is slick and aching, trimmed curls damp, clit throbbing from how long you’ve been turned on without being touched properly. Ben braces one hand beside your head and grips your hip with the other, his mouth finding yours in a filthy kiss that tastes like him. He kisses you hard enough to make you forget the argument, then pulls back just far enough to look at you.

“Say yes,” he says, voice low.

You stare up at him, chest rising fast, boobs brushing his marked skin with every breath. His cock presses against your wet pussy, sliding through the slickness without pushing in yet, making both of you shudder. For all his roughness, all his arrogance, he waits.

That waiting makes you feel even hotter, even more ruined, because you can feel how badly he wants to stop waiting. You wrap your legs around his waist and drag your nails lightly over the marks you left on his chest.

His jaw flexes, eyes locked on yours. “Yes,” you breathe. “Ben, yes.” Then his control snaps, and he drags you closer beneath him like he’s been starving for exactly that.

Ben hears the yes and feels it go through him like something breaking loose. It isn’t enough to make him gentle, but it’s enough to make him pause in that narrow, dangerous space between restraint and losing his mind. You’re under him with your legs around his waist, mouth swollen, eyes bright, skin flushed from arguing, kissing, and having him in your mouth.

His cock is still slick from your spit, wet and heavy in his hand, and the sight of you looking up at him like you’re still trying to win makes his control feel almost laughable. He drags his gaze down your body slowly, over your parted lips, your throat, your boobs rising with every breath, your stomach tightening when he shifts.

Then lower, to where your thighs are spread around him and your pussy is slick, swollen, and open for him beneath the low hotel light. The trimmed bush above it is damp and neat, darker with arousal, framing the glossy heat of you in a way that makes his jaw flex. Ben thinks, with a rough little pulse of satisfaction, that you look exactly as ruined as he’d imagined and somehow twice as defiant.

He wraps one hand around the base of his cock and drags the head down through your slickness without pushing in. The first slide makes both of you breathe differently, your wetness mixing with your spit and the precum already smeared over him. He taps the head of his cock against your clit once, not hard, just enough to make your hips jolt beneath him.

Your mouth opens on a sharp inhale, and Ben’s eyes lift to your face like he wants to watch the reaction before he earns the next one. He does it again, slower this time, dragging the flushed head over your clit before tapping it there, smearing everything messily over that sensitive little place until your thighs tremble around his hips.

The slick sound is obscene, soft and wet and impossible to ignore in the quiet room. His thumb tightens around himself when he sees your pussy clench at nothing, the entrance fluttering like your body’s already trying to pull him in. “Look at that,” he mutters, voice rough with want. “All that attitude, and your body’s begging before your mouth does.”

You glare up at him, but it doesn’t land the way you want it to because your breath is already uneven. Ben likes that, likes the contradiction of you, the sharp look in your eyes and the soft, helpless way your hips keep trying to chase his cock. He drags himself down again, letting the head catch lightly at your entrance before sliding back up to your clit.

Not inside. Not yet. Just enough pressure to make you tense, to make your fingers twist into the sheets, to make your knees tighten at his sides. His free hand moves between your thighs, not to push them wider because they’re already open for him, but to touch the trimmed curls above your pussy.

He runs his fingers through them slowly, feeling how damp they are beneath his touch. The intimacy of it does something ugly to his chest, makes him feel too focused, too aware of the fact that this isn’t some nameless body under him. It’s you, and that makes the tease feel sharper.

His fingers curl lightly into your bush, tugging just enough to make sensation spark through your body. Your reaction is immediate, a little broken whimper that sounds like pain and pleasure braided together. Ben stills for half a second, eyes locked on your face, reading you with the same sharp attention he uses when men lie to him across tables. The sound you make isn’t fear. It isn’t refusal.

It’s startled, needy, furious with itself, and the way your pussy clenches again tells him enough to make his mouth curve. “There she is,” he says softly, and his voice has gone darker now, less teasing and more affected than he wants to sound.

He tugs again, barely harder, his knuckles brushing the wet heat beneath the trimmed curls. You arch into it and then curse under your breath like you hate that you did. Ben’s cock twitches against your clit, smearing more precum over you, and he has to grit his teeth to keep from shoving in.

He teases you until the room feels smaller around both of you. The head of his cock slides over your clit, down to your entrance, back up again, slow and wet and mean. Every pass coats him more, your arousal making his hand slick where he grips himself, your pussy shining under him each time he looks down.

He lets the tip press against your opening, lets it push just enough to make you gasp, then pulls back before your body can take him. Your nails drag over his shoulders, then down his arms, leaving heat in their wake, and Ben’s restraint thins with every mark. “Ben,” you say, and his name comes out like a warning.

He nearly laughs, but it catches in his throat because hearing you say it like that is almost worse than praise. “What?” he asks, dragging himself through your wetness again. “Use that sharp little mouth you’re so proud of.”

You try not to give him what he wants, and Ben can feel the fight in you even like this. It’s in the way you bite your lip instead of begging, the way you grip his arm instead of pulling him closer, the way your glare keeps returning even while your body rocks up beneath him.

He admires it, which annoys him. He’s hard enough to ache, slick enough from your mouth and your pussy that every glide feels like torture he’s stupidly chosen for himself. He could end the tease in a second, could push in and finally find out whether you sound as good around him as you did with him in your mouth.

But he wants the surrender from you because it wouldn’t be real if he simply took the silence and called it permission. He wants you to say it because you’ve spent the whole night acting like words can protect you.

He taps his cock against your clit again, then rubs the head there in a slow, tight circle. Your hips jerk, and the whimper that leaves you is sweeter than he’s prepared for.

“Stop teasing,” you breathe, and Ben’s eyes sharpen.

“That’s not asking,” he says.

You look like you might actually bite him for that, and the thought makes him lean closer instead of away. His free hand leaves your bush and slides up your stomach, over your ribs, to your boob, where his palm closes around the soft weight of it.

