Page 30 of Ruined by My Ex’s Dad (Silver Fox Obsession #2)

Lucas

I ’d built my entire world on the foundation of absolute control—commanding my corporation, suppressing my emotions, orchestrating every relationship to my advantage.

I sat outside Savannah's apartment building, hands gripping the steering wheel of my Aston Martin with white-knuckled intensity, every carefully constructed principle crumbling beneath the weight of a single, devastating truth: I could not let her walk away.

Twenty-four hours of emptiness had taught me that. Twenty-four hours of mechanical efficiency at the office while my mind replayed her words on an endless loop. Twenty-four hours of pretending her decision was acceptable when everything inside me screamed against it.

I had planned my approach with strategic precision—had drafted and discarded a dozen different arguments during the drive to her apartment. Logical appeals to what we'd built.

Rational assessments of what we stood to lose. Every word calculated to persuade without revealing the desperate truth: that I needed her with an intensity that bordered on obsession.

When she texted back Come up , I remained seated, hands still clutching the wheel. Not yet. I needed her on my territory, needed the advantage of a controlled environment. Needed to remove her from the space where she'd made the decision to leave.

No. Come down. Five minutes.

Three dots appeared as she typed a response, disappeared, and appeared again. The vulnerability of those blinking dots sent a surge of something dangerously close to hope through me.

OK.

One word. Two letters. The tiniest concession. But it was enough.

When she emerged—hair loosely gathered at her nape, wearing jeans and a simple green sweater that made her eyes look impossibly bright—something primitive and possessive uncoiled inside me.

Mine, it insisted.

Not New York's.

Not some other life's.

Mine.

I stepped out of the car, moving to the passenger side to open her door.

The gesture wasn't courtesy—it was control, establishing from the outset that this encounter would proceed on my terms.

"Lucas." Her voice was steady, betraying none of the emotion I could see in her eyes.

"I wasn't expecting to hear from you again."

"Clearly." I held the door, watching as she hesitated before sliding onto the leather seat.

"That was your mistake."

I closed the door with deliberate precision and reclaimed my position behind the wheel.

For a moment, I simply looked at her, cataloging the shadows beneath her eyes, the slight pallor to her usually vibrant complexion, the tension in her shoulders.

Good.

Let her feel the cost of what she'd tried to discard.

"Where are we going?" she asked, fastening her seatbelt as I pulled away from the curb.

"Does it matter?"

Her eyes narrowed.

"You know it does."

I drove in silence for several blocks, the carefully prepared arguments seeming hollow now, insufficient for the weight of what was at stake.

"You're not going to New York," I finally said, the words emerging with quiet intensity as I steered onto the highway.

She stiffened.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me." I accelerated, the powerful engine responding instantly.

"You're not taking that job. You're not leaving San Francisco. You're not walking away from us."

"And you think you get to decide that?" Her voice held a dangerous edge. "You think you can just command me to stay?"

"No." I glanced at her, allowing her to see what I'd kept carefully hidden the day before—the raw need beneath the composed exterior.

"I think I can convince you that running from this would be the greatest mistake of your life."

"You let me go yesterday," she countered. "You accepted my decision."

"I lied." The admission was stark, unadorned.

"I gave you what you seemed to need in the moment. Time to recognize the magnitude of what you were throwing away."

She turned to look out the window, her reflection ghostly in the glass. "Arrogant. Presumptuous."

"All true," I acknowledged.

"I've never claimed otherwise."

We drove in tense silence as the city fell away behind us, night descending as I headed north along the coast.

The dashboard lights cast her profile in soft green illumination, highlighting the stubborn set of her jaw that I'd come to know so well.

"Where are you taking me, Lucas?"

"Somewhere we can talk without distractions. Without you hiding behind logistics and complications." I tightened my grip on the wheel.

"Somewhere you'll have to be honest—with me and with yourself."

"I was honest yesterday."

"Were you?" I challenged, taking the exit for the coastal road.

"Tell me, Savannah—did you sleep last night? Did you feel relief when I walked away? Did the prospect of New York fill you with excitement or dread?"

She didn't answer, her silence more revealing than any words.

"That's what I thought." The highway gave way to a winding two-lane strip hugging the cliffs above the Pacific.

