Page 31 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless (The Rules We Break #1)
The question carries more weight than its casual delivery suggests. Coming to the park. Coming back to this family. Coming to trust promises I've heard before .
I nod, unable to find words that won't reveal too much or too little of the turmoil beneath my carefully maintained surface. He accepts this silent response, disappearing down the hallway after Jaden, leaving me alone with the echo of his promise, and the dangerous hope it ignites.
I'm right here. Not going anywhere.
Words I've heard before. Words that preceded abandonment, silence, absence.
Words I want—desperately and against all better judgment—to believe this time.
Night falls like a curtain, sudden and complete, Manhattan lights replacing fading sunlight without interruption. Jaden collapses into bed without protest, exhausted from hours at the park, from family dinner, from the emotional marathon of having both parents fully present for an entire weekend.
I stand in his doorway, watching his chest rise and fall in the rhythm of deep sleep, marveling at his resilience, his capacity for joy, his unquestioning acceptance of this temporary arrangement as if it's everything he's ever wanted.
Everything I've refused to admit I might still want too.
"He's out cold," Jakob's voice, close behind me, warm breath stirring the hair at my nape. "Didn't even make it through the first chapter."
"Too much excitement," I murmur, not turning, not yet ready to face the man whose scent surrounds me, whose presence alters the very air pressure in the room. "He'll sleep well tonight."
"And you?" The question low, intimate, loaded with meaning beyond its simplicity. "Will you sleep well tonight?"
Now I turn, needing to see his face. To read intention in his eyes. To gauge whether this is proposition or genuine concern—or some combination unique to the uncharted territory we've entered.
He stands closer than expected, body heat reaching me even before I complete the turn.
His expression holds none of the calculation I associate with business Jakob, none of the compartmentalized distance I remember from the end of our marriage.
Just open want—and something softer, more vulnerable—that makes my chest tight with reciprocal feeling.
"Depends," I say, voice steadier than the pulse that quickens beneath my skin.
"On?" His hand lifts, fingers trailing along my collarbone, the touch light enough to deny if challenged, substantial enough to send heat pooling low in my stomach.
"On whether I get any sleep at all." The words emerge bolder than intended, invitation explicit in a way I rarely allow myself to be. In a way that feels like stepping off a cliff, trusting forces I can't control to determine whether I fly or fall.
His pupils dilate, black consuming blue until only a thin ring of color remains. His hand slides from my collarbone to my nape, fingers threading into my hair with careful restraint that vibrates with the effort it costs him.
"That can be arranged," he says, voice dropping to a register that resonates in places words can't reach.
I step back from Jaden's doorway, pulling the door closed. Creating distance between parental responsibility and what happens next. Between the family moments of the day and the adult reunion the night promises.
Jakob follows my movement, maintaining proximity without crowding, giving me space to retreat if I choose. The consideration explicit, intentional, different from the entitled assumption of access I remember from our marriage.
I don't retreat. Don't move toward my guest room. Don't maintain the fiction that I'll sleep anywhere but beside him tonight.
Instead, I reach for his hand, lacing our fingers together in a gesture more intimate than it should be, given what we've already shared. Given the history written on our bodies. The knowledge we carry of each other's pleasure. The muscle memory that outlasted legal dissolution.
"Your room or mine?" I ask, the question perfunctory. We both know the answer.
"Mine." The word carries weight beyond its brevity—claiming, inviting, promising.
I nod once, letting him lead me down the hallway, past the guest room where my clothes remain but I haven't slept. Toward the master suite that was once ours, then his alone, now temporarily shared in this strange liminal space between separation and reunion.
The door closes behind us with a soft click that sounds like decision. Like boundary. Like privacy finally achieved after hours of performing parenthood, of maintaining appropriate distances, of containing the current that's flowed between us since waking in the same bed this morning.
For a heartbeat, we stand motionless, suspended between intention and action, between thought and surrender. Then he moves toward me, eliminating distance with deliberate steps that give me time to reconsider.
I don't move. Don't step back. Don't remind myself of all the reasons this is temporary, conditional, bound to end when the threat that brought us together resolves.