He rolls your nipple beneath his thumb while his cock keeps sliding through your slick folds, never entering, never giving you enough. Your body arches into both touches at once, and Ben’s breath turns rough against your mouth.

He kisses you then, not to soften the moment, but because he wants to feel the sound you make when he presses the head of his cock against your entrance again. You gasp into his mouth, and he holds there, right on the edge, your pussy fluttering around the barest pressure of him. “Say it,” he murmurs against your lips. “Tell me what you want.”

For a few seconds, all he hears is your breathing. It’s fast, shaky, furious, turned on beyond pride, and every part of Ben locks onto it. Your thighs tighten around him, heels digging into his lower back like you want to force him forward even while your mouth refuses to cooperate.

He pulls back just enough to see your face, to watch the exact moment stubbornness starts losing to need. Your eyes are wet-bright, your lips swollen, your boobs marked from his mouth, your pussy slick and trembling beneath the slow grind of his cock.

He tugs gently at your trimmed bush again, just enough to send another sting of pleasure through you, and your whole body jerks. “Ben,” you whimper, and his name is almost enough. Almost. He holds himself at your entrance, unmoving, his jaw tight enough to ache. “Beg.”

The word breaks something in you, or maybe the teasing finally does. Your hands grab at his shoulders, nails biting into skin as your hips lift desperately toward him. “Fuck me,” you breathe, but it comes out too ragged to sound like a command. Ben doesn’t move, and the restraint almost kills him.

“Again,” he says, voice low, wrecked around the edge. You stare up at him, furious and needy and too far gone to pretend you’re not. “Please,” you finally gasp, the word catching like it costs you. “Please, Ben, fuck me already.”

Ben’s expression shifts at that, the smugness cracking under a wave of hunger so blunt it makes the air change. He grips your hip harder, lines himself up properly, and drags his mouth close to yours. “Good,” he says, almost breathless. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

Ben doesn’t give you a soft entry this time. He hears the yes, sees the way your legs tighten around his waist, and whatever patience he’d been pretending to have finally tears loose. His arm braces beside your head, forearm sinking into the mattress, caging you beneath him with his chest pressed hot against yours.

His other hand wraps around your throat, firm and possessive, not stealing your air, but holding you still enough that your whole body understands the shape of him above you. Then he pushes his cock into you in one slow, heavy drive that makes your mouth fall open under his.

He feels you stretch around him, slick and tight, your pussy taking him with that wet, clinging heat that nearly knocks the breath out of him. Your nails bite into his shoulders, and he groans because the sting only makes it better.

He watches your face as he fills you, watches the shock melt into pleasure, watches your stubborn expression crack around the feeling of him inside you. “That’s it,” he says, voice rough near your mouth, “feel that?”

You do feel it, too much and not enough at once. His cock is thick enough to make your pussy ache around him, stretching you open with every inch until your body has no choice but to make room. He feels heavy inside you, hot and solid, dragging against every sensitive place when he pulls back just to thrust in again.

The angle is already deep, but Ben is not satisfied with deep. He grabs your thigh, pushes it higher, then hooks one of your legs over his shoulder like he’s deciding exactly how much of you he wants to ruin. Your hips lift helplessly with the motion, and the new angle makes him hit so much deeper that your whole body jolts beneath him.

His hand tightens slightly around your throat when you gasp, not cruel enough to hurt, but rough enough to make your pulse beat against his palm. Ben feels that pulse and curses under his breath. Your pussy clenches around him at the sound, and his eyes darken like he’s just found another way to make you betray yourself.

He starts fucking you in hard, controlled strokes, each thrust driving you up the bed until his arm by your head is the only thing keeping him from fully crushing you. The sheets twist beneath your back, slick skin sliding against expensive cotton, your boobs pressing and bouncing against his chest whenever he drives in.

Your leg stays over his shoulder, bent open for him, making you feel exposed in a way that sends heat crawling up your throat beneath his hand. Ben looks down between your bodies and sees your pussy stretched around his cock, wet and swollen, your trimmed bush damp where his pelvis grinds against you. The sight nearly makes him lose rhythm.

Your slick coats him every time he pulls back, shining on his cock before he shoves back in and buries the mess deeper. “Fuck,” he grits out, jaw tight. “You’re taking me like you needed this.” You try to glare at him, but the next thrust breaks it apart into a moan.

Your hand slips between your bodies because the pressure is too much to ignore. Ben feels your knuckles brush his stomach, then sees your fingers find your clit, already slick from how wet he’s made you. The second you start rubbing yourself, his whole rhythm gets rougher.

He watches your fingers move in tight, desperate circles while his cock keeps pounding into your pussy, and something about the sight makes his hand flex around your throat. “Look at you,” he says, voice low and mean with need. “Couldn’t even wait.” Your lips part around a shaky breath, and your fingers press harder against your clit.

The pleasure doubles instantly, his cock dragging deep inside you while your own touch sparks sharp and hot through your nerves. You hate that he’s watching, and you hate even more that being watched makes you wetter.

Ben’s body presses you into the mattress, all heat, weight, and force. His arm stays braced beside your head, muscles tense, veins standing out under his skin as he holds himself over you. The hand at your throat keeps you pinned in place while his hips do exactly what they want, rough and steady and unforgiving.

Your leg over his shoulder gives him a perfect angle, and he uses it mercilessly, fucking into you so deep that you feel him in your stomach. Every thrust makes your pussy flutter around him, clenching tight as your fingers keep circling your clit.

The wet sounds between you get louder, filthy and slick, filling the room under the low music and rain against the windows. Ben’s cock feels like it’s splitting you open in the best way, thick pressure and dragging heat and that heavy stretch that makes your thoughts scatter. You can’t hold onto a single insult long enough to say it. Ben notices and smiles like a bastard.

“Nothing clever now?” he asks. His mouth is close enough to yours that the words brush your lips. You try to answer him, but he thrusts in hard before you can shape anything useful. Your nails dig into his back, leaving new marks over the ones already there. Ben groans, rough and low, and fucks you harder for it.

