Page 45 of Ruin My Life (Blood & Betrayal #1)

Brie

I SINK INTO THE BATHWATER UNTIL IT LAPS just beneath my chin. Damon added more hot water and bubbles before I got in, but it’s lukewarm now, the bubbles long dissolved into a thin, ghostly film on the surface.

Still, the scent of lavender lingers faintly in the air.

For thirty minutes, I’ve been floating in that tenderness, letting it soften my spine and quiet the static in my mind.

But the silence is fading now. The stillness turning sharp.

Because the second I step out of this tub, I have a choice to make.

Stay, or go.

It’s not a new question by any means. I’ve made a habit of running whenever people get too close. I switch coffee shops whenever the barista starts to recognize my order, take different routes to the grocery store so I won’t pass by the same people walking their dogs.

I reroute my life in loops and spirals, like a ghost avoiding all contact.

Never lingering. Never known.

I guess there was never really a reason for it—just a low hum of instinct and a sense of security.

A belief that people can’t hurt you if they don’t know who you are.

That’s always been the rule.

And Damon...

Damon knows too much. More than anyone.

So the urge to run is almost automatic .

But what unsettles me now—what makes my throat tighten and my breath catch—is that part of me knows he’d find me even if I did.

I guess the real question is…

Would I want him to?

And I think I already know the answer to that.

I rise from the bath slowly, water sloshing against porcelain as I reach for the towel hanging on the rack. It’s soft and still warm from the room’s humidity, and I wrap it around myself as I step out onto the blue bathmat.

I dry off as best as I can, wringing out my hair until it stops dripping, then grab my T-shirt off the floor and pull it on over damp skin. It clings to me as I move—but for the first time, it doesn’t feel as constricting.

Once I toss the towel into the hamper, I gather the rest of my clothes into my arms, hold them to my chest like a shield, and take a long, grounding breath…

Then, I open the door into Damon’s room.

His room’s layout is a mirror of the one I’ve been staying in—a queen-sized bed, two matching end tables, and a tall wardrobe—but the energy is entirely different.

The wood is darker. Rich mahogany instead of soft birch.

His linens are navy, not pastel. It smells like cedar and clean cotton—and a little like him.

Across from the bed, floor-to-ceiling glass doors open out to the deck that wraps around the house and connects to my room next door.

An easy escape route.

That’s what I would have seen it as before.

He’s already in bed, lounging above the covers, his back propped against a pillow as he scrolls through his phone. But the moment I step into the room, his head lifts.

His gaze skims over me with heat—slow, deliberate—like he’s memorizing every inch of my body that my damp T-shirt outlines.

But all he says is, “How was your bath?”

“Good,” I reply, my voice thin. “Relaxing.”

He nods, eyes still on me .

“Good.”

Silence follows.

Sharp. Suspicious. Like a tightrope stretched between two cliffs.

I feel it in the way my fingers tighten around my clothes. In the way I shift my weight from one foot to the other.

I’m bracing. For what, I don’t know.

Then he speaks again, in that same low, teasing drawl that disarms me every time.

“Are you sure it was relaxing? Because you look about ready to bolt, little rose.”

“I do not ,” I snap back, even as my body betrays me—clutching my bundle of clothes tighter as I desperately avoid his eyes.

He raises an eyebrow, swings his legs off the side of the bed.

“No?”

His bare feet hit the floor with a quiet thud, and I feel the air shift as he approaches. Heat prickles across my skin when his shadow stretches toward me.

And then he’s standing in front of me, our feet nearly touching.

His fingers brush my jaw. Gentle, but firm. Tilting my face up until I meet his eyes.

I expect cocky. I expect smug.

But instead, I see something else entirely.

Vulnerability .

He’s searching for something in my expression, and I don’t know if I can give it to him. I don’t even know what it is he’s looking for.

“Are you done running from me, Brie?”

His voice is low. Unarmoured.

I blink, my throat working around a lump I didn’t know was there.

There’s no joke in his tone. No sarcastic curve to his lips.

Just quiet sincerity.

Just him—Damon—offering me something real, and asking if I’ll ruin him with it .

“It’s okay if you’re not,” he murmurs. “But I need to know. Please don’t give yourself to me again if it’s only temporary.”

His fingers drift down my neck, creating a path of goosebumps, and catch a damp strand of hair that clings to my skin. He twirls it softly between his fingers, like he’s remembering something I haven’t said yet.

“Because you’re it for me. And once you’re mine, you’re mine. The only way this ends will be in tragedy.”

My heart stutters painfully in my chest.

He doesn’t say it outright, but I hurt him. I know I did.

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 run to .”

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 .”

And I believe him.

Because he’s the only person I’d ever let find me.

His hand scoops the back of my neck, fingers threading into my damp hair before he pulls me into a kiss.

It’s urgent—hungry. A different kind of claiming .

This one is laced with certainty, fueled by a desire so hot it could spark a fire in the middle of a torrential downpour.

His tongue swipes over my lips and I open for him, tasting the warm remnants of the mulled wine we drank earlier—citrusy and spiced.

It’s nothing like the last time we kissed. Then, it was all teeth and desperation, fire and recklessness.

Now, it’s reverent. Devouring .

Maybe it’s because we both know that this won’t be the last.

His lips trail softly down the line of my jaw until he reaches my neck. Each kiss he plants there is a vow, whispered against my skin.

He lingers between my collarbones, his mouth hovering just above the scar etched into my chest.

Even when he kisses it gently, I flinch.

But the way his hands stroke down my back is soothing. Like a lullaby played through the skin.

“Damon… you don’t have to—”

“Don’t have to what?” he murmurs against the scar, voice vibrating through me as his hands rise to cup my breasts.

His thumbs brush across my nipples until they stiffen. He rolls them between his fingers with the kind of reverence most men reserve for prayer.

“Don’t have to admire you? Worship you? Pay my respects to the body that’s kept you alive long enough for me to find you?”

“No, I meant—”

My words falter, dissolving into breathless moans as his tongue strokes down the length of my sternum, mouth latching onto one of my tender nipples.

My hips grind instinctively against him—against the thick length straining beneath his pants. I know I’m soaking through the thin fabric, leaving heat and want all over his lap.

But I need the friction. I crave it.

His grip tightens on my hips, fingers digging in as he stills me.

“ Words , Brie,” he grits out, his jaw locked tight. “Tell me what you meant before I’m too lost in your body to listen.”

I whimper, already needy and coming undone. But I know he won’t give me what I want until I say it.