Chapter 333: The Ending Credits
But beneath the banter, my thoughts dragged me elsewhere. Back to when she was slipping through my fingers, empty, lost, somewhere dark, somwhere I couldn’t follow. That memory still gutted me. The helplessness of it. The way I’d wanted to claw my own skin off just to feel something while she drifted farther away.
Now she was here, across from me, breathing, teasing, glaring. And the terror of losing that again gnawed at me with every beat of my heart.
"Kael," she said suddenly, snapping me out of the spiral. Her voice was softer, questioning, as she cut a piece of her food and leaned across the table to push it against my lips.
I let her feed me. I didn’t even blink, just parted my lips, held her gaze, and swallowed slowly. But I didn’t look away. I couldn’t.
Her brow furrowed. "What are you thinking about now?"
I stared at her too long, maybe too raw, before the words slipped out, low, fragile in a way I rarely allowed myself.
"Never leave me, Aria." My voice softened helplessly. "If you must... then kill me first."
Her fork hit the plate with a sharp clatter.
My chest tightened instantly. She stood up without a flicker of expression, each slow step toward me stoking something primal in my veins. My heart rate rose with hers, like we were circling the same dangerous fire.
When she stopped in front of me, I barely breathed.
And then, like she’d planned it all along, she slid onto my lap, straddling me with unshakable calm. My hands caught her waist automatically, gripping too tight, like I was anchoring myself to the only thing keeping me sane.
She leaned in until her lips were a whisper from mine, her gaze sharp enough to cut me open.
"Kael Roman," she said, steady, lethal, almost like she was branding me with her voice alone.
I clenched my jaw, staring up at her, undone.
"You belong to me now," she whispered, her tone laced with the same dangerous tenderness I’d just given her. "And if you ever betray me, then I’ll kill you without hesitation."
She leaned even closer, so close I could taste her words. "If you break my heart Kael... I won’t forgive you."
For a second, fear caught up again. That dark night. Sarah. Aria’s best friend. Everything I wanted to pretend didn’t happen.
It threatened to replay again in my memory.
But an even greater fear drowned it.
The fear of losing Aria.
I’d bleed to keep this away from her.
If it meant keeping Aria by my side forever.
Then she didn’t need to know.
A chuckle tore out of me, low, dark, wrecked, but fuck, my chest was burning. I didn’t know if I wanted to kiss her until she couldn’t breathe or drop to my knees and let her slit me open. Because in that moment, Aria owned me in every way that mattered.
Her weight settled against me, her gaze locked to mine, and the air between us thickened until it felt like drowning. Neither of us moved. Neither of us spoke.
Her eyes...shone brighter than the stars that hovered in the sky.
They were fire and ice all at once, daring me, taunting me, branding me. And I couldn’t tear myself away. Every nerve in my body screamed for release, every instinct howled for me to claim her here and now.
I begged silently, for strength, for restraint, for the ghosts of my ancestors to lend me whatever scraps of patience they had left, because the real feast wasn’t sitting on the table. It was sitting on my lap, breathing against my mouth, and I was a goddamn starving man.
Her lips curved into a dangerous little smile, the kind that told me she knew exactly what she was doing to me. Her voice dropped, sultry, wicked, cutting through my last shred of control.
"You look like you’re about to explode, Roman."
That was it.
The thread snapped. With one swift motion, my hands found the base of her throat...
I crushed my mouth to hers, raw and unrestrained, months of hunger and agony and obsession poured into the way I devoured her lips. My hand slid up her back, pressing her flush against me, while my other cupped her jaw to keep her exactly where I needed her, mine. Always mine.
She gasped against me, and I swallowed the sound greedily, deepening the kiss until there was nothing left of the world but us. But even as desperation clawed at me, I held back just enough, careful not to hurt her fragile body, because fuck, I’d sooner cut my own throat than risk breaking her again.
Still, my restraint only went so far. My teeth grazed her lower lip, pulling, demanding, while my chest thundered against hers. I kissed her until I couldn’t breathe, until my sanity blurred, until it felt like my soul would claw out of me if I didn’t have her closer.
And even then... it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
Her lips were poison and antidote, and I drank from her like a man dying of thirst. My control was already hanging by a thread, and when she shifted on my lap, straddling me properly, it snapped clean in half.
With a low sound I barely recognized as my own, I pushed back from the chair and rose to my feet, lifting her with me as if she weighed nothing. She gasped, clinging to me, but I didn’t stop, not even for breath. My mouth stayed fused to hers, relentless, devouring.
The perfectly arranged table, the starlit dinner, the staff’s meticulous work, it all ceased to exist. I lowered her onto the edge of it like it was built for us, the plates rattling under her weight, but I didn’t care. She was the only feast I’d ever crave.
Her hands were in my hair, tugging, urging me closer, but I forced myself to slow. To drag it out. To torture both of us with the tension that nearly split me in two.
I kissed down her jaw, down her throat, leaving a trail of open-mouthed hunger that had her arching into me. My hands gripped her hips, thumbs tracing circles I knew would make her squirm. Every soft sound she made tightened the coil in my gut, but I didn’t give in. Not yet.
"Kael..." she whispered, and I nearly lost it just hearing my name on her lips like that.
I bit back a curse, kissed her harder, then softer, then teased the corner of her mouth until she whined. My tongue traced the shell of her ear, down her collarbone, slow, deliberate, every second designed to keep her trembling.
God, I wanted to take her. To ruin her. To bury myself so deep she’d never breathe without me again. But she wasn’t ready. Her body needed rest, not my violence. So instead, I let my restraint turn cruel, I touched, teased, bit, kissed, everywhere but where we both ached the most.
By the time I pulled back, both of us were shaking, breathing ragged, hunger simmering in the air so thick it was choking. I pressed my forehead against hers, my lips brushing hers in the faintest ghost of a kiss, and whispered:
"When you’re strong enough again... I’m not letting you sleep for days."
And then, the perfect, fucking perfect, fireworks I’d set up earlier erupted above us.
The sea lit up with bursts of red, gold, blue, thunder cracking in the sky while her wide eyes reflected every spark.
My ending credits. Our beginning.
And as she turned back to me, still dazed, still trembling, I kissed her again, slow this time, reverent, like a vow.