“That’s better,” he mutters. “Use your hands if your mouth’s useless.” The insult should make you angry, and it does, but your pussy clenches so tightly around him that it turns the anger into something humiliatingly sweet.

Your fingers on your clit falter for half a second, overwhelmed by the way he fills you. Ben notices, grabs your wrist briefly, and presses your hand back down. “Keep rubbing.”

You do, because your body wants it too badly to pretend otherwise. Your fingers slide through your own slick, circling your clit faster now, matching the brutal rhythm of his hips as best as you can. Ben watches the way your stomach tightens every time you touch yourself, watches your boobs bounce with every thrust, watches your face crumple when he hits the angle that makes your voice break.

He feels your pussy pulsing around him, and it’s almost too much. Every tight squeeze drags at his cock, wet heat gripping him like your body is trying to keep him buried there. He shifts his weight, pushes your thigh closer to your chest, and drives in again with a force that makes the headboard knock softly against the wall.

Your mouth opens in a soundless cry. His hand stays around your throat, thumb brushing your jaw like a filthy little mockery of tenderness. “There,” he says, breath harsh. “That’s the spot, isn’t it?”

You can’t deny it because your body answers for you. Your hips jerk up, your fingers press harder against your clit, and your pussy tightens so sharply that Ben’s rhythm stutters. He laughs under his breath, but it’s wrecked at the edges, less controlled than he wants it to be.

“Yeah,” he says, voice rough with satisfaction. “I felt that.” He fucks into that same spot again and again, each thrust deep, punishing, precise enough to make pleasure start spreading through you in hot, unbearable waves. Your leg trembles against his shoulder, and your other thigh tightens around his hip.

The hand at your throat makes everything feel sharper, every breath, every moan, every pulse of your clit under your fingers. Ben’s cock drags inside you with a thick, slick pressure that leaves you feeling full even when he pulls halfway out. When he thrusts back in, you feel claimed by it, stretched by it, undone by it.

Ben is losing control, and he hates how badly you can probably tell. His thrusts turn rougher, less perfectly timed, his hips grinding into yours at the end of every stroke like he can’t stand even the smallest distance.

Your pussy is too wet, too tight, too hot around him, and your fingers rubbing your clit make you clench in little helpless pulses that keep dragging him closer. He lowers his mouth to yours, not quite kissing, just breathing there while his hand holds your throat. “You’re gonna cum,” he says.

You shake your head, stubborn even now, and the denial is so ridiculous he almost smiles. Then he thrusts in hard, grinds deep, and your fingers slip over your clit in one frantic circle. Your whole body jolts. Ben’s eyes lock onto yours. “Don’t lie to me.”

You try to hold it back, but the pleasure is already too big to swallow. It gathers low and hot inside you, fed by his cock pounding into you, by your fingers on your clit, by his hand around your throat and your leg trapped over his shoulder. Your pussy starts fluttering in quick, desperate squeezes, and Ben feels every one. “That’s it,” he grits out, almost angry with how good it feels. “Cum on my cock.”

The words shove you over the edge. You cum with a broken moan, body arching hard beneath him, fingers still rubbing your clit as the orgasm tears through you.

Your pussy clamps down around his cock in wet, pulsing waves, milking him so tightly that Ben’s arm nearly buckles beside your head. He swears into your mouth and keeps fucking you through it, rough, deep strokes dragging out every last shudder.

Your orgasm feels like it splits you open from the inside. It pulses through your clit first, sharp and bright under your fingers, then spreads deeper until your whole pussy is clenching around him. Your thighs shake, your leg slipping slightly over his shoulder before Ben grabs it and holds it there, refusing to let the angle break.

You feel full of him, filled and stretched and overwhelmed, each thrust making the aftershocks hit again. Your trimmed bush is slick against his skin whenever he grinds close, your wetness smeared everywhere between you.

Ben’s hand loosens at your throat just enough for his thumb to stroke once along your jaw, but the rest of him is anything but gentle. He looks down at you like he’s watching something he caused and can’t stop wanting. “Good,” he says, the praise torn out of him. “Fuck, that’s good.”

Ben is right on the edge now, and your pulsing pussy makes it impossible to pull himself back. He keeps your leg over his shoulder, grips your hip hard with the hand that had been at your throat, and braces himself above you as his thrusts get messy. His cock throbs inside you, thick and desperate, the head dragging deep with every stroke until he’s grinding into you more than thrusting.

Your body is still fluttering around him, still sensitive, still wet enough that every movement sounds obscene. He looks at your face, flushed and ruined, then down at where he’s buried in you, and the sight breaks the last of his control.

“Inside,” you breathe, barely above a whisper, but he hears it. Ben’s jaw clenches, and his hips drive in once, twice, then hard enough to pin you completely beneath him. “Yeah,” he says, voice wrecked. “Inside.”

He cums buried deep, his whole body locking over yours as the first pulse tears through him. His cock throbs inside your pussy, spilling hot and heavy while he grinds into you like he wants to press every bit of it deeper.

The sensation makes you gasp, still too sensitive, still clenching around him in weak little aftershocks as he fills you. Ben groans against your throat, rough and broken, his hand gripping your hip so tightly you know you’ll feel it later.

Each pulse of cum inside you feels obscene and intimate, warm pressure spreading deep while your body keeps milking him without meaning to. He shudders once, then again, breath ragged against your skin. The room feels impossibly quiet around the sound of both of you falling apart. Rain taps the windows. The whiskey sits untouched on the table like it was never the point at all.

For a while, Ben doesn’t move. He stays buried inside you, chest pressed to yours, one arm still braced beside your head while the other hand slides slowly from your hip to your thigh. Your leg slips down from his shoulder, trembling as it hooks loosely around his waist instead. His cock softens gradually inside you, but he doesn’t pull out yet, and your pussy flutters faintly around him with the leftover ache of it all.

You’re both breathing too hard, skin damp, bodies marked, the sheets twisted into a wreck beneath you. Ben lifts his head just enough to look at you, and for once, the smugness doesn’t fully make it back onto his face.

