Chapter 2: Face-Down on the Breeding Bench
The taste of copper still coated her tongue when Amanda finally pushed herself up from the bathroom floor.
Her knees ached from the cold marble. Her throat throbbed with every swallow, a bruise blooming beneath the skin where his fingers had been. She caught her reflection in the fogged mirror—mascara smeared, lips swollen, hair a wild tangle around her face—and felt something twist low in her belly that she refused to name.
Behind her, the bathroom door hung open. Benjamin had already gone.
She found him in the bedroom, pulling on a faded flannel shirt over his broad shoulders. He didn't look at her. Just buttoned the shirt with those thick fingers, jaw set like granite, and walked past her toward the stairs.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Her voice came out ragged. Hoarse.
He didn't stop. Didn't turn around.
"Ben."
Nothing. Just the heavy thud of his boots on the stairs, each step a small earthquake in the silence.
She followed him because standing alone in that steam-filled room felt like drowning. Because the ache between her thighs was a compass needle, and he was the only true north she'd ever known. Because—though she would never, ever say it out loud—the way he'd looked at her when his hand closed around her throat had lit something inside her that she'd spent years pretending didn't exist.
The kitchen was dark. He grabbed his keys from the hook by the door.
"You're leaving?" She hated how small her voice sounded. Hated the way it cracked on the last word.
Benjamin finally turned. His eyes were black in the dim light, flat and cold and utterly devoid of the heat she'd come to expect from him. This wasn't anger. This was something worse.
"Barn," he said. "Now."
Two words. No room for argument.
"I'm not—"
"Now, Amanda."
Her name in his mouth was a loaded gun. She felt it in her chest, in her cunt, in the pit of her stomach where shame and want tangled together like snakes.
She grabbed her coat. Followed him out into the night.
The yard stretched between the house and the barn, a dark expanse of frost-bitten grass that crunched beneath their boots. The sky hung low and starless, pressing down like a held breath. Wind cut through her thin coat, raising gooseflesh along her arms.
Benjamin didn't slow down. Didn't look back to make sure she was following. He just walked—that long, measured stride that ate up ground—and Amanda had to jog to keep up, her bare feet shoved into the first pair of boots she'd found by the door.
The barn loomed ahead, a black shape against the darker sky.
He hauled the door open. The hinges screamed.
Inside, the air was thick with the scent of hay and sweat and old leather. A single lantern hung from a beam near the back, casting flickering shadows across the cracked wooden floor. Somewhere in the darkness, one of the horses shifted in its stall, hooves scraping against straw.
Benjamin grabbed her arm.
His grip was iron, fingers digging into the soft flesh above her elbow, and he dragged her past the stalls, past the feed bins, past the rusted tractor that had sat unused for years. She stumbled, caught herself, and kept moving because stopping meant falling, and falling meant she'd have to face what was waiting for her at the end of this walk.
The breeding bench sat in the back corner of the barn.
She'd seen it before—had run her fingers along its worn leather surface once, years ago, when they'd first bought this property and she'd been exploring. It was old, older than either of them, a relic from some previous owner who'd raised cattle or sheep or something else that needed to be held still while it was bred.
She'd laughed about it then. Made some joke about kinky farmers.
She wasn't laughing now.
Benjamin spun her around. His hand found her throat.
"Don't," she started, and his fingers tightened.
Not enough to cut off air. Just enough to remind her that he could. That he'd already done worse tonight, and she'd liked it, and they both knew it.
"You had your chance to talk." His voice was low, rough as gravel. "You laughed at me, Amanda. In our bed. You called me pathetic."
"I was—"
His thumb pressed against her windpipe. Just for a second. Just enough to make her gasp.
"I said you had your chance."
He walked her backward. She felt the edge of the bench against the backs of her thighs, padded leather covered in a thin layer of dust that puffed into the air when she hit it. The smell of it filled her nose—leather and hay and something musky underneath, something animal.
"Sit."
She didn't move.
His hand left her throat. Grabbed her hip. Shoved her down.
The bench was shaped like a sawhorse with a padded top—narrow, curved, designed to hold a body in place. She landed on it hard, her hips settling into the depression, her legs splayed on either side because there was nowhere else for them to go. The leather creaked beneath her weight.
Benjamin knelt behind her.
She heard him before she felt him—the rustle of denim, the clink of his belt buckle, the sharp intake of breath that told her he was looking at her. At the way she was bent over this thing like livestock. At the way her ass was already lifting, already offering itself, even though she hadn't told it to.
His hand found the back of her neck.
"You're going to stay there," he said. "You're going to take it. And you're going to stop pretending you don't want it."
"I don't—"
He yanked her hair.
Her head snapped back, throat arching, and the words died in her mouth. His other hand slid around her hip, fingers hooking into the waistband of her leggings, and then he was peeling them down—slow, deliberate, dragging the fabric over the curve of her ass and down her thighs until they bunched around her knees.
She was bare beneath them. She always was.
The cold air hit her cunt like a slap.
Benjamin exhaled. A rough sound, almost a laugh, and then his fingers were there—two of them, calloused and thick, dragging through the slick folds of her pussy without preamble. The sound was obscene. Wet. Loud in the quiet barn.
"Still think it's pathetic?" he murmured.
She tried to speak. Tried to summon some shred of dignity, some cutting remark that would put him back in his place.
