Chapter 35 #2
“For…” I swallow, throat tight, words sticking like they’re afraid to come out. “For going back. For Evan. For dragging you into—” My voice cracks again, small and jagged, and I hate it, hate how it sounds like the old Mary, the one who apologized for taking up space.
“For needing you to save me… again.”
His jaw tightens, a muscle twitching once, like a wire pulled too taut.
“You didn’t drag me.” His words are slow, deliberate, each one landing like a stone in my chest. “You think I’d be here if I didn’t want to be?”
He lifts his hand, fingers sliding from my jaw to the back of my neck, thumb brushing the pulse that’s betraying me, racing under his touch.
Not soft; controlled. Mapping every bruise, every mark Evan left, and burning them away with his own.
Because for the first time in years, Evan’s words don’t feel like the truth.
Not with Anton looking at me like this.
The words scrape up my throat anyway, the ones I always reach for. The only ones I know. Sorry.
Sorry for being stupid.
Sorry for being weak.
Sorry for thinking I could ever be more than ordinary.
Sorry for being Mary—too small, too quiet, too nothing.
“I… I’m just—”
“Don’t say sorry.”
It’s like he plucked the word straight out of my throat, like he heard it forming in my head before I could choke it out. His voice is low, certain, like a rule I’d better follow if I want to keep breathing.
“Not for him. Not for this.”
His thumb drags slowly across my lower lip, lingering on the cut. The touch isn’t tender—it’s too controlled for that—but it sparks through me anyway, sharp and electric, like brushing against a live wire. My body jerks, traitorous, heat rushing everywhere at once.
“You’re not his.”
And the way he says it—like it’s fact written in stone—makes something deep in my chest crack open, aching and hungry.
I nod, my lips parting, but no sound comes out. Just a shaky exhale that feels like surrender. His fingers tighten, just a fraction, and the pressure sends a jolt through me, straight to my core.
My thighs clench around him, instinctive, and I want to die because he feels it. His eyes darken, a flicker of hunger that makes my stomach twist. A low sound rumbles in his throat, not a growl but close, and it vibrates through me, making my toes curl against the cold marble.
His gaze drops, catching on the watch and bracelet glinting on my wrist—the ones he made me wear, the ones that track me, listen to me. His jaw ticks again, harder this time, like he’s just remembered his men could hear us, could know exactly what’s happening in this bathroom.
His eyes meet mine, and I see it—the intent, the need to keep this moment ours. My breath catches, because I want that too, want this to be just us, no one else listening in.
“Shhh…”
His free hand moves, quick but careful, fingers unclasping the bracelet first, then the watch.
The metal clinks softly as he sets them on the counter, his movements precise, careful.
Then he reaches into his pocket, pulls out a small key fob, and presses a button.
A tiny red light on the watch blinks out, dead.
Silent. He’s shut it off, cut the line to his world, and the air feels thicker now, like we’re alone in a way we weren’t before.
I nod, a small jerk of my chin, because I get it. I’m glad.
His eyes hold mine, darker now, like he’s reading every thought I’m too scared to say.
For a moment, we freeze. Like if either of us moves, the air itself will crack. My pulse stumbles, and I break first, gaze slipping down, anywhere but him.
Slowly, he tilts my chin, thumb and forefinger firm but steady, guiding my gaze back up when I try to drop it. A strand of damp hair sticks to my cheek, and he brushes it back, tucking it gently behind my ear as if it’s the most natural thing in the world for a man like him to do.
Then he leans closer. His breath ghosts my lips, hot and steady, almost a kiss but not quite. “I can go,” he says, voice even, almost too calm. “If you ask me to.”
The words hang there, heavy, impossible. Because he doesn’t look like a man who leaves. He looks like a man who stays. Who takes. Who owns. And yet he’s offering me an out anyway, like it costs him nothing, when I know it costs him everything.
My throat works around a lump, because I don’t know how to say, “Don’t you dare.” So, I don’t say it. I move—because I can’t not.
My hands, trembling, slide up his chest, fingers catching on the blood-streaked fabric, then higher, to the ink scrawled across his throat.
The letters are bold, black, jagged against his skin, and I stop there.
As if I’ve found the one place I’m allowed to touch.
I lean in until my breath grazes him, and press my lips just below his jaw, where the vein beats hard and fast under ink and skin.
It’s not a kiss. It’s a dare. A spark. My tongue flicks out, tasting salt, steel, and him.
He freezes for a heartbeat, breath hitching, and I feel it—the moment his control starts to crack.
My fingers dig into his shoulders, nails biting through cotton, and I shift, grinding against him just enough to make him feel how much I want this, how much I’m done pretending I don’t.
A low groan escapes him, raw and rough, and it’s like I’ve flipped a switch.
His control snaps.
One hand fists in my hair, yanking my head back.
The other grips my waist, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks.