You stare up at him with swollen lips, messy hair, and your fingers still resting near your oversensitive clit like your body hasn’t remembered how to let go. His thumb brushes the side of your throat where his hand had been, softer now, almost absent. “Still hate me?” he asks, voice rough, and even then, even with him still inside you, you manage to glare.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Your vision is blurry. Your head aches something awful. A knot of dread is in your stomach, though your head can't place why.

Your bones feel like they weigh a million tons as you raise your hands to your eyes to block the soft light that shines above you.

"Baby?" Your neighbors voice sounds muffled, like he's being projected through an antique radio.

"Hongjoong?" All you can do is groan weakly as his shadow casts over you, his head blocking the light as he towers over you. Your arms fall, allowed relief for the shortest second because then you realize — you're naked.

Laid out for his prying eyes on a mattress on the floor, a single white blanket below you. Naked. Except, of course, a leather cuff on your ankle. Impossible to remove thanks to the smallest pad lock you've ever seen.

A rope is attached. Your eyes follow it. Your breath stuck in your lungs, your mind begging for you to move. To do anything. But your body refuses, even as you see the rope tied to a bolted down bar in the cement floor.

"What year is it, Baby?"

Your eyebrows scrunch with confusion, a mumbled answer from your dry lips. Your tongue comes out to wet them as your legs fidget restlessly. Filled with anxiety — but not truly feeling any of it. Not feeling anything except the pressure on your skull.

"What's your name?" Another confusing question, but you answer nonetheless. "Good. You're coherent enough now to hear the rules."

He's sat on the edge of the mattress, stroking patterns on your limp arm as he speaks.

He speaks, and you do the only thing your body allows you to do. Listen.

You can't move. Can't muster up a scream. Hardly able to whimper in fear as the words he utters soak into your brain.

"You're going to call me Daddy from now on."

Daddy has a lot of rules for you.

Call him something other than that, and he's going to wash your mouth out with soap. Cursing will get you the same thing. Mumbling, too. Back talk. Screaming gets you slapped across the face before you're over the sink and spitting out bubbles.

Hitting him gets you over his lap with your bare ass being spanked until he decides you're sorry. If you're a repeat offender with that? Flat face down on the bed while he takes a belt to you. Not your ass — you. All of you, he says.

Trying to undo the cuff around your ankle only makes it tighter and the rope shorter. Manage to get it off but don't get all the way upstairs, out the front door, and to the nearest police station? He'll break your leg.

That last one gets your tears free falling down your face, eyes screwed shut tightly and chin wobbling.

He only pets your head, soft strokes as he continues like nothing is amiss.

Be grateful. He elaborates, tells you he expects manners. Please and thank you, and eat what he provides for you without complaining.

Don't tell Daddy 'no' if he asks for something. No matter how much you don't want to do it.

"Give Daddy a kiss," he hums, putting the rules into practice immediately; pointing to his cheek.

You don't technically say no. Sobbing so hard that you can hardly breathe, let alone speak. You only shake your head, a small and nervous movement.

Then your head whips to the side. A shaky, sorrowful intake of air from your trembling lips. A harsh sting spreads on your cheek from where he'd struck you.

His face is blurry from your tears as he turns you to face him again. "The more you say no, the worse they'll get. Do you understand?"

With a sniffle, you manage to nod your heavy and pounding head.

"Give Daddy a kiss," he says again, tapping his cheek and leaning closer to you. So you put your lips on his cheek and earn yourself a small smile before he's back to overwhelming your brain.

You start with the basics. The necessities. Which he deems to be: your single sheet and pillow, access to the toilet and sink — but not the tub — on your own, three meals a day, and a pitcher of water he'll keep full for you.

Good behavior can get you more and more if you just, "show Daddy what a good girl you can be."

He stares down at you for a moment before standing. "Be a good girl." He says, stern and even as he leaves, climbing up the stairs on the far side of the room without a single glance given back to your sobbing and shivering form.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Whatever drugs he'd forced into your system have worn off enough to allow you to move by the time he returns.

With a great deal of effort, however. It took you what felt like hours to wrap your naked self up in the blanket after your hysteric cries died down.

He comes down the stairs with a small tote box in his hands, a plate of food on top of it. "Come out from the blanket." He sets the plate down on the floor and the tote next to it, opening it up as you weigh your options.

With the skin of your cheek sore and heated from his hit hours ago, you slowly sit up and drop the blanket from your shoulders. You don't dare look at him, but you feel his eyes on your chest for a moment before a tank top lands in your lap.

Your first reward. You pull it on quickly, covering yourself as your tears well up again.

"Eat up," he hands you the plate after you drag your drug heavy body to the edge of the mattress.

You eat the food, because no matter how afraid you are that he's put something in it, you're beyond hungry from whatever he'd given you before. He sits across from you quietly, observing you as you chew and cry and chew and cry, like it's all you know how to do.

It's gone all too quick to you, but it really took you a good while to lift the fork back and forth to your mouth. He takes it from your shaky hands and sits it to the side. "Are you forgetting something, baby?"

He doesn't push. He can see the cogs turning behind your bleary eyes.

"Thank- thank you."

He smiles, a small tug on the corners of his lips, digging into the tote and offering you a large sweater which you put on so fast that you fail to realize the design on the front of it.

A heart, and the words that will come to haunt you; "my heart belongs to daddy".

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

After he left, the light turned off.

Pure, pitch black. And nothing else besides your raging emotions.

Your screams and cries from throughout the night have your eyes sore and throat raw when the light flicks on and wakes you up.

"Rise and shine, pretty girl."

You don't move. Stare at the wall while curled up on your side.

"Rise and shine." He says again. Less like a greeting and more like a command.

Still no movement from you however, so he sets down the plate on top of the tote he'd brought back down and kicks the corner of the mattress. "Get up now. This is your final chance."

"Go to hell." You mumble, tired. Mentally and physically. Exhausted.

"What?"

His voice makes your heart drop to your stomach. Dread spreading like a wildfire. He doesn't give you the chance to stew in it, however. Doesn't even give you time to fully register your fatal mistake.