His fingers pushed inside her.
Her mouth fell open. A sound came out—not a word, not anything close to a word, just a soft, broken noise that she would have been ashamed of if she'd had any blood left in her brain.
"Look at that," Benjamin said. "Wet as fuck. You're fucking dripping, Amanda."
He dragged his fingers out. Pushed them back in. Curled them against that spot inside her that made her whole body jerk, made her thighs try to close around his hand even though the bench wouldn't let them.
"Tell me you don't want it," he said. "Go on. Tell me."
She couldn't.
She hated him. She hated the way he knew her, the way he could read her body like a book he'd memorized years ago. She hated the way her hips were already rocking, already pushing back against his hand, already fucking herself on his fingers like some animal in heat.
Benjamin pulled his hand away.
She whined. Actually whined—high and desperate, a sound she'd never made before in her life.
He stood up. She heard him move behind her, heard the rasp of a zipper, and then the blunt head of his cock was pressing against her opening, hot and thick and absolutely fucking relentless.
"Don't," she said.
It came out wrong. Not a plea. An invitation.
Benjamin pushed in.
She screamed.
Not from pain—God, not from pain, though her body was stretched around him tight enough to burn—but from the sheer overwhelming fullness of it. He didn't ease in. Didn't give her time to adjust. He just drove forward, hips slamming against her ass, burying himself to the hilt in one brutal stroke.
"Fuck," she gasped.
"Yeah," he said. "That's what I thought."
His hand found her throat again.
She felt his fingers close around the column of her neck, squeezing just enough to make the blood roar in her ears. Her vision went fuzzy at the edges. Her lungs worked harder, pulling in air through a passage that was half-blocked by his grip.
"Still want to laugh at me?" He pulled out. Slammed back in. "Still think it's funny?"
She couldn't answer. Couldn't speak. Couldn't even think past the feeling of him splitting her open, his cock dragging along walls that were slick and tight and absolutely fucking his.
"I'm going to put a baby in you," he said.
The words hit her like a punch to the gut.
"Going to fill this cunt up and keep going until I'm sure it takes." He fucked into her harder, fingers tightening on her throat with every thrust. "And you're going to let me. Because this—" another thrust, "—is mine."
She tried to shake her head. Couldn't. His grip was too tight.
"Say it," he demanded.
No.
"Say it's mine."
No, no, no.
His hand squeezed. Her vision went dark at the edges, narrowing to a pinpoint tunnel, and somewhere in the blackness her body made a choice for her. Her mouth opened. Words spilled out.
"Yours," she choked. "It's yours. Fuck—it's yours, Ben, please—"
He grunted. Some of the pressure on her throat eased, just enough for her to pull in a ragged breath, and then he was fucking her in earnest—hard, deep strokes that rattled her teeth and made the bench creak beneath them.
The lantern light flickered. Shadows danced across the hay-strewn floor.
Amanda felt herself breaking.
Not physically—physically she was holding together, barely, her body a clenched fist around his cock. But somewhere deeper, somewhere she'd spent years fortifying against him, the walls were crumbling. Every thrust pushed her closer to something she'd been running from since the day they met.
She didn't want to want this.
She didn't want to need him.
But she did. God help her, she did.
"I'm going to come," she heard herself say.
It didn't sound like her voice. It sounded raw. Stripped. Like something flayed open and left to bleed in the open air.
Benjamin leaned over her. His chest pressed against her back. His mouth found her ear.
"Then come," he said. "And while you're coming, remember whose fucking cock is inside you."
She shattered.
The orgasm ripped through her like lightning—sudden, electric, absolutely devastating. Her whole body convulsed around him, muscles clamping down in waves that made spots dance in front of her eyes. She heard someone sobbing. Realized it was her.
"Fuck," Benjamin groaned. "Fuck, that's it. Milk it out of me. Take it all."
And then he was coming too—hot pulse after hot pulse flooding into her, filling her up in a way that felt final. Permanent. The kind of thing that couldn't be taken back.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
The lantern swung gently overhead, casting its yellow light across their tangled bodies, and somewhere outside an owl called out. The normal world, continuing on as if nothing had happened.
But something had happened.
Benjamin pulled out slowly. She felt the loss of him like a physical blow—the wet slide of his cock, the rush of air against her exposed skin, the slow trickle of his cum beginning to seep from her cunt and drip down her thighs.
His hand finally left her throat. He stepped back.
Amanda stayed exactly where she was, bent over the bench like she'd been placed there for display, because her legs wouldn't hold her. Because her whole body was shaking. Because if she moved, she was afraid she might shatter into a thousand pieces and never find all of them.
"You okay?"
His voice came from somewhere behind her. Softer now. The edge gone, replaced by something that almost sounded like concern.
Amanda laughed.
It came out broken. Wet. A sound with no humor in it at all.
"I hate you," she whispered.
Benjamin was quiet for a moment.
"No," he said finally. "You don't."
She wanted to argue. Wanted to push herself up off this bench and tell him exactly what she felt, exactly what he'd done to her, exactly how much she resented the fact that after all the fighting and the biting and tearing at each other, her body still melted for him like butter in a hot pan.
But the words wouldn't come.
The lantern flickered again.
And somewhere deep in her belly, something stirred that scared her more than his hand around her throat ever could.