Chapter 29 #2
“I’ve stayed in worse,” he mutters, moving to sit on the stained mattress. He leans back against the peeling wallpaper, closing his eyes, his chest rising and falling in a rhythmic, controlled cadence.
I watch him. The withdrawal is a living thing under his skin, a constant vibration that he’s fighting with every breath.
And beneath that physical battle, the echo of his words—God, I love you—hangs in the damp air like thick smoke.
I want to ask him if he meant it or if it was just the adrenaline talking, the desperate confession of a man on the edge.
But I don’t. I can’t. Not when we might be dead by midnight.
I want to go over contingencies in case we are surrounded. If there are more of them than there are of us. What if it’s his uncle? What if it’s my dad? What if…
“Stop overthinking it, Ciara.”
“It’s how my brain works,” I say, moving closer to him.
He grabs my hand and pulls me down onto his lap. I land against the solid wall of his chest, my legs straddling him.
“You’re ruining my yoga pants on this disgusting mattress,” I murmur, though I don’t make a move to get up.
“They need burning anyway after this,” he rumbles, the vibration humming against my sternum. His arms lock around me, effectively caging me in. It’s possessive, heavy, and exactly what I need to stop my hands from shaking.
I rest my head on his shoulder, staring at the peeling beige wallpaper that looks like it hasn’t been changed since the seventies. It’s a far cry from the penthouse, a far cry from the life I was bred for, but strangely, it feels more real. Here, in the grime, there are no pretenses.
“Five hours is a long time to stare at mold,” I whisper.
“Then stare at me.” His hand cups my face, forcing my eyes on his.
He moves us, so I’m lying under him, my back pressed to the thin mattress.
But I barely register it. He kisses me. It starts soft, a ghostly brush of lips that contradicts the hard, tattooed wall of muscle pinning me to the springs.
But it doesn’t last long. The hunger breaks through, his mouth capturing mine with a possessive groan that vibrates straight through my chest, drowning out the rattling window frames and the drip of a leaky pipe somewhere in the walls.
My hands slide up his back under the hoodie, tracing the ridges of his spine, feeling the tension coiled there.
He shudders, a full-body tremor that has nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the sobriety he’s white-knuckling.
I pull him closer, arching into him, needing to feel the weight of him to remind myself he’s still here. Still warm. Still breathing.
“You’re the only thing that makes me forget,” he growls against my throat, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin over my pulse.
“I’m right here,” I whisper, my fingers tangling in his dark hair.
“Don’t be nice to me, Ciara,” he says softly. “I’m using you.”
“Liar,” I murmur, lifting his chin so he can look at me. “You don’t need me. You are strong enough, and you know it.”
“It’s so hard,” he croaks, “I don’t know how to get through the next second.”
“Then fuck me now, and we will deal with the seconds after that.”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t want to fuck you. I don’t want to use you. Ciara… I’m fucking replacing the booze with you. I’m fucking addicted to you.”
His confession hangs between us, raw and terrifyingly honest. He thinks trading the bottle for me is just swapping one poison for another, but looking into his tortured eyes, I see the man beneath the addiction, the one fighting to surface.
“Then be addicted,” I whisper fiercely, digging my nails into the nape of his neck. “I won’t shatter, and I won’t poison you. If clinging to me keeps you sober, then hold on tight.”
He lets out a shuddering breath, his hands already moving to remove my yoga pants. I arch into his hands, into the brutal honesty of what he just said.
His palms slide under the band of my yoga pants, dragging the fabric down my thighs with a rough care that makes my lungs forget how to work. I lift my hips and help, kicking them and my running shoes off.
“Look at me,” I murmur.
He does. Those eyes are a winter sea in a storm—violent, starving, terrifyingly alive.
I cradle his jaw in my hands, and when he sinks into me, we both exhale like we’ve been holding our breath since the vows.
It isn’t frantic this time. It’s a slow, relentless claiming that threads the tremor out of his body and into mine.
He buries his face in my neck, breathing me like oxygen, and I anchor my legs around his waist and take him deeper until he groans my name like a prayer he doesn’t believe in.
“You’re here,” I whisper into his hair, nails dragging lightly down the tense lines of his back. “Stay here with me.”
He obeys. For once, he surrenders to the moment instead of the craving.
“I love you, Ciara,” he says, thrusting in deep. “I know you don’t want me to say it. I know you don’t want to say it back. You can never love me, and I get it. I’m not the man you wanted, but I love you. You are the only person who has tried to believe in me.”
“I do believe in you,” I pant as my pussy clenches around him.
He sinks in deeper, thrusting harder, losing himself completely.
“I choose you,” he rasps as I come around him, clutching his cock like I never want to let it go. “I will always choose you, Ciara. You have made me want to be better. I will for you. For me.” His gaze bores into mine. “For me.”
Everything beyond this mattress fades away, leaving only the rhythm of our lungs fighting to keep pace with our hearts.
We’re learning how to live inside our bodies again.
He’s heavy and hot on me, inside me, and it feels like a vow.
My climax ripples and lingers, a deep, shuddering aftershock that makes my thighs tremble where they hook around his hips.
I hold his face between my hands and kiss him hard, swallowing the apology I know he’s tempted to ruin this with.
He comes in a rush, desperate for the release.
His cock jerks inside me, pumping me full of his cum, and that’s when I know that this has turned full from duty into something deeper, darker and more terrifying than I’ve ever felt.