He's tore the blanket away from you and manhandled you all the way to the bathroom before you even have the chance to apologize — to beg.

Whether or not you really remember what happens next is truly up for debate. You remember the disappointment in his tone, the taste of the soap he'd shoved into your mouth with his fingers, the suds that seemed to be endless as he held your head by the running faucet.

The drag of the rope on the floor feels as heavy as your head does when the ordeal is over with, falling to the floor as he finally backs up from pining you to the sink.

You back yourself into the wall, sobbing and hugging your knees to yourself. Something is clearly very, very wrong with Hongjoong. And it's very, very, abundantly clear that all of his threats weren't empty words. They were promises.

He sighs, dragging a hand through his hair as he kneels down. "What did I tell you? Hm? What was the rule you just broke?"

"I don't- I don't know, I don't know." Your brain is scrambled, too many thoughts and not enough at the very same time.

Your clear distress, your confusion — it makes Hongjoong's heart feel warm and pleased. He decides to have a sliver of mercy for you.

Shushing softly, he opens his arms, "shh, come here, baby." You force your eyes on his, weary. "Come to Daddy."

You're in his arms before you know up from down, cradled to his chest on the cold basement floor as you sob.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

The food tastes like soap as you eat. It's cold by now, but he says next time if you get up when he says it will be nice and warm.

You watch him in your peripherals as you eat slowly, forcing yourself to take your time. He takes a stack of paper and a box of crayons from the tote before sitting across from you, the supplies between you.

He beckons you forward when you finish your plate. "Write your rules." He goes on, "make it cute. We're going to hang them on your wall."

You do your best, with him watching you like a hawk and tears blurring your vision every so often and your heart pounding like it wants to run away.

All with his guidance: you write 'only 'Daddy' ' in pastel pink, 'no cursing. no screaming. no mumbling' in baby blue, 'no hitting' in green, 'yes, Daddy. please, Daddy. thank you, Daddy' all in an array of orange and yellow, 'no' is scribbled down and crossed out when you can't think of a better way to put it, 'stay put' and 'be nice to Daddy' are his words, not yours.

"A little plain," he hums with clear distaste while looking through them. "we'll work on that, Baby."

The rules are taped next to your bed before he leaves with the plate, the box, the crayons — everything.

And you're left with nothing but your thoughts and the taste of soap in your mouth as you stare at the plain concrete walls; only decorated with the rules that you have no say in.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

He doesn't return for some hours, and when he does, he comes with dinner in tow.

You eat. You thank him. He gifts you a pair of pajama shorts and unlocks your cuff for just long enough for you to pull them on.

He only sits and stares at you for a while before checking the cuff on your ankle, giving it a tug before gathering the dish and the tote. "Don't scream tonight." Is all he says before he's up the stairs.

The door at the top closes, and a few moments later you're left in the dark once more.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

He comes in the morning, bright and early — you can only assume because there's absolutely no way of knowing — and tells you to, "rise and shine."

You don't hesitate nearly as much as yesterday, and you're rewarded with a piece of hard candy after breakfast. The sweet taste is somehow soothing to your rapid heartbeat as he sets the plate away and tells you simply, "strip."

He can sense your fear, it's clear in the way you freeze up. But he doesn't say anything more until you slowly stand and tug your sweater off, holding it so tightly that your knuckles are losing color. "Fold them up nice and neat on the end of your bed. We're going to have a shower."

By we, he means you.

He scrubs you head to toe all while he stays fully clothed just outside of the spray of warm water. And you let him all while biting your lip and biting back your tears.

He asks if you'd like to soak in the bath. Yes or no, he takes the answer and allows you to do whichever you want.

He dries you off, though. No matter what you want on that front. Places a chaste kiss on your belly before wrapping you in the towel.

With your hand in his, he leads you back to the bed. When you kneel down on the edge of the mattress to get your clothes, you're suddenly pressed face down into it.

You forget how to breathe, hands braced on either side of you and gripping the blanket tightly as you whine a pitiful, "no, God..."

But Hongjoong doesn't hear — or rather, he doesn't give a single fuck about your prayer for mercy.

He forces his fingers inside of you, forces your legs to stay parted with his knees on the back of your thighs, and he toys with your cunt until you come undone.

No matter how long it takes. No matter how you react. If you scream and thrash. If you sob and beg. If you curse and insult him. He lets that all go for now. No punishments necessary, as long as he gets what he wants — and he does.

He gets what he wants. You; sobbing into the balled up blanket that you'd pulled to your face to muffle and comfort yourself while you're forced to cum. You scramble to curl into a ball the second you can, falling limp with shame and disgust.

He could easily fuck you in this state. But he doesn't, even though his cock is undeniably hard. He maneuvers your fidgety body around and dresses you in your sweater and shorts, cuffs your ankle, and tucks you in as you cry.

He hadn't said anything during the whole thing, not even as you demanded to know why he was doing this to you. Why he chose you.

The first thing he says after forcing you to cum on his fingers is after he places a soft kiss to your head. "That was a good girl. Good girls cum for Daddy. Remember that."

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

You're fast asleep when he comes back with lunch, and you're so upset that you let him drag you into his lap and feed you while you're half-asleep.

His fingers linger on your lips as he places a bite into your sleepy mouth, your eyes barely held open.

You try to force yourself to stay awake, frightened that he'll take even more from your body if you fall asleep — but he starts humming.

The soft vibrations rumble in his chest as he holds your head to it, his hand stroking your head softly, his arm wrapped around you. The pleasant heaviness in your stomach paired with his ridiculous warmth puts you to sleep no matter how hard you fight.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Dinner comes around and he comes with the box and your meal. He even has a soda for you, "if you're good."

Good means you eat your meal, thank him for it, and sit across from him on the floor just like you did the night before. He has you write another rule. "good girls cum for Daddy." It goes on the wall beside your mattress with the others.

Then he tells you to color him a pretty picture of some flowers. And you know he's pleased whenever he cracks open the can and hands it over to you.

