Ruth’s POV
I didn’t speak. Couldn’t. My throat was dry, scratched raw by unsaid words and swallowed screams. My chest ached with something too wide to name, too tight to breathe around. I had tried to blink the tears away, but they came anyway, sliding down my cheeks in slow betrayal.
The silence between us was thick, suffocating. Emmett hadn’t moved. His breath was ragged against my skin, his chest heaving where it pressed against mine. Every muscle in him vibrated with tension, like he hadn’t realized what he was doing until it was too late.
But then he saw me. He saw the tears clinging to the curve of my jaw, the way my lips trembled, the way my body had stopped fighting—not because I surrendered, but because I fractured.
His expression shattered. The pressure in his stance collapsed all at once, like a wave breaking too hard against the rocks it thought it could conquer. His hands, which had gripped my hips with force just moments before, released instantly. His mouth opened but no sound came at first, just the stunned breath of a man seeing the edge he almost fell over.
“Ruth,” he rasped, voice wrecked. “God- Ruth, I’m sorry.”
He reached up, tentative, like touching me now required permission he wasn’t sure he deserved. When his fingers brushed my cheek, I didn’t flinch. I just stood there, wide-eyed and hollowed out, silence spilling from me in waves. That, more than anything, broke him.
His arms wrapped around me, pulling me into his chest, sinking to the studio floor like the weight of it all finally crushed his knees. He cradled me like I was something sacred, something he’d almost shattered. His mouth found the tear track on my temple, then the corner of my jaw, brushing the sorrow away in broken kisses. His voice was low, choked, frantic beneath the whisper.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just, I can’t stand the idea of him touching you. Of him looking at you.”
“I know,” I whispered. It came soft, almost too soft. But steady. Not trembling.
His forehead pressed to mine, skin damp with sweat and regret. “I lose control with you,” he said, almost like a confession. “But not like that. Not again. I promise.”
I didn’t answer right away. I wasn’t ready to make sense of it. But my fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, clutching him like an instinct, like my body still trusted him even when my heart wasn’t sure. I pressed my face to his throat and let myself sink into the smell of him, turpentine, sweat, something darker. Rage calmed down into ruin.
“I just needed you to see me,” I murmured against his skin.
“I do,” he whispered back. “Too much.”
The kiss came slowly. No urgency, no punishment. Just breath and apology and something old trying to become new again. His hands touched me like a map he was afraid to lose, slow, steady, shaking at the edges. There was no tearing, no grabbing, no forcing, just relearning.
He lifted me, arms strong but cautious, and carried me to the old couch tucked against the far wall of the studio, the one we never used but never moved. The one stained with paint and dust and now something else. He laid me down carefully, eyes locked to mine. His shirt peeled off first, then mine followed. And when our skin met, it wasn’t war. It wasn’t retribution, it was need.
His fingers slid between my thighs, spreading me with the same hands that had trembled around my ribs.
“Let me fix it,” he whispered, like a vow he didn’t deserve to make. “Let me make you feel good again.” I nodded.
And he kissed his way down like he was praying at the altar of my skin, every press of his lips an apology, every flick of his tongue a vow not to forget how close he came to losing me, his mouth wasn’t hurried. It was reverent, tracing the slope of my ribs, the curve of my hip, the inside of my thigh. Each kiss burned hotter than the last, stoking a hunger I hadn’t allowed myself to name until now. When he nipped lightly at the place where my leg met my center, my hips jerked forward on instinct.
“Emmett-” I gasped, the syllables breaking apart in the back of my throat.
He groaned low against me, voice hoarse. “Let me taste what’s mine.”
His tongue found me with deliberate, aching slowness. The first stroke had me gasping, the second had me crying out.
“Oh, God- don’t stop,” I moaned, my hands threading into his hair, my back arching off the couch.
He gripped my thighs and held me in place as he devoured me, his mouth moving in a rhythm that dragged me closer and closer to the edge. The wet heat of him, the way he sucked, teased, and flicked, it built pressure until I shattered with a high, choked cry.
“Yes- yes- Emmett, I’m-”
I couldn’t finish. My whole body shook, the climax tearing through me like a fever. He didn’t stop until I was trembling beneath him, spent and breathless. He moved up my body, licking the last taste of me from his lips as he hovered over me. His mouth brushed my jaw, then my ear. “You feel so good like this… undone.”
My fingers were still trembling when I reached for him, needing more. “Please,” I whispered, desperate and honest. “I need you inside me.”
He lined himself up, eyes locked on mine, breath uneven. “You sure?”
“Yes,” I moaned, lifting my hips to meet him. “I want you.”
When he slid into me, slow and deep, we both gasped. His body filled mine perfectly, the stretch sweet and aching. “Fuck,” he hissed, voice raw. “You’re so warm.”
“Don’t stop,” I whispered, breath catching. “Please- don’t stop.”
He thrust into me, slow at first, dragging it out, building the rhythm between us like something sacred. His hands gripped my waist, guiding every motion, grounding me with every pass of his hips. “Mine,” he growled softly. “You’re mine.”
“Say it again,” I begged, clinging to him.
“You’re mine, Ruth,” he repeated, thrusts picking up pace. “Every inch. Every sound. Every breath.”
We moved faster, the room echoing with the wet sounds of skin, the creak of the couch, the moans spilling between kisses. “God, you feel like everything,” I breathed, head thrown back, eyes fluttering. “I can’t- Emmett, I-”
“Come for me,” he whispered. “Let me feel it.”
I cried out, the orgasm hitting me hard, violent in its sweetness. My body pulsed around him, milking every last thrust, every last sound. He groaned deep against my neck, biting back his own release as his rhythm stuttered.
When he came, he held me tight, his breath loud in my ear. “I love how you break for me,” he whispered, and it felt like the most honest thing he’d ever said.
For a little while, we didn’t speak. We just stayed tangled, raw, breathless, wrecked, and yet more whole than we’d been in days. We came together like people trying to rewrite a moment we almost ruined. And for a little while, we did.