Page 61 of Unbound Duchess

I will make you beg for me.

Ellen screamed again as she heard Benedict’s threats in her head.

Laurence blocked some strikes. Others he caught with full force. But he did not tell her to stop, even as her lungs began to burn from her panting breaths, and her limbs and body ached from trying to avoid his grasp again.

It was only when she picked up the fire poker by his hearth and raised it above her head that Laurence dropped to his knees before her, put both hands in front of him, and told her to stop.

It was too late. The rage and the terror had come back and had taken over, and the lesson was not just a lesson anymore. It was a fight for survival. She brought the poker down.

Quicker than she could comprehend, Laurence was off his knees before the poker slammed down into the hardwood floor, splintering the wood. Muscular arms banded around her from behind, and strong hands gripped around hers, prying her fingers away from the fire poker. She threw her head back, but felt nothing but air as she made contact with nothing.

“Ellen, it’s me,” Laurence growled into her ear.

“Let go!” she snarled, digging her nails into the back of his hands.

Laurence let out a snarl more rabid than her own, and he turned her around, pinning her left arm to his chest and her right with his muscled arm. His other hand came up to her face, and he gripped her chin as he shoved his face close to hers.

“Look at me!” he commanded as she drew in ragged breaths.

She snapped her teeth at him as if they were monstrous fangs, as she struggled to break free from his tight hold.

“No, it is over, Ellen. Look at me!”

Ellen’s breaths were coming in short, panting bursts as she looked up into Laurence’s stern gaze; her face twisted into a feral mask of rage.

Then she saw him. Green eyes with flecks of gold. Black lashes. A lock of black hair falling over his smooth forehead. A sharp, straight nose and a square jaw. Chiseled lips that looked so hard but she knew were impossibly soft. It was Laurence. Not Benedict.

Ellen drew in a shuddering sob, and her body melted into his. That granite-like determination faded from Laurence’s eyes as she said his name, and he muttered something she could not quite catch as he bowed his head toward hers and kissed her forehead.

“Laurence?” she rasped.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“It is me,” he whispered through his kisses.

His hand smoothed down her chin to her throat, and with the pressing of his palm, he measured her heartbeat. For several more seconds it continued to thrum against his hand like a hummingbird, but then, with another kiss, this time pressed to her brow, her heartbeat finally began to slow.

“It is me,” he whispered again, looking down at her. Sweat slicked her brow, and a flush had taken over her from her cheeks all the way down to her breasts. She might be calming down, but she was still feeling the terror he had instilled in her with his lesson.

A sob ripped from Ellen’s throat, shredding his heart to pieces. He had wanted her to fight. To be able to push past the barrier of politeness she and so many other women were raised to respect so she could defend herself, but he had pushed too far.

“Ellen, I am sorry,” he rasped.

She only let out another sob as she began to tremble in his grasp, and he could not take it. He swept her up, sliding one arm under her knees as the other cradled her back, and carried her to the couch where he’d thrown her on the day he’d caught her lying in the rain. This time, though, he was gentle, sitting down with her and cradling her in his arms.

“The way you froze last night,” he began to explain. “The way you closed your eyes and held your breath as you accepted that he was going to touch you—I do not ever want that to happen to you again. I do not want you to give in and accept whatever awful thing is about to happen to you.”

Ellen sniffled, then lifted her head from his chest. Fresh tears erupted over his heart as he saw blue eyes glistening with tears.

“I understand,” she breathed, smoothing her palm over his chest. He hissed in a breath, hating how quickly his body responded to her touch even after such a battle.

“But I—” she rasped, trailing her fingers over the rip in his shirt that she had put there. “I lost myself. Truly lost myself as I was fighting. I did not see you anymore. Your voice was not even yours. It was his voice, his face that I could see, and even when you told me to stop, even when a part of me recognized you, I could not, and I⁠—”

Her glistening eyes went wide with horror as she sat up a little straighter in his lap.

“Oh, God, what if I had killed you with the poker?” she asked, her pitch almost rising to a squeak on the last word.

Laurence chuckled. He did not mean to, but the sound burst from his chest, low and thick.