He puts the picture you draw up, on a different wall than your rules. Then he's gone again until the morning comes, leaving you in the dark.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Breakfast, and then he gives you a pink toothbrush and everything you need with it. He monitors you as you brush, floss, and rinse with mouthwash, "to make sure you do it properly, silly girl."

Then you wash — well. He washes you. Dries you off. Puts you face down on the mattress. This time he eats you out until he makes you cum. His hot tongue and vile lips taking whatever they please.

Lunch, then he stays and reads you a chapter of a book. Dinner, and you earn yourself a new item of clothing when you thank him without being prompted. A t-shirt that fits you just a little loose. He says you can keep what you aren't wearing folded nice and neat at the edge of the stairs and he'll wash it for you.

He tells you to color something you miss at home.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Breakfast. Clean up. Forced to cum. Lunch. An activity with Daddy. Dinner. Your reward if you've been good. Coloring.

Again. And again. And again. And again.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

You've got lots of stuff by now for being on your best behavior.

A full set of sheets: fitted, loose, comforter, and a few different throw blankets. All soft, pretty colors. Pillows and stuffed animals galore.

You even have a bed frame now to keep you up off the cold basement floor. If you want to keep them there's a rule, which has been added to your wall; to make your bed before breakfast. To take care of your things.

So now: wake up, give Daddy a kiss good morning on the cheek, make your bed, eat breakfast, clean up.

The only time he doesn't bend you over or throw you around on the bed is when you're on your period — which has become regular again after the stress and change — those days, he opts to cuddle with you in your comfy bed and act as a human heating pad for you.

All this time, though, and he still hasn't taken you all the way.

Not until you lay face down on the bed without being shoved or guided at all for a couple of days in a row. Until you spread your legs with a single tap from his finger tips and grant him access.

By now your body has become accustomed to it. It expects it. Even though he'd just dried you off from your bath; there's a wetness between your legs tempting him.

"Do you want Daddy to fuck you?" He finally asks.

And after a moment of pause, a peek over your shoulder to look at him, you whisper, "yes, Daddy."

Because you know better than to tell your Daddy no. Even if he didn't outright ask to fuck you — you know that's what he wants.

He does you the kindness of stretching you out on his fingers, making you cum nice and hard. It's not like these extra few minutes compare to how long he's had patience with you.

He's already hard, dribbling tip tapping against his stomach as he undresses himself. But when you mumble a pleasure drunken "thank you, Daddy", he's ready to plunge his cock into you the very next second.

And he does. It's bigger than his fingers, thicker by a long shot. Makes you whimper into a stuffed bear you've snatched up for comfort; shoving your face in it and letting it muffle you as he rocks his hips slowly.

"That's it, baby," he groans, chest pressed to your back, warm and grounding as he stretches your cunt, "you know what a good girl you are?"

If you were forming a response, it's gone and replaced with screaming moans as he pounds into you; hips slapping against your ass. "Daddy!" Comes out on instinct, and it makes him rougher with you. Gripping the back of your neck and keeping your face shoved into your bear as he yanks your hips up.

Bent and pinned to the mattress, back sloped with your ass in the air, he's hitting something so deep and primal that the next words out of your mouth are, "Daddy, m'cumming!"

Usually he stops after you've cum. Not today. Not now. He lets your cum form a creamy ring around the base of his cock as his balls hit against your twitching clit rhythmically.

His eyes frantically try to take in every detail all at once. Your hands scrambling and griping the baby blue blanket. The slope of your back. The way your skin ripples when he slams his hips into your ass. Your thighs trembling as he overstimulates your insides. Then your head turns to the side and he can see your tears streaking down your face as you gasp for air.

He's pulled out, flipped you over, and fucked back into you before you even realize you've been moved.

The lost look in your teary eyes as you register that he's letting you look at him while he violates you makes him moan, leaning down and taking a deep breath in at your neck.

He always puts you face down. Not today. Not now.

"Good girls cum for Daddy, isn't that right, sweetheart?" He nearly stutters, brain pleasantly numb as your pussy grips him. "You're gonna cum for me until I'm done with you."

And cum you do, until you're sure that you're physically incapable. Your body shakes violently as his fingers continue a relentless assault on your messy clit while his cockhead prods your sore and swollen g-spot.

You're making noise, but no words form. Not even close. Just babbling nonsense while hugging your teddy bear and getting your insides rearranged to fit your Daddy perfectly.

You can't see his flushed and pleased face through your tears, but you hear it in his voice, "fuck, baby... I'm gonna cum from your little pussy, would you like that? I bet you would, hm? Making Daddy feel so good he cums? You want to make Daddy feel good, don't you?"

His thumb slips into your mouth as you nod frantically, and you instinctively sucking on it to sooth your overworked nerves just about makes him cum into your cunt. But he's fast; pulling out with a lewd, wet noise and crawling up your body. Guiding your mouth open with his thumb as he strokes himself, you close your eyes and widen your mouth — knowing what's about to happen.

His warm release hits your heated face in ropes, the saltiness on your tongue making you hum, something deep in your brain very disturbingly pleased with yourself as he praises you through his moans.

Heavy breaths fill the air. Hot with sex and tears. Salty with just the same.

He wishes he could take a photo of how ruined you look. Your little bear held tight in one arm, the other searching him out blindly and holding his thigh. Face messy with tears and cum. Sweet little whimpers stuck in your throat as your body slowly stops trembling.

He scoops the cum up from your face with his finger tips, humming the same song that always lures you to sleep. Your sound is akin to a purr as he feeds his cum to you, and it makes him smile; wide and unabashed as you suck on his digits sleepily.

"You're Daddy's good girl. You've come so far, baby."

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

He returns with dinner for the both of you in hand. It's been like that for some time after you asked very shyly if he wanted to eat with you.

He finds you taping a piece of paper to your wall with the rules. "What are you doing?" He hasn't added any rules. They've been the same for a long, long time.

If he has to take away your craft supply privileges after the moment you shared earlier in the day, he'll be very upset.

