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He did. And in that moment, I saw everything.
The fury. The grief. The desperate, terrifying love he was holding back, afraid it would consume me, afraid it would destroy him.
I wouldn’t let it.
I leaned in, kissed him softly. Not like before. Not likethe frantic, desperate kisses we had shared in the dark, fueled by adrenaline and hunger. This was different.
This was a promise.
“I love you,” I whispered against his lips. “I love you, and I’m right here.”
His entire body shook.
And then—then he was kissing me back, his hands framing my face, his touch reverent and desperate all at once.
“Say it again,” he rasped, his forehead pressing to mine.
“I love you.”
He exhaled roughly, like I had just given him the one thing in this world that he didn’t know how to ask for.
Then his hands slid lower. And the storm inside him finally broke.
Marcus kissed me like he was drowning, like he was still caught in the moment where I had been ripped from his hands, where I had been gone.
I felt it in the way his lips crashed against mine, in the way his hands clutched at me—my waist, my back, the curve of my hip—like he needed proof that I was real, that I was here. That I hadn’t disappeared.
I melted into him, my body aching, but not from the bruises. From him. From the need that had been simmering between us since the moment we met, since the moment he stalked toward me on the pier with that knowing look in his eyes, like he had already decided I was his.
But now? Now, I was deciding, too.
I pressed closer, gasping as he lifted me effortlessly, his hands gripping my thighs. My legs wrapped around his waist, my fingers tangling in his hair, pulling,gripping, trying to get closer because closer wasn’t enough.
Marcus groaned into my mouth as he dropped me onto the bed, his weight pressing me down into the mattress, into him. My body screamed from the impact, my bruises protesting, but I didn’t care. I wanted this. I wanted him.
His lips left mine, dragging down the column of my throat, his teeth scraping, his breath hot and uneven. His hands pushed up the hem of the t-shirt I was wearing—his t-shirt—exposing my bare skin to the cool air.
His fingers hesitated over the bruises on my ribs.
His breath hitched.
And then he pulled back.
“Marcus—”
He shook his head, his jaw clenched, his hands trembling against my waist. “I can’t—” His voice was hoarse, raw. “You’re hurt, Claire.”
“I don’t care.” I reached for him, desperate to pull him back down, but he resisted.
His eyes burned as they roamed over me, his fingers brushing so lightly over my bruised skin that it sent a shiver through me. “I do.”
I swallowed hard, my chest tightening. “Then don’t be gentle.”
His nostrils flared. His jaw ticked. And something shifted in his expression—something dark, something primal.
He didn’t hesitate after that.
He kissed me again, harder, deeper, his hands gripping my thighs as he spread me beneath him, as he settled between my legs like he belonged there. He did belong there. He always had.