My emotions jumbled together in regret and confusion. On one side of the argument I had to leave all those months ago, Ihadto get away. On the other side, after everything Ryder and I had been through tonight, I couldn’t believe I’d left him and left our relationship up to chance.
Somehow, on the island, I had always known I would see him again. I had always known we would be together again.
But, last night had been final.
If Persephone hadn’t felt generous or had been too consumed with her fury to notice Ryder, I would be sitting here by myself.
I would have had to face the rest of my life by myself.
Strong arms wrapped around my torso and tugged me against a familiar chest. Ryder’s warmth enveloped me, comforting and promising at the same time.
“Ivy,” he murmured into my ear. “You’re not going to lose me again. It won’t happen again.”
I trembled in his arms, but let myself listen to his words. I let his promises take root in my soul. I let them build something inside of me that was permanent and lasting. I would not lose him again.
I would not lose him again.
“I love you,” he told me, softly at first. Then with more intent, more clarity, “I love you.”
I jerked in his arms, rocked completely by the violent, life-altering weight of those words. They were so simple. So short and sweet. And yet they had a power over me that should have scared me.
I had never been loved before. Not in my entire life.
I had never known love until Ryder, never felt it or breathed it or bled it. And yet with him, it had become this defining entity inside me. My love for Ryder consumed my thoughts and dictated my actions. I would do anything for him. Go anywhere. Sacrifice everything.
But none of that, nothing I could do, think, or feel compared to the effectbeing loved by Ryderhad on me.
“Ivy,” he murmured, with his lips against my temple and his arms bracing me to his body, “I love you.”
More tears clogged my throat and stole my words. Emotion fought with the fierce desire to return his feelings until I finally clawed through the weighty heart-bending joy and whispered, “I love you, too.”
He pulled back so he could cradle my face with his rough hands. He stared into my eyes as if they could tell him everything I couldn’t say out loud.
“Say it again,” he demanded.
Regret kicked my chest as I took in his desperation, his neediness. “I love you,” I swore to him.
“Again,” he rasped.
“I love you, Ryder.”
His lips crashed against mine with greed and devotion. He took this kiss from me, demanded that I give him everything with this connection. Our lips bruised and our teeth scraped as we poured everything into this moment; every delayed touch, every ounce of feeling that had built and built over our months apart, every aching moment that we’d had to miss.
His hands moved over my body, memorizing the feel of me and mine did the same to him. I felt his chiseled arms and hard chest, his corded neck and muscled stomach. I dug my fingernails into his cut shoulder blades and pressed my pounding heart against his.
Then finally, finally when I could take it no more, I sunk my hands into his tangled hair and came home.
Just like with love, this was a first for me.
I had lived in a prison my entire life, where love was replaced with sinister expectation and home was substituted for fear. I had slept in a place I dreaded and grown up in a house I hated.
I hadn’t known anything different. I couldn’t imagine anything different.
Until Ryder.
Until this.
Now I knew what it was like to be loved and cherished. I knew what it was like to have my heart settle and finally relax. I knew what it was like to release the debilitating terror that had clutched my chest and lungs for the entirety of my life and finally…finallybreathe deeply.
