“I don’t have a choice, Sophia.”
“I know that.”
His voice is shredded, barely human. “I never should have followed you.”
“Don’t—”
“I should have walked away.”
“Stop.” I press my forehead against his lips, eyes shut. “This isn’t your fault.”
“Jesus Christ.” He lets go of me, and the loss is instant. Like a blade under my ribs. The distance he puts between us is more than I can handle, but I give it to him. Step back, too. Let the space stretch.
“All I did was bring someone as evil as her into your life. Because of me, you’re forced to deal with someone like her, someone who doesn’t deserve to breathe in a world where you are.”
“Reth—”
“All I’ve done is make you cry. Make you wait. Give you something you'll spend the rest of your life trying to recover from when it's over."
I watch him, recognize it. The ruinous spiral. The all-or-nothing thinking. The way pain rewrites history until every good thing becomes evidence of damage. I’ve heard this monologue before, from different mouths, in different rooms, and I know what it means when someone speaks about themselves in the language of pure cost.
“In the mountain house,” he continues, “I hated myself for dragging you into this. I hated that your life was in danger because of me.”
I remain silent, arms wrapped around myself as he settles against the wall on the opposite side of the room.
“But then I started hoping.” Drags a hand through his hair. “I allowed myself to think of you and a future and a life where you’re actually in it, and I lost sight of what I actually did to you. What I cost you.”
The words hang between us, heavy and poisoned.
“My cock in your mouth made me forget.” His voice drops to something guttural, almost cruel to himself. “Fucking you made me forget. Loving you like I have a right to… made. Me. Forget.”
“Don’t do that,” I say, taking a step. “Don’t shrink what we have to a ledger of damages just so you can feel like you’re hurting me less. I’m not some collateral. I’m here because I chose it. I’m here because I want it.”
“I kidnapped you, for Christ’s sake.”
“And the door was open,” I say aloud. “That door was open, and I could have run. I could have escaped, but I didn’t.”
Reth stills, eyes flicking to my face, confusion etched across hard lines.
“The day Andrei dragged you into that house. When they took you upstairs, the front door was open. The car was parked right outside, keys still in it. I could have escaped. I wanted to. But when I stood in that doorway, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get myself to step out of that house, and I knew I had to stay so I could figure out why.”
He stares at me. Not the way he stares when he's calculating. This is different. This is a man who has just had a piece of his own narrative handed back to him rewritten and doesn't know what to do with it yet. The confusion on his face is real and unguarded and slightly wrecked — the expression of someone who built an entire architecture of guilt around a story he thought he knew and has just been shown a door he didn't know existed.
He's trying to find the flaw in what I just said.
He can't find it.
So instead, I cross the room without thinking, the tile cold under my feet. When I reach him, I sink to my knees, hands sliding down his chest, his abdomen, until my fingers hook into the waistband of his pants and tug them down. I want to show him that even when Ian’s the one who can calm me in sleep, it’s Reth I want. It’s him I love. Crave. Always him.
His cock springs free, already thick and heavy, twitching under my gaze.
“Sophia—” His hand catches my wrist, voice rough with warning. “Get up. You don’t—fuck.”
I drag my tongue up the underside of his shaft, from base to tip, savoring the velvet heat of him. A broken growl tears out of his throat. His fingers fist in my hair, not pulling me away, butholding on like I’m the only thing keeping him tethered to this earth.
“I’m here…on this island, in this room…on my knees in front of you because I want to be here.”
I lick him again, slower, tracing every vein, swirling my tongue around the swollen head until his thighs start to tremble. Then I slide my lips over him, taking him deeper, inch by inch, until he bumps the back of my throat. I breathe through my nose and relax, swallowing around him.
