Page 60 of Beautiful Ruin

I swallow around the lump forming in my throat.

His grip tightens around my wrists, though not enough to hurt. He uses it to anchor himself. “You are the only person who’s ever made me want more than the life I was given. And that terrifies me. Because if I let myself have you, I will follow you. I will walk away from the only life I’ve ever known.”

When he opens his eyes again, they are glassy.

“I don’t know who I am without him.” Rowan’s eyes widen slightly as if he didn’t confess something like that out loud. But he doesn’t take it back. He just stares at me, exposed in a way I’ve never seen him before.

For once, I don’t see Ivan’s blade. I see the man who was made into one and left broken because of it.

I want him more than I ever have before. Not because he is broken, but because he is finally letting me see the real him. The man behind the armor he wears as a familiar comfort. The person who encourages me to open myself up just as fiercely, even with the world shifting the balance around us at every turn.

I pull him down and kiss him. Not with the same desperate hunger we shared in the kitchen that quickly turned feverish and all-consuming until reality dragged us apart. This is slow, reverent in a way. He exhales softly against my mouth before tilting his own to deepen the kiss. His lips move against mine with a tenderness that makes my knees weak.

His hands slide from my wrists down to my waist, fingers gripping soaked fabric and using it to guide me backward with a control that feels less forceful and closer to inevitability.

My back meets the stone wall behind me, the cold biting through my clothes and raising goosebumps along my spine. Rowan follows without hesitation, pressing in close enough that the chill is chased away beneath the heat of him. One hand remains at my waist, possessive and grounding, while the other comes up beside my head to brace against the wall, caging me in without thought. He surrounds me from all sides, claiming me in the only way he knows how.

I melt into him, my fingers threading through his dark hair, tugging gently as the kiss grows deeper. His tongue traces the seam of my lips, seeking entrance, and I grant it willingly. A low groan rumbles in his chest when I arch against him, pressing my body closer, needing to feel every hard line of him against my softness.

He breaks the kiss only to trail his mouth along my jaw and down the column of my throat, teeth grazing the sensitive skin just enough to make me gasp. My head falls back against the stone behind me, exposing more of my neck to him. He takes the offering, lips and tongue worshiping my pulse point until I’m trembling.

“You have no idea what you do to me. What you continue to do,” he murmurs against my skin, voice rough with emotion.

The words send heat pooling low in my belly. I slide my hands down his chest, feeling the rapid thud of his heart beneath my palms, the tension underneath his muscles as he holds himself back from taking everything I’m already offering.

“I see you,” I whisper. “All of you.”

He lifts his head then. For a heartbeat, vulnerability flashes across his face before he kisses me again. This time there’s no restraint—his mouth claims mine with a hunger that borders on desperation, tongue sliding against mine in a rhythm that makes my core throb with need. His hand at my waist slips beneath my shirt, calloused palm gliding up my bare skin and leaving trails of fire in its wake.

I moan into his mouth when his thumb brushes the underside of my breast. My own hands grow bolder, pushing his jacket off his shoulders with one and tugging at the hem of his shirt with the other until I can feel the warm, scarred skin beneath. I trace the ridges of old wounds with my fingertips, mapping the history written across his body and the proof of every battle he’s fought in Ivan’s name.

He shudders under my touch. “You undo me… every wall I’ve ever built, you tear them down like they were never there.”

“Good,” I breathe out, nipping at his bottom lip. “Because I don’t want them between us anymore.”

His response is a growl that vibrates through me. Rowan turns me suddenly, spinning me to face the cold stone wall. Both of his hands come down to grip my hips in a tight, possessive hold that borders on bruising. The new angle presses the hard line of his cock right against my ass, and I rock back against him shamelessly.

He curses under his breath, a rough, broken sound that makes my stomach flutter. His hips roll forward to meet mine, grinding against me to let me feel exactly how much he wants this—wants me—too.

My hands splay out on the cold stone to keep myself upright, palms pressing hard against the unyielding surface to anchor me in place. The chill is a sharp contrast to the scorching heat of Rowan’s body at my back. His chest is solid against me, his breath hot at the nape of my neck, every ragged exhale sending shivers racing up and down my spine.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs into my ear, his voice rough with emotion. His lips brush the sensitive shell, teeth grazing lightly before he continues. “Too beautiful for a man like me.”

Those words hit me deep inside my chest, my eyes burning with unshed tears.

I can hear the self-loathing in them, the years of seeing himself as nothing more than a weapon and a tool forged in blood and through unquestioned obedience. Years of Ivan’s hand shaping him into exactly what he wanted, teaching him that usefulness has always mattered more than tenderness. That loyalty meant being willing to bleed without asking whether the wounds were deserved.

I hear the boy he must have been before all of this, hungry and furious and alone in this world with no one else to turn to until a man with money and power offered him a way out. Giving him purpose with a price tag including his undying loyalty and soul. Honoring a man powerful enough to make ownership look like salvation.

My throat tightens.

I refuse to allow him to see himself that way any longer.

He is more than just my uncle’s weapon, more than just a soldier who notices everything and pretends he feels nothing. He is brutal and dangerous, absolutely, but he is not only those things. He is a man who has taken risks to allow me to find my own truth despite initially wanting to protect me from them. He has allowed me to fight him with every fiery, passionate bone in my body and encouraged me to give him more.

And now he stands here trembling against me because he wants something for himself and doesn’t know how to ask for it.

I turn my head just enough to meet his gaze over my shoulder, my voice a breathless whisper filled with every ounce of truth I feel. “You’re the only man I want. The only one I’ve ever wanted like this.”