Page 127 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless

I answer with my body—arching to meet each thrust, nails digging into his shoulders, legs tightening around his waist. Demanding more. Demanding everything. Demanding truth without restraint or calculation.

He gives it without hesitation.

Drives deeper.

Moves faster.

Surrenders the last vestiges of control to raw, honest need. To the connection that terrifies and completes us both.

When he shifts angle slightly, hitting the spot that makes stars explode behind my eyelids, I cry out without restraint. Without performance. Without concern for anything but the pleasure building beyond capacity to contain it.

"Yes." His voice rough against my ear, encouraging. Demanding. "Let go. Come for me again."

The command combined with physical sensation pushes me over the edge—orgasm crashing through with tidal force. With overwhelming intensity that blanks thought and leaves only feeling. Only truth too raw to disguise or diminish.

"I love you."

The words tear from my throat without permission. Without planning. Just honest declaration in a moment too intense for anything but absolute truth.

Something breaks in his expression—the last wall, the final defense, the armor he's maintained even in our most intimate moments. He drives into me once more, twice, then stills completely as his own release overtakes him—as he empties himself inside me with a groan that carries my name within it.

For long moments afterward, we don't move.

Don't speak.

Just breathe together in the darkness, bodies still joined, sweat cooling on overheated skin. His weight above me feels like anchor rather than burden. Like security rather than restraint.

When he finally shifts, it's only to roll to his side, taking me with him. Keeping us connected. His arm wraps around my waist, pulling me against his chest. His lips press against my temple, my cheek, the corner of my mouth.

"Thank God for you," he whispers, voice hoarse in the darkness. Raw with emotion normally kept tightly controlled. "I'll never deserve you. But I will never let you go."

I turn in his arms, face him fully in the city light filtering through windows. Study the planes and angles of his face—familiar and yet changed by time, by struggle, by growth neither of us planned but both needed.

"You don't have to deserve me." I trace his jawline, the stubble rough against my fingertips. "You just have to love me. All of me. Even the parts that scare you."

"I do." The words emerge without hesitation. Without calculation. "Every brilliant, stubborn, terrifying inch of you."

"And I love you." My hand flattens against his chest, feels his heart beating steady and strong beneath my palm. "All of you. Even the parts that should terrify me but don't anymore."

"What parts are those?" he asks, something vulnerable flickering behind his usual guardedness.

"The ruthlessness."

I don't soften the truth with euphemism. With pretense.

"The capacity for destruction when protecting what you love. The darkness you try to hide but can't completely."

He stills, muscles tensing beneath my touch. Waiting for judgment. For rejection. For the conditional acceptance he's grown accustomed to from a world that values his results but fears his methods.

"I used to think that part of you was separate," I continue, holding his gaze despite the vulnerability of the moment. "That I could love the man but fear the monster. I was wrong."

"How so?" The question emerges carefully. Neutrally. Hiding the fear beneath.

"They're not separate. They're you. Integrated. Whole." My fingers trace patterns on his skin, maintaining connection as truth flows between us. "Your capacity for ruthlessness is the same capacity that loves without limit. That protects without hesitation. That would burn the world to keep us safe."

His breath catches, recognition flaring in his eyes. Understanding that I see him completely—the tenderness and the violence, the protection and the possession, the man who memorizes how I take my coffee and the man who dismantled enemies who threatened what was his.

He cups my face between his palms, thumbs brushing my cheekbones with exquisite tenderness. Then his mouth claims mine with sudden, overwhelming intensity—a kiss that contains gratitude and wonder and relief too profound for words. Not gentle. Not careful. But honest in its desperation, in its acknowledgment that being truly seen is the rarest form of intimacy.