Page 34 of The Ruin I Chose

Then his mouth crashed onto mine—hungry, furious, starving. I kissed him back because my body remembered. Because my heart hadn’t forgotten. Because silence had never felt this loud.

The heat between my thighs tightened. His body pressed harder into mine—cock thick and unforgiving against my core, breath ragged.

“Say it,” he growled.

His thumb pressed under my jaw, tilting my face up, making refusal impossible.

I blinked. “Say what?”

“That you missed me.”

I didn’t answer. So, he slid his hand between my thighs, found me soaked, and smirked.

“Your body already did.”

Then he pushed aside the fabric of my panties and unzipped his jeans. Lifting a leg, he hovered at my entrance for a single, devastating heartbeat—letting me feel the threat of him—then drove into me like punishment.

My body opened for him, like it had been waiting. Like it had never stopped. I gasped, but he caught the sound with his mouth, swallowing it whole. He didn’t ease in; he claimed.

He caught my cry in his mouth as my back arched fucking me like he needed to feel every inch of me to believe I was real.

Each thrust was an accusation. Each snap of his hips a reminder that he hadn’t forgiven me for walking away. His hands bruised my hips. His teeth grazed my neck.

“Mine,” he growled—raw, fractured—like the word hurt him more than it hurt me.

He said it like it was the only truth he had left to hold onto. His mouth tasted like fury and longing. Like he hated that he missed me. As though he wanted to punish me for making him feel.

He grabbed the back of my neck just enough to remind me who had followed me across an island.

Every kiss was a confession he couldn’t say out loud. I laced my fingers with his, still pinned above my head, breathless. His grip tightened possessively, almost punishing—as if to say don’t ever pull away from me again.

“How did you find me?” I managed to say between kisses.

“You showed me your itinerary,” he said, voice rough. “Did you forget?”

He kissed my neck, my collarbone. “Plus… I own this place.”

He moved faster, deeper, reaching somewhere that made me feel I was floating on clouds and my body, the traitor it was, gave in to him.

I hated him for agreeing to let me leave. Hated myself for wanting this. But my body didn’t care. It opened for him as though it had been waiting.

I came too fast, hating how easy it was and how much I still ached for him as the release left me completely undone and shaking. He followed—gripping me tighter, burying his face in my shoulder. For a moment—one brief, unguarded breath—he held me like a man terrified of losing something he never meant to want.

After, he knelt and wiped the sweat and the remnants of our desire from my legs like I was something precious. Like he hadn’t just broken me open. His hands shook—barely, but enough for me to feel it. Like he was ashamed of how hard he’d needed me.

He kissed the inside of my thigh, then pressed his lips to the lace of my ruined panties.

“Mine,” he whispered again, with a haunted breath.

He’d said it once before—when he was inside mine, when the word felt like a claim carved into skin. Now it sounded different. Uncertain. Like he wasn’t sure what he owned or if he wanted to. I didn’t know what he meant. My body. My silence. Or my soul.

Two days ago, he hadn’t cared if I continued the trip alone. And now he was claiming me.

I stood there, breath uneven, my heart pulled in opposite directions. For the first time, I couldn’t tell what hurt more—his absence, or his return. I didn’t know if I wanted him to stay or disappear again.

I only knew one thing—

I couldn’t survive another half-love.