Then his mouth takes mine—violent, hungry, like he’s been waiting years to carve his claim into me.
Teeth and tongue and desperate hunger that’s been building since the moment we met.
I kiss him back like I’m drowning. Like he’s air. My hands claw at his shirt, pulling him closer, needing him closer. He tastes of mint and violence and something dark that makes my knees weak.
His tongue sweeps into my mouth, demanding, taking. I moan against his lips and feel him shudder. His grip tightens in my hair, angling my head so he can kiss me deeper, harder.
“Fuck,” he growls against my mouth, then bites my lower lip. Not gentle. It stings and sends heat straight between my legs.
I gasp, and he swallows the sound, one hand sliding down to cup my ass, lifting me slightly so I’m pressed against the bathroom counter. The marble is cold against my back, but he’s furnace-hot against my front.
“I’ve wanted to do this since you groped me drunk,” he murmurs against my throat.
“I’ve wanted you to,” I admit, breathless. “God, I’ve wanted—”
But the words stumble, because my own body shocks me. The way it arches into him, the way heat pools low and merciless between my thighs. Like it knows what to do without permission. Like it’s been waiting for him.
Never before.
Not once in six years with Evan.
Not once with anyone. Is this even me? This greedy, shaking version of myself that can’t stop pressing closer, like I’ve been starved and only now learned what hunger feels like?
His teeth graze my neck, sharp and deliberate, and my words choke off into a moan. My hands slide under his shirt, fingers finding the hard planes of his stomach, the scars that tell stories I’m not sure I’m ready to hear. His skin’s hot, taut, and my nails scrape lightly, urging him on.
Then he shifts his hips.
Oh God.
The thick ridge of his cock is straining through his jeans, rubbing right against my clit through mine. The friction is electric, a pulse so intense it steals my breath, makes my thoughts scatter.
I rock against him, chasing the heat, my legs hooking tighter around his hips, pulling him flush until there’s no space between us.
“Fuck… you’re so hard,” I gasp. God, the pressure’s perfect, his hard length hitting just right with every grind.
Can I come like this?
Just from this, his cock, still trapped in his jeans, rubbing me? It feels impossible, but my core clenches, slick and aching, my hips moving on their own, desperate for more.
I’m panting, my tits bouncing in my bra, and I wonder if this is even me, this woman who’s soaking her jeans, ready to come undone from dry-humping, like some teenager in a backseat.
I grip his shoulders, nails digging in, because the heat’s building fast, a coil tightening low, and I’m dizzy with it, my clit throbbing under the denim as he grinds harder, slower, like he knows exactly how to drive me wild.
“Anton, please… make me come,” I gasp, my voice high and broken, because this feels too good, too real, like he’s rewriting every empty night I spent faking it, convincing myself I was broken.
He makes a sound. Low, guttural. Half growl, half groan. The kind of sound ripped out of a man’s chest when he’s starving and the food is finally right there. It shoots straight through me, makes me even wetter, because it’s want. Raw, unfiltered want. For me.
He presses down, harder, deeper, the slow drag of him over my clit making me dizzy, blurring the edges of the room.
Each shift of his hips sparks another pulse, another wave, and the low growl in his throat rumbles straight through me, vibrating against my chest like he’s marking me from the inside out.
I’m panting now, clutching at him, nails digging into his back through the shirt, because I don’t want him to stop, can’t stand the thought of him stopping.
And when he pulls back, just an inch, eyes locked on mine—dark, wild, like he’s one breath away from tearing me apart—I want to scream at him to keep going.
“Mary,” he says, my name a warning, a promise, his voice so rough it’s barely human. And then his hand slides lower, fingers brushing the button of my jeans, hovering there, waiting for me to say yes or stop him, and my heart slams so hard I think it’ll break my ribs.
“You shouldn’t want this.” His eyes drag over me… slow, steady, like he’s counting the ways he can ruin me. “I’m not the guy who fixes things, Mary. I break them.”
God. I’m so fucked.
My throat tightens. My body betrays me anyway.
Because even as he says it—
Even as he warns me—my body’s already made the choice my mind’s too scared to admit.
End of Book 1
Continue in Book 2: 100 Days to Own Me
Hey lovely,
You’ve just stepped into the messy part — the trauma, the ex, the blood.
Now comes the dangerous kind of temptation.
The kind that ruins plans, rewrites fates, and makes survival feel a lot like falling in love.
In Book 2, Mary’s about to find out that living with Anton Malikov is…
well, let’s just say “emotionally complicated” and “sexually irresponsible.” There are secrets.
There’s danger. There’s definitely less clothing.
So grab a snack, maybe a seatbelt, and dive into Book 2: 100 Days to Claim Me. Because this time, it’s not just survival. It’s surrender.
Xoxo, Mya
Continue in Book 2: 100 Days to Claim Me