Instead, I meet him halfway, hands finding his chest, feeling the steady thunder of his heart beneath my palms. The physical evidence of desire I still ignite in him, even after everything we've been to each other. Everything we've done to each other.
"Chanel."
I don't respond with words. Instead, I rise on tiptoes, mouth finding his with precision born of practice and hunger and the bone-deep knowledge of what fits, what works, what satisfies.
He responds immediately, arms circling my waist, pulling me against the hard planes of his body with an urgency that matches my own.
His tongue traces the seam of my lips, seeking entrance I readily grant.
The taste of him familiar and foreign simultaneously.
Mint and male, and Jakob that no amount of time or distance has erased from my memory.
My hands move restlessly across his shoulders, his chest, his abdomen—relearning contours that have hardened in our time apart.
I tug at his shirt with impatient fingers, needing skin contact.
Needing to eliminate barriers. Needing to reclaim what was once mine by right and ritual and mutual surrender.
He breaks the kiss long enough to pull the shirt over his head, revealing the body I've relearned with hands and mouth and memory these past days. The body that once moved within mine with devastating precision. That still remembers what I need even when my mind denies wanting it.
I trace the definition of his chest, the ridges of his abdomen, the trail of dark hair that disappears beneath his waistband—marking territory that still affects me in ways logic can't explain and time hasn't diminished.
"Your turn," he murmurs, hands finding the hem of my sweater. Waiting for permission that comes in the form of lifted arms, silent consent to this mutual disrobing.
The sweater drops to the floor, followed by my bra, leaving me half-naked before his gaze. I resist the urge to cover myself. To shield against the intensity of his attention.
"God, look at you," he breathes, hands hovering near my skin without touching, eyes tracking the curves he once knew by heart, rediscovering what time has altered and what remains unchanged. "Perfect. Always so fucking perfect."
The reverence in his voice unlocks a dangerous bloom of emotion I've kept carefully contained. The feeling that transcends physical want. That complicates what should be simple.
I step closer, eliminating the space he's maintained. Pressing my bare chest against his with a sigh that carries years of restraint, of denial, of pretending his touch wasn't the standard against which all others fell short.
His arms encircle me, pulling me impossibly closer—skin to skin with nothing between us but history and heartbeat and the twin hammering of pulses syncing to shared rhythm.
Then he kisses me, deeper, hungrier. Edged with an urgency that matches the heat building low in my belly, between my thighs, in places only he has ever fully satisfied.
We move toward the bed in stumbling tandem, unwilling to break contact, to create distance, to acknowledge the world beyond this moment.
The back of my knees hit the mattress, and I sink onto it, pulling him with me.
Unwilling to surrender the heat of his body against mine even for the moments it would take to arrange ourselves with more grace.
He follows me down, weight braced on forearms positioned on either side of my head. Body covering mine without crushing. Without claiming. Without the entitled possession I once resented, and now crave with embarrassing intensity.
"Tell me what you want," he murmurs against my throat, lips tracing the pulse that jumps beneath his attention. "Tell me what you need."
The request disarms me—not the words, which are familiar, but the sincerity behind them. The genuine desire to please me. To connect rather than conquer. To give rather than take.
"You," I whisper, the admission torn from somewhere raw and unguarded. "Just you."
He groans against my skin, the sound vibrating through his chest into mine. His mouth traces a path from my throat to my breast, tongue circling a nipple with deliberate slowness that pulls a gasp from my lips, back arching to demand more.
He understands, taking the hardened peak between his lips, alternating between gentle suction and the edge of teeth that sends electricity straight to my core.
My hands fist in his hair, holding him to me.
Directing without words. Communicating through touch and sound and the ancient language of bodies that remember each other even when minds insist on forgetting.
His hand slides down my stomach, finding the button of my jeans, flicking it open. Fingers slipping beneath denim and lace to discover the evidence of want I can't hide, can't deny, can't pretend doesn't exist exclusively for him.
"Christ, Chanel," he breathes against my breast, fingers tracing slick heat with reverent exploration. "Already so wet."