"Your mouth said goodbye. Your eyes told a different story."

"You can't build a future on chemistry and intensity alone," she said quietly.

"What happens when that fades? Two people from different worlds, with complications that won't just disappear because we want them to."

I pulled into a scenic overlook, tires crunching on gravel as I brought the car to a stop at the cliff's edge.

Below us, moonlight silvered the ocean, waves crashing against rocks in a primal rhythm that matched the pounding of my heart.

I turned off the engine and faced her, no longer concerned with strategy or control, focused only on the truth I needed her to understand.

"I love you."

The words hung between us, raw and unvarnished. Not the calculated declaration I'd rehearsed, but the simple, devastating truth.

Her eyes widened, lips parting in shock.

"What?"

"I love you," I repeated, each syllable costing me everything.

"Not just your body, though I crave it every waking moment. Not just your mind, though it challenges me like no one else ever has. You, Savannah. The whole impossibly complicated, stubbornly independent, infuriatingly brave woman who's redefined everything I thought I understood about myself."

I reached for her hand, relieved when she didn't pull away.

"I had a speech prepared. Rational arguments about what we could build together. Financial assurances about your career. But the truth is simpler and more terrifying than any of that."

I brushed a tear from her cheek with my thumb. "I love you. And the thought of you three thousand miles away is unendurable."

"I'm scared," she whispered, the first completely unguarded admission I'd heard from her.

"Not of you. Of this. Of how completely it's consumed me."

"And I'm not?" The question emerged with a ragged edge.

"You think it's easy for me—a man who's built his life around control—to admit that I need someone this way? That I'm willing to risk everything for whatever this is becoming?"

I pressed my forehead against hers, closing my eyes. "I have never been more terrified in my life. But the alternative—letting you go without fighting—that's not fear. That's surrender. And I don't surrender."

Her hand came up to cup my cheek, the touch so gentle it cracked something open inside my chest.

"I tried to stop loving you," she confessed. "I spent all day trying to convince myself I could walk away."

"And?"

"And all I managed to do was make myself miserable." A small laugh escaped her. "I kept thinking about your hands. Your voice. The way you look at me like you can see straight through every defense I've ever built."

Relief flooded through me, powerful enough to make me dizzy. "Then don't go. Stay. Fight for this with me."

"I love you, too," she whispered, the admission clearly costing her.

"God help me, I do."

Those words—coming from her, offered despite every reason to withhold them—hit with physical force.

I kissed her then, not with controlled passion but with naked desperation. A man drowning and finding air.

She responded with equal intensity, fingers digging into my shoulders, mouth opening beneath mine with a sound that sent heat flooding through me. This wasn't careful exploration—this was need in its rawest form.

I pulled her across the console and into my lap, heedless of the confined space, focused only on getting her closer.

Her knees settled on either side of my thighs, bringing her core directly against my hardness, drawing gasps from us both.

"I need you," I growled against her neck, hands sliding beneath her sweater to find warm skin.

"Now. Here."

"Yes," she breathed, no hesitation, no protest about our surroundings.

My hands found the button of her jeans, worked it free with practiced efficiency. She lifted herself, helping me push the fabric down her hips along with the scrap of lace beneath. The cool air meeting heated skin made her gasp, made her press closer against me.

"Look at me," I demanded, echoing words from our first night together. "I need to see you."

Her eyes met mine—vulnerable, wanting, completely open.

No masks, no defenses. Just Savannah, raw and real and mine.

I worked my belt free, freed myself from the confines of my pants, the relief of liberation making me groan. She positioned herself above me, hands braced on my shoulders, eyes never leaving mine.

"You're mine," I said, gripping her hips as she slowly lowered herself onto me.

"Say it."

"Yours," she gasped as I filled her completely, her body adjusting to the intrusion with exquisite tightness. "Always yours."

For a moment, we remained motionless, connected in the most primal way, breathing each other's air.

Then she began to move in slow, deliberate circles that sent electricity racing along my spine.

I slid one hand between us, finding her center, circling the sensitive bundle of nerves as I thrust up into her with increasing force. The confined space, the risk of discovery, the moonlight streaming through the windows—all of it added to the intoxicating desperation of claiming her.