Page 96 of The Ruin I Chose

“I’m sorry. I should’ve come sooner.”

I bent to kiss her. She turned away.

“It’ll take more than sorry.”

I nodded, stepping back.

“I’ll keep trying. Even if it takes me a lifetime.”

With that, we quietly went to our rooms. I couldn’t sleep. I kept tossing and turning in bed. She was so close to me, yet far away. This distance she was putting between us was killing me. She was a room away, but it felt like an ocean.

I swung out of bed and dropped onto the living room sofa, lighting a cigarette. I took a burning drag and let out a cloud of smoke, thinking of ways to win her heart.

I didn’t realise she’d walked in until she snatched the cigarette and bent over to stub it out.

“No smoking in the house.”

As she bent forward, her t-shirt dress rode up her hips, exposing the plum underwear on her curvy ass. Her cheeks peeked out, soft and round and something in me snapped.

My restraint burned out with the cigarette. But lust? It rose like a goddamn inferno. I didn’t decide to touch her. My body did.

I grabbed her waist, dragging her down to my lap. Her legs parted instinctively, her heat settling over my arousal. One hand gripped her neck, tilting her face towards me. The other slid down to her waist, fingers splaying across her skin.

My arousal pressed against her, hard and aching. Her breath hitched. Her chest rose and fell like she was drowning in want, and I was drowning right with her.

I grazed her neck with my jaw, then bit the lobe of her ear slowly. She let out a strangled moan. My lips found the spot where her neck met her ear—her most sensitive place. I bit down, slow and hard, knowing it would bruise by morning. I wanted to mark her. Let everyone know she was mine.

She struggled—but it wasn’t a struggle. It was friction. It was need, clawing its way out. Her hips were mindlessly gyrating, grinding against me, and it made me harder. I could feel the heat from her core on my arousal, almost ready to set me on fire.

Keeping a gentle grip on her neck, I grazed her lips with one finger. My other hand wandered down to her thigh, closer to her core. I grazed the seam of her panties, tempted to slide them aside and bury myself deep in her, reminding her how perfectly she fit around me. She trembled as she pushed herself back into me, arching her back.

“You’ve been pushing me away all week. And I can’t resist you anymore. You’ve driven me mad—mad enough to lose sleep, lose sense, lose control.”

My voice came out ragged, almost hoarse, like the sound made by a provoked beast. I bit her shoulder, and slipped the finger grazing her lip into her mouth. She slowly licked and sucked on it. The warmth of her mouth, the wetness of her tongue—had my cock twitching in my pants. She felt it and pressed harder into me.

Her nails dug into my hands, carving half-moons. I was surely going to ink them into my skin—proof that she still felt me.

If my cock had a mind of its own, it would’ve torn through the thin layers between us and buried itself in her warmth.

“Your scent… it wraps around me. I haven’t touched another woman since you left—haven’t so much as looked at another woman. All I’ve thought about is you, how perfectly you fit against me. How you undo me. How you’ve captured me with steel hooks.”

Lifting the edge of her t-shirt, my hand slid up to her stomach, then cupped her perfect, large breast. I slowly circled her hard nipple and pinched it hard between my fingers. She threw her head back on my shoulders and let out a guttural moan—hungry, involuntary. It shot through me like lightning. I wanted to spin her over and take them in my mouth, worship every inch of that body on this couch.

“I still don’t forgive you,” she whispered.

I stopped. Pulled back just enough to look her in the eye.

“Then I’ll wait. I’ll give you everything—except this. I won’t take what you won’t give. Not until you want me. Not until you forgive me. That’s my penance.”

My voice shook from wanting her beyond reason. She pushed off my lap and stared at me—flushed, breathless, furious. Her mind resisted, but her body had betrayed her. The evidence—wetness soaking through her panties, onto my sweatpants.

She wanted it as much as I did. She glanced at my arousal before storming towards her room—her round, curvy ass jiggling with every step.

Damn. I couldn’t think straight around her.

“7 a.m. sharp. We leave,” she said, slamming the door.

I put my head in my hands.