"Just adding something, Daddy." You crawl off your bed and pad over to him, the sweater you earned on your very first day swallowing your figure. "I thought of it!"

He sets your plates down on the table you earned a few weeks back and steps forward to look, the most pleased grin you've ever seen on his face. "Awe, baby... You know what? I think we could eat dinner upstairs. What do you think?"

Your eyes seem to light up, a smile spreading quickly. "Really? You'll let me see your house- your things? Can I see your bedroom? Oh, Daddy, I'm so exited-"

He cups your cheek, laughing softly before placing a gentle kiss on your lips, "one thing at a time. Okay, sweet girl? Let's start with dinner, yeah?"

"Yes, Daddy. Thank you, Daddy." You respond quickly, rewarded when he unlocks your cuff and takes your hand; each of you walking up the stairs with your plate in hand.

Leaving behind the rules on the wall, Hongjoong lets you above ground for the first time in a year and a half. The papers rustle softly in the draft left by the open basement door.

only 'Daddy'

no cursing. no screaming. no mumbling

no hitting

take care of your things

no

stay put

be nice to Daddy

yes, Daddy. please, Daddy. thank you, Daddy

good girls cum for Daddy

my heart belongs to Daddy ❤︎︎

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

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With a nod of your dizzy head, he's already slipping his fingers down to your pussy. It never takes much for him to get you soaking wet and ready, and especially not now — when your brain is essentially mush and you can't even connect dot a to dot b. You can hardly gather enough sense to reach out and hold onto him as he slowly pushes his cock into you. Your moans are weak but unabashed, a nonstop flow of soft whimpers while he pounds you into the mattress; groaning how, "you'll never fucking leave me." He pushes your arms off of him and pins them to the bed even though they fall limp and heavy. "Isn't that right? You're gonna be Daddy's little girl forever, hm?"

When you manage to let out a stuttering, moan filled, "yes, Daddy." He rewards you with a kiss, cupping your face in his hands as he slams his hips into yours brutally. He only pulls away from your lips when he feels your cunt spasming around him; your body following suit as the pleasure sends your inebriated mind into immediate overdrive. Sobbing and fidgeting, balling up the blanket in your fists tightly. He can see the protest on the curve of your lips while he continues to thrust into you, cutting you off before you can keep thinking about asking him to stop.

"That's it, that's a good girl," he moans into your ear, hands gripping your waist tightly as your body tries to reel away from the sensations, "keep cumming for Daddy. There you go, shhh." His soft cooing and gentle kisses to your head keep you grounded as your brain tries to keep up; still confused and feeling completely lost. Not knowing anything other than the feeling of Yunho's cock inside of you and his hands on your sweaty body. Not able to think anything other than what he groans next to your ear, taking everything he says in with not an ounce of hesitation; letting it all soak into your brain as truth. "My poor girl," he chuckles while rubbing your slack jaw with his thumb, leaning up to look down at you, "you're so lucky you have me, aren't you? Yes, you are~ Imagine if someone else tried this, tch. You're so naive that you'd probably let it happen with them too. No, don't pout~ You don't have to worry about a single thing ever again, just let me take care of you while you go dumb on my cock like the sweet little cocksleeve you are. My sweet little cocksleeve."

"Daddy-" You take a sharp breath in, sniveling and squeezing down on his length, a heavy sensation in your lower belly. "H-"

He's already sprawling out a hand on your lower stomach and pressing down; reveling in your loud, drunken, embarrassed whines as he laughs. The way he presses down and thrusts into you slower, aiming the tip of his cock right into that particularly delicious spot inside of you, has you screaming without any power behind it. Eyes rolled back, legs kicking weakly, back arched as he fucks the literal piss out of you. A spurt comes with each time he moves, splashing on his stomach and making a warm mess that he pins you in as you keep squirming.

When your relief and orgasm die down simultaneously, you're passing out. Face still twitching and breathing still heavy, but you're completely unconscious, energy totally spent from just laying there and letting him fuck you — the last thing you feel is his cum inside of you.

Waking up the next day is no small feat. Head pounding and body aching as you call out for your boyfriend, hardly able to lift your head off the pillow. "There's my angel," he smiles as he enters the room, immediately crawling into the bed next to you and lifting a bottle of water to your lips, "drink." And you do, throat raw and body begging for the hydration. The whole bottle is gone in no time as he helps you drink, pulling it back every so often as you try to chug it. "Your head hurting, baby?" You briefly wonder how he knows that, but you're forgetting your suspicion as he lays down and pulls you in to snuggle up to his side. His fingertips soft and soothing on your head to ease your pain. The pleasant fuzziness doesn't last long, however.

Whenever you move your leg and drape it over his, cuddling closer, there's a strange weight on it. And when you lift your head and peek, you find that your ankle has a cuff around it, attached to a rope, attached to his bed frame. Your heart drops into your stomach; dread taking its place in your chest. Maybe you could have thought it was some type of sick joke. But something in your gut tells you the truth before he even confirms it.

"I said you'd be mine forever, didn't I, little girl?"

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If you're too shy, let me know.

Is what Seonghwa had written in your comment section after months of gathering the courage to interact with you.

Much to his surprise, he found a hidden message in your next post.

A peek of your pastel panties showing in your seemingly innocent pose, showing because your skirt has been blown slightly by the wind.

Surely. It has to be. It's your way of responding to him.

You hadn't ignored him.

You really are just that shy, he knows it for certain now. You haven't interacted with him because you're shy, that's it. You must just need to be guided.

Which is exactly why he's broken into your apartment, a syringe held tightly by his side as he stands by the side of your bed; watching you sleep.

You feel the charge in the air through your sleeping state, stirring under the blankets restlessly for a moment before your body urges you to peek your eyes open.

The shadow that looms eerily on the wall makes your heart drop into your uneasy gut.

You turn quickly to face the source, lifting yourself onto your elbows and staring with wide eyes at the man. Your body doesn't know what to do. You don't know what to do as the man leans and cups your cheek, pressing his lips to yours briefly before whispering against them, "you weren't supposed to wake up yet. I'm sorry, baby."

