Chapter 21
Ruby
I WAS MID-SIP OF THE chamomile tea Rio kept me stocked with from the health store when a firm knock landed on the front door of my cottage.
I pushed my laptop aside and opened it to find Sebastian holding a bottle of wine, his eyes blazing, smoldering almost, with something I couldn’t quite name.
“Hey,” I said, stepping aside.
“This is for you,” he said.
But before I could answer, he shut the door with his booted foot, set the bottle on the console without taking his eyes off me, and pulled me into his arms.
His hands were fierce, his mouth already claiming mine.
The hunger was familiar—we’d always had that—but something in the way he kissed me now was different. Urgent. Unfiltered. Like it wasn’t a choice, but a visceral need.
And it was contagious. I reached for him like I hadn’t seen him in weeks, not hours. My pulse kicked up. My body responded faster than my mind could process. I became ravenous for his touch, for his taste. My heart hammered like it sensed the difference.
“I want you so much,” he muttered against my lips. “I need to be inside you.” His voice was rough, like the words had been sitting in his throat all day, waiting.
Even the way he said it was new. He normally told me he wanted to fuck me, and how. But this wasn’t the same. It wasn’t about the physical. It was the verbal equivalent of the closeness we’d been slipping into over the last few weeks. Like we weren’t just fucking anymore, but ... sort of ... more.
Gripping me tighter, he lifted me easily, and my legs wrapped around his waist like muscle memory. He carried me to the bedroom, our mouths never parting.
I all but tore his button-down shirt off, mine following fast. By the time we hit the bed, the only thing left between us was my pajama shorts and his jeans—which we kicked off like they’d personally wronged us.
The second there was nothing left between us, he drove into me, deep and full. His fingers laced with mine at either side of my head, his eyes locked on mine.
And the look in his eyes—there was a depth, almost an ache, I’d never seen before. A kind of raw, fierce claiming. He moved like he was trying to etch himself into my body, and his gaze was anchoring him into my soul.
I wanted to close my eyes, but couldn’t. My legs tightened around him like I needed more than he was already giving.
I could feel the tension in every line and ridge of him.
Each thrust landed deeper, harder, like he was chasing something. Or maybe running from it.
And I let him. Welcomed it. Matched him.
“Ruby,” he breathed, his fingers clutching mine. “You’re mine. You’re fucking mine,” his voice broke into a groan as he bent his head and crashed his lips against mine in a rugged, consuming kiss.
I knew that sound. I was making one just like it. It all felt so intense, like we were coming apart, undone, wrecked together. I pulled him tight to me, and even tighter when I came—clenching around him like my body couldn’t bear the thought of him pulling away.
He didn’t. Because even as he followed right after, erupting into me, he held on.
Still inside me, his forehead dropped against mine.
Neither of us moved.
We just breathed together, ragged, unsteady, trying to regain control over the pace of our hearts, our breaths, the delicious ache in our bodies, and the words. The words that couldn’t be unsaid and now lingered between us.
I’d been too far gone when he said them, so I wrote them off as part of the heat, the urgency. But now they curled around us, settling in the no-space between us.
You’re mine. Fucking mine.
I’d never been his.
Never been anybody’s. By choice.
But now, things I’d never felt before were haunting me. Words I’d never thought I’d use drifted into my orbit, and I found myself needing, yearning, missing. Feeling.
I had feelings!
Not friendship feelings. Not ‘hey, you’re nice, let’s fuck and have coffee’ feelings.
Real feelings. Real, deep, terrifying feelings.
For Sebastian Sawyer.