Chapter 37 – Finn – Ruin & Redemption #2
“Finn!” Her voice echoes in the room, high and desperate, but there’s no one to hear her.
The hiss of my zipper cuts through the silence, and I bend her over the sink, my hand firm on her back.
She grips the porcelain, mouth opening to scream, but she’s not ready for me.
I slam into her, hard enough to make her lurch forward, her head nearly hitting the mirror.
She yelps, slapping a hand on the dusty glass as I let go, no restraint, no mercy.
She can’t catch her breath, not with me fucking her like this, relentless, consuming. I fist her hair, yanking her head to the side, scraping my teeth along her shoulder before biting down. My other hand roams, grabbing her breast, pinching her nipple until she screams and bucks against me.
I lap at the bite, move to her earlobe, and bite again.
“Stop!” she cries, but my hand clamps over her mouth, squeezing until she claws at me in panic.
I ease up just enough for her to breathe, her hands splaying on the mirror.
Our reflection is raw, primal—me, fully clothed, dominating her smaller frame.
Her shirt’s rucked up, her nipples hard, my arm locked around her waist, holding her where I want her.
Our eyes meet in the glass, mine burning with a feral hunger I can’t contain.
She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to block me out, but I’m not having it.
I pull out, spin her, and press her back against the wall, lifting her up and sliding back inside.
She’s disoriented, and I take advantage, my tongue plunging into her mouth.
She tastes like coffee and chocolate, and I groan, rocking into her, my body trembling with the effort to hold back.
I kiss her cheek, her shoulder’s bite mark, suck on her neck, and return to her lips, open and panting.
She’s pliant in no time, her body pulsing, her mind a wreck.
“I need you with me, baby,” I whisper, desperate.
She pretends to turn away, but I hold her face, kissing her hard, stealing her breath, giving her mine.
It’s raw, needy, stirring things in her I know she doesn’t want to feel.
Her nails dig into my chest as my hand slips down, finding her clit.
She mewls, angry but undone, and I smile against her lips.
When she fights, I keep her mouth busy, overwhelming her until her brain shuts down.
Her orgasm hits like a storm, her body bucking, nearly throwing me off.
I growl, pinning her to the tiles, thrusting harder, making her pleasure ungraciously and brutally.
As she spasms, I bury my face in her hair and roar, slamming into her as I come, her ass hitting the wall.
Her ears must be ringing as she comes down, her breath ragged.
I feel her legs, wrapped around me at some point, drop to the floor.
My hand grazes her trembling ass, pulling her closer as I hum in satisfaction.
I pull out, and she sucks in a breath as my fingers slide back inside, coating them in our release.
I spread it over her belly, marking her with the evidence of our mating.
“I’d do anything for you,” I say, voice low and rough. “You know that. Would you?”
She hesitates for a micro-second before nodding. Her eyes lock on mine, wide, uncertain. I drag my cum-slick fingers over her lips. “Taste us,” I order. She sucks in a breath and when she opens to protest, I slip my fingers inside. “Suck.”
She hesitates, then obeys, her lips closing around my fingers. I watch her, my voice hoarse. “I told myself you couldn’t be as perfect as I remembered, that it was just some teenage obsession I’d get over.”
She sucks my fingers, her hands grabbing my arm and her lips lifting up in desire. I pull my fingers free, cupping her face, kissing her slow, deep, tasting us both. Her breathing’s uneven when I pull back, holding her gaze.
She shivers as my hand slides to her breast, cupping gently, a contrast to the roughness before. She braces against my chest.
“Stop,” she whispers, voice shaky, like she’s trying to reclaim control.
I don’t stop. My hand massages as I lean in, kissing her with a focus that makes her tremble. She pushes for space, but my hand on her hip keeps her pinned. I kiss her like she’s all that exists, softening it when she starts to shake. I murmur against her lips, “Say my name.”
“Finn.” It comes out like a sin.
“Louder.” I press her down. She arches into my body like I’ve got gravity on a string.
“Finn.” She’s furious with herself for how hard she’s shaking.
For how much I’ve studied her body like it’s the only subject I ever cared to pass.
“You wanted the truth?” I rasp against her mouth. “This is the only thing that never felt like a lie.”
She bites my lower lip, hard enough to warn, not enough to draw blood. “Don’t use poetry to justify being a bastard.”
“I’ll use whatever works. Tell me.”
“What?” she pants, miserable and beautiful.
“That you’ve always wanted me.”