You yelp as a quick pin-prick stings your neck, hand flying up to it before he grabs it with his free hand and laces your fingers together; holding it down to your lap despite your struggle against him.

"Shhh," he coos as he quickly presses the plunger of the syringe. A burning sensation spreads through the area, making you whimper through your quivering lips. Tears are quickly forming a pool against your waterline, blurring his semi-familiar face.

"No-" You groan out weakly as he pushes you to guide you to your back, kicking at him with all your might as he climbs over you. You land a few good connections to his thighs, but it doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest.

By the time he's straddling you, whatever drugs he'd injected into you are taking effect — and you find it increasingly difficult to move your limbs. They feel heavy, like the world's heaviest weighted blanket has been draped over them.

"Please, no," you can manage to move your mouth just enough to whisper, and your eyes are able to flick from his face to his hands beggingly as he peels the blanket away from you.

"It's okay, angel," he hums at the sight of your pajamas, something so simple making his cock stir to life. "I know you want this. You've been sending me all these hints, like we're playing a game." He huffs a chuckle, pushing your top up to expose your chest. "I really wanted to wait for you to come to me first, but now I know you're just too shy to."

Your head moves heavily as you attempt to shake it, tears now streaming down your temples. "Don't worry, Daddy will take good care of you."

You squeeze your eyes shut as he leans over to kiss you again, willing your head to move away but only getting caught in his palm as he cradles your cheek and holds you in place.

He moves his lips against yours for a good few long moments before he kisses his way down your jaw and toward your neck.

You can feel everything. But you can do nothing. Not even as his hand sneaks down your pajama pants and cups your most intimate parts.

"Stop." Your voice cracks under the weight of the drugs that settles over your entire body now.

"Why would I do that, sweetheart? We're finally together, let's make the most of it, yeah?"

"I don't want t-"

"I'll make it feel good for you, don't worry your pretty little head about it... I'll stretch you out nice and slow before I fuck you." To him it's a sweet promise. To you? A threat.

"Please- please don't." You keep your eyes shut tight as he starts circling your clit over the fabric of your panties.

"I know, I know," he coos again, "my little girl is just so shy. It's okay. Let Daddy do all the work. You just relax, baby."

Is he serious? Is all you can think as he slides your pants and panties down in one smooth tug, abandoning them at the foot of the bed before he spreads your heavy legs wide.

He stares down at your bare heat for a long beat, a smile twitching at the corners of his lips. Laying down on his stomach to be face to face with your core, he spits right on it.

You almost want to gag as the warm spit dribbles down your slit, and you can only whine as you put all of your energy into trying to close your legs.

It's all for nothing, because his tongue comes out and slides its way up your slit slowly. "Fuck, baby," he moans, giving a kiss to your clit before he continues, "this is what you've been hiding from me? So amazing..."

You cry out weakly as he starts eating you out like a man starved, sucking and licking every inch of you that he can reach.

His tongue slips its way into your growing wetness, curling and swirling every which way it can.

You're still crying, though your tears have slowed — not because of the unwelcome pleasure, you assure yourself.

When his tongue slowly pulls away, you let out a breath of relief. The feeling of him licking at you is bad enough, and the feeling of any part of him inside of you makes your gut clench.

The relief is short lived, however, because two fingers push their way into you and make you squeal as he quickly starts curling them right up against that special spot inside of you all the while his tongue rolls against your clit.

"That's it baby," he pants softly against you, "you're going to cum for Daddy. Be a good girl, now."

It's too fast building, it's too intense. All too much as he abuses both of your most sensitive spots — inside and out.

You let out a wobbling scream as your orgasm breaks over you in violent waves, your legs twitching with your cunt as you cum around his fingers.

He watches the way your face contorts like a hawk, eyes trained up your body as he continues to flick his tongue on your sensitive nub.

He only stops when sobs start to wrack your chest, a satisfied grin on his slick lips as he removes his fingers.

"Didn't that feel good, angel? Hm?" He licks his fingers clean while awaiting your answer, but one never comes; only your sniffles and soft cries. "Hey," he turns stern, gripping your face in his hand and smooshing your cheeks together, "answer me."

"Y-yes." You tell him what he wants to hear, and you don't lie despite everything. It did feel good. But you didn't want it, and you think maybe you'd prefer if it actually didn't please you at all.

"Yes," he hums, pleased, "I knew you would come around, sweetheart."

The sound of his zipper fills you with dread, and you don't have time to think about it — because he's immediately rubbing his hard member against the mess he'd made of you.

"Wait- fuck!" It's a real, proper scream despite the drugs holding your body captive. Because he'd just plunged his thick, overwhelming inches into you in one smooth thrust.

"Oh, shit, baby," he moans deeply, bending to nuzzle his head against your neck, "you're so fucking tight. So warm..."

"Don't move, please," you stutter, "too big-"

"Awe," he coos well and proper, "is Daddy too big for his little girl?" He presses his forehead to yours as you force a weak nod. "Don't be scared of it," he presses his lips to yours briefly, "I'll be gentle."

Gentle he is, at least for the first few slow, rolling thrusts.

But then your cunt clenches around him and he's suddenly pummeling into you. Rough, hard, and fast. So much so that you can hardly breathe.

"I'm sorry sweet girl," he groans, hands going to hold your waist tightly, "I need to cum- gonna cum inside you."

"No-" You gasp, "no, no! Not on birth control, please-"

"Keep begging, baby," he urges with lust coating his voice, his breath heavy against your face.

"D-Daddy, please-" Your idea backfires immediately. Calling him Daddy to get to his soft side doesn't work. Instead, he's buried balls deep inside of you the second you utter the name, pumping his warm seed straight into your guts.

He nearly falls ontop of you, making it even harder to catch your breath as you cry.

"Shhh, baby, shhh."

His cooing works in tandem with your exhaustion and the drugs, luring you to a deep sleep.

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