Page 181 of Ruin My Life
The other morning, when he woke up alone—after I almost vanished without a trace—he wont admit it, but I threw his whole life into turmoil.
Everything he’s built. Everything he’s let me touch.
I see it in the lines around his eyes. In the way he’s looking at me like I might disappear again if he blinks.
And it kills me.
Because I don’t want to run anymore.
Not from him.
“If I stop running,” I whisper, barely audible beneath the thrum of my own pulse, “does that mean you’ll stop chasing me?”
A slow, tantalizing grin tugs at the corners of his mouth.
“Never.”
I drop my clothes at my feet and press my palms to Damon’s chest. The steady rhythm of his heart thumps against my hands as I guide him backwards, step by step, until the backs of his legs hit the edge of the bed.
He sits without resistance, his gaze never leaving mine—devouring me whole.
“What if I drive you crazy?” I ask, lifting the hem of my shirt over my head, peeling it off like a second skin. My hands still shake. But I do it anyway.
His eyes roam my bare body with worshipful hunger.
“You already do, little rose.”
A shiver rolls down my spine beneath his gaze. But with Damon, I have nothing left to hide.
He’s torn down every wall I’ve built—brick by brick. And he did it so slowly, so thoroughly, I didn’t even notice until I was standing here. Exposed. And still wanting more.
“What if I begged you to let me go?” I breathe, my fingers trailing down the hard line of his chest, his heartbeat kicking beneath my touch.
His voice is molten and honest. “I’d pin you down and make you beg for something else.”
I climb into his lap, straddling his hips, arms sliding around his neck.
“What if I’m more trouble than I’m worth?”
“Impossible,” he says without pause. “You’re everything to me. If you asked me to kill everyone who’s ever hurt you, I’d hunt them to the ends of the earth. If you asked me to leave it all behind for you, I’d make one call and we’d vanish without a trace. If you asked me to die for you, I’d hand you the goddamn gun, Brie.”
His hands find my waist, grounding me against him, his eyes locked on mine with something so devastatingly sincere I forget how to breathe.
“Because you. Are. Worth it.”
Fuck.
This man might just be my undoing.
“I don’t think I’ll ever not want to run,” I admit, each word trembling with truth. “But… in the last six months, you’re the first person I’ve ever regretted running from.”
I stroke my fingers over the back of his neck, tugging gently at the short hair there.
“And the only person I’ve ever wanted to runto.”
His smile is a slow-blooming thing—one that makes my heart flutter and my core clench with need.
“No matter how far you go, how fast you run, I will always find you,mi rosa.”