Her eyes shine, fury and tears and everything I like to keep for myself. “I…” She stops, shakes, hates me enough to tell the truth. “I’ve always wanted you.”
I reward her for that honesty with my hands. The sound she makes goes into my bones and stays there.
She fights me the whole time. She kisses me back like she’s trying to bruise the past into a different shape.
When I pull away an inch to look at her, she tries to follow my mouth like surrender is a magnet.
I don’t let her. I make her meet my eyes, again and again, until her breathing turns ragged.
“I’m yours,” I say, and her eyes flutter because she hates how badly that lands. “And you’re mine.”
“Say it,” I order.
“No.”
“Say it,” I repeat, and lace my fingers with hers, pinning her wrists to the floor. I’m on top of her again. My mouth hovers a breath from hers. “Mine.”
“You don’t…” She chokes on the protest. I press my hand low, and the protest disintegrates. “Yours,” she gasps, like the word itself is release. “Fuck. Yours.”
“Good girl,” slips out before I can stop it. She shudders and I feel it everywhere.
“I still hate you,” she says, because she needs the thorn.
“I know.” I bite her shoulder, gentle. “I plan to make you say you hate me until you can’t.”
“Arrogant,” she grinds. “Smug.”
“Correct.” I lift my head a fraction. “Look at me.”
She does. She always does. When she comes apart again, it’s with my name in her mouth like she’s spitting it and drinking it at once.
And I, fuck, I’m gone. I hold on to her wrists like a promise.
I don’t stop looking at her. I don’t stop until she’s panting against my throat, whispering curses and prayers that both answer to me.
I lift her even though I’m out of energy and take her to the bed. We don’t speak for a stretch of seconds that feel like new law being written. Her cheek is damp as it rests against my jaw.
She’s the one who breaks the silence. “I want it off,” she whispers, voice wrecked. “Not because I’m leaving. Because I want to decide to stay.”
I drag my knuckles down her spine. “You think I don’t know the difference?”
“Take it off,” she says again, softer. There’s no threat left in it. Only truth. “Please.”
The word turns me inside out. I reach for the drawer, for the key. It’s a stupid, small piece of metal. It weighs more in my hand than it should.
“Look at me,” I say again, because I’m selfish and because I want this in her eyes. She looks. I turn the key. The lock clicks. The anklet slips, cool against my fingers, and I slide it free.
She exhales like she’s been underwater for a week. The mark it leaves is a pale band on warm skin, a ring of claim the world won’t see but I always will.
“Better?” I ask.
She nods. Then, she ruins me: she sets her foot back on the drawer and holds her ankle out to me, not a challenge this time, but an offering. “You can put it back on tomorrow,” she says, whisper-soft. “If you ask.”
I’m fucked. Thoroughly, eternally. “Deal.”
She laughs. A tear slips; I catch it with my mouth and taste salt and fury and relief.
She presses her forehead to mine. “I can’t live without you,” she says. “I tried for a week. I can’t.”
“Good,” I say, because honesty is all I’ve got left to give her ugly and wrapped in my hands. “Same.”
She closes her eyes, breath ghosts against my lips. “I still hate you.”
“Then hate me here,” I murmur, pulling her onto my lap, into me, around me. “Hate me until you feel better.”
“Don’t be sweet,” she warns, voice shaky. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“I’m not sweet.” I trail my mouth along her jaw. “I’m inevitable.”
She laughs, an actual laugh, wild and helpless, and then she kisses me like surrender can be funny too.
I hold her there, anchored and molten, and tell myself the truth I never say out loud: guilt and lust aren’t opposites.
They’re the same goddamn rope, and I’ve been pulling it my whole life to see if the bell would ring.
It rings now. It rings in her breath, in the way she says my name like a verdict, in the way her hands slide to the back of my neck and stay.
When she finally pulls back, she’s flushed and wrecked and more beautiful than any version of her I’ve ever earned. “Tomorrow,” she says, warning and promise. “We deal with the rest tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” I agree, because tonight is ours and I’ve already burned enough for one day.
She slips off my lap, shakily. She bends to pick up the anklet, turns it in her fingers, then sets it on the desk like a crown that’s been temporarily misplaced.
At the door, she pauses and looks back. There’s a line between her brows I want to smooth with my thumb. “Could you ever forgive her?” she asks.
I know what she’s asking. Could I ever forgive her mother for murdering mine.
“Anything for you.”
She smiles, “Do it for yourself, Finn. Only if you want to.”