Chapter One Hundred Forty-Eight
Ruby
The refrigerator hums as the afternoon light fades toward evening through the kitchen windows. His hand is wrapped around mine, warm and solid.
I look up at him. Really look. The faint shadows beneath his eyes from lack of sleep. The way his jaw tightens when he's trying not to feel too much. The fear still flickering at the edges of his expression, like he can't quite believe I'm not going to change my mind.
I touch his face. His stubble rasps against my palm. He closes his eyes, leaning into the touch like I might take it away.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper.
His throat works. “I know.”
But he doesn’t. Not really. I see it in the way he holds himself, braced for impact, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I step closer. Close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “Kiss me.”
He does. Soft at first, questioning, his hands coming up to frame my face like I’m something precious and breakable. I make a small sound against his mouth and grip the front of his shirt, pulling him closer and needing more and needing everything I denied myself for weeks.
“Ruby…” He breathes my name against my lips.
“Don’t stop.” I kiss him again, harder, and feel the moment he stops holding back. His arms go around my waist, lifting me, and I wrap my legs around his hips without thinking, and just choosing him and choosing this.
He stumbles back a step, catching himself against the kitchen counter, laughing shakily against my mouth. “God. I can’t–” Another kiss, deep and desperate. “I can’t think when you do that.”
“Good.” I run my hands through his hair, memorizing the texture, the warmth of his scalp beneath my fingers. “Don’t think.”
He carries me like that through the living room, his mouth never leaving mine for more than a breath. We bump against the doorframe to my bedroom, and he pulls back, just barely, resting his forehead against mine. His eyes are wet. His hands are shaking where they support my thighs.
“You’re sure?” The question comes out rough, broken. “Because I can wait. I can sleep on the couch forever if that’s what–”
I kiss him. “I’m sure.” I pull back enough to see his face, to make sure he hears me. “I want you, Xavier. I’ve wanted you for so long I don’t remember what not wanting you feels like.”
Something cracks in his expression. Not dramatically. Just a softening, a giving way, like ice melting in spring. He sets me down at the edge of the bed and sinks to his knees in front of me, the same position he took earlier when he talked to our baby. But this is different. This is worship.
He looks up at me, and I see everything in his eyes. The weeks of guilt. The fear. The desperate hope. The love so big it scares him.
“I missed you,” he whispers. “Even when you were right here. I missed you.”
I cup his face in my hands. “I’m here now.”
He presses his face into my stomach, breathing deep, and I feel the shudder that runs through him. Not desire, though that’s there too. Relief. Overwhelming, bone-deep relief.
“Come here,” I whisper, tugging at his shoulders.
He rises, his hands moving to my hips, my waist, learning me again. I pull his shirt over his head and run my palms down his chest, feeling his heart hammering beneath my touch. He watches my face like he’s memorizing it, like he needs to know exactly how every touch lands.
I lean back on my elbows, drawing him down with me. The mattress dips beneath his weight. He braces himself above me, careful, always so careful, and I reach up to trace the line of his jaw.
“You don’t have to be careful with me.”
“Yes, I do.” He turns his head to kiss my palm. “I absolutely do.”
But he lets me guide him down, lets me wrap my legs around him again, lets me set the pace when I arch up against him.
We move together, finding our rhythm again, and it’s not perfect-there’s a bump of knees, a caught breath, a moment where he has to stop and adjust his weight, and that imperfection makes it more real—more ours.
His mouth travels down my throat, my collarbone, lingering at the hollow of my throat where my pulse beats wild and fast. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs against my skin. “I’ve got you, Ruby. I’m not letting go.”
I believe him. That’s the miracle. After everything, I believe him.
I let my eyes fall closed, let my hands drop open against the sheets, let him hold my weight. No bracing. No planning. No waiting for the other shoe to drop. Just warmth spreading through my chest, through my limbs, through every part of me that’s been cold for weeks.
“Xavier.” His name feels like a prayer on my lips.
He lifts his head, searching my face. “Tell me.”
“Don’t stop.” I pull him closer, needing to feel all of him, needing to know this is real. “Please don’t stop.”
He doesn’t. His hands are tender and sure, stripping away layers between us until there’s nothing left but skin and breath and the space where we touch. When his mouth finds me, I gasp, my fingers tangling in his hair, and he makes a sound against me that’s half prayer, half broken promise kept.
“I love you.” The words fall from my lips like water, unstoppable. “I love you, I love you–”
He kisses his way down my body, slow and reverent, his mouth tracing the curve of my breast, the dip of my waist, the swell of my stomach where his child grows. His stubble rasps against my skin, a delicious friction that makes me arch beneath him.
“Xavier–”
“Shh.” He looks up at me from where he’s settled between my thighs, his eyes dark and hungry and so full of love it steals my breath. “Let me. I’ve been thinking about this for weeks.”
His hands slide beneath my hips, lifting me, and he presses his mouth to me without hesitation.
The first touch of his tongue makes me gasp, my fingers tangling in the sheets, in his hair, anywhere I can reach.
He’s not teasing. He’s ravenous, like a man starved, and the reality of it…
that he wants me this much, that he’s been desperate for this… . sends heat flooding through me.
He finds my clit with the flat of his tongue, circling, then faster as my hips buck against him. The rhythm is relentless, purposeful, and I feel the tension coiling tight and hot at my center.
When he slides one finger inside me, then two, curling them to find that spot that makes my vision blur, I cry out, my back arching off the bed.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against me, his breath hot, his voice rough. “Let me feel you. Let me taste you.”
He doesn’t stop. His tongue works me in steady strokes while his fingers move inside me. The pleasure builds to something almost unbearable. I’m making sounds I don’t recognize, whimpering, begging, and he answers every noise with more pressure, more speed, more of everything.
When he sucks my clit between his lips, flicking his tongue against it, I shatter.
The orgasm crashes through me in waves, my body seizing, my heels digging into his back as I ride out the pleasure.
He stays with me through it, his mouth gentling, his fingers slowing, drawing out every aftershock until I'm trembling and boneless beneath him.
He kisses his way back up my body, his mouth wet with me, and I taste myself on his lips when he kisses me, salt and intimacy and the sharp edge of his own need. His hips rock against mine, and I feel how hard he is, how much he’s holding back, and I reach between us to wrap my hand around him.
“Ruby…” His voice breaks. “You don’t have to–”
“I want to.” I stroke him, feeling him throb in my palm, watching his face go slack with pleasure. “I want to feel you. All of you.”
But he shakes his head, catching my wrist. “Later. This was about you.” He settles beside me, drawing me against his chest, his hand splaying across my stomach. “Let me hold you. Let me know you’re really here.”
I curl into him, my body humming with aftershocks, and close my eyes. I’m here. I’m his. And for the first time in weeks, that feels like safety instead of fear.