Page 113 of The Ache That Stayed

CHAPTER 30

Santino

The second her lips parted under mine—that was it.

There was no going back now. No control left to cling to. Three years of restraint snapped clean in half like it had never existed.

I’d lied to myself. Pretended distance would dull it, that time would make her fade. It didn’t. It carved her deeper.

The result—her lips moulded to mine like they were a part of me. Warm and alive, breathing against me.

Mine.

And that thought no longer scared me.

There was nothing pretty about the kiss. It was possessive, violent, brutally honest, and I was done pretending otherwise.

She tasted exactly like I remembered.

No—worse. Because memory had softened her. Reality ruined me.

My teeth caught her bottom lip, biting hard enough to make her gasp. I didn’t let go. I tugged, tasting the sting, tasting her. My tongue swiped across the seam of her lips, demanding entry, and when she gave it, I plunged in—deep, rough, claiming.

Her body pressed into mine as though she’d been fighting this for just as long, waiting as desperately as I had.

I should stop. I didn’t. I couldn’t.

My hand found her ass and squeezed hard, dragging her impossibly closer, because no amount of her would ever feel like enough.

Her tongue met mine, hesitant at first, then desperate, tangling, sliding, chasing. I groaned into her mouth, the sound low and rough, because this had stopped feeling like a kiss.

This was possession dressed up just enough to pass as devotion.

I nipped at her lip again, harder this time, and the sound she made nearly undid me. My hand tightened at her throat, thumb resting over her pulse as I kissed her deeper, greedier, wanting more of her than I had any right to want.

Every clash of teeth, every swipe of tongue was a battle I refused to lose. I wanted her to feel it—the hunger, the years of restraint snapping. The beast that had spent years waiting, starving for this exact collision, had finally been unleashed. A low sound left her throat—and it went straight through me, making my cock twitch.

“Fuck,” I muttered against her mouth.

I’d waited too long. Imagined this a thousand times.

None of it came close. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the reality of her. For the way she responded. For the way she let me.

That was the thing that broke me. That was the part I wouldn’t recover from.

Every bite, every lick, every breath stolen from her mouth felt less like desire and more like a vow I couldn’t take back.

I took her hand and guided it down over my cock, letting her feel exactly what she did to me. And the way her breath hitched told me she felt the twitch. Her thighs squeezed together, body betraying her, and I smiled against her lips, biting once more before swallowing her moan whole.

“Feel that?” I said, voice rough, uneven in a way that betrayed just how close to the edge I was. “That’s what you do to me,” I murmured against her ear.

I’d had women before. Plenty. None of them ever felt like this. None of them ever made me feel seen. And no one had ever made me feel this needed.

I’d fallen so far into her I barely recognised the man I used to be. The frightening part was that I didn’t miss him.

I wanted her to know. To understand. To stop pretending she didn’t drive me insane.

Her fingers moved, tentative at first, then slower… more intentional against my length. Completely unaware she was about to undo me. She took in a sharp breath, biting my lip as she went lower, until she touched the swollen head through my sweatpants. She circled once, slowly, and then gave a light squeeze.