I should be comforting her, not the other way around. I saw the tear stains, the redness in her eyes. I know she must have sunk under the weight of what happened to her.
“I love you, Liam,” Malia says breathily placing her palm against my cheek.
I open my eyes and meet hers, fresh tears staining her cheeks.
“Fuck, do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear that?“ I say through a chuckle.
She beams up at me. “I’m sure I could guess.”
I take a few moments to feel her in my arms, look into herknowingeyes, drink in the familiarity of the small movements she makes.
Malia’s hands roam up to the back of my head and she tugs me lower until our lips are touching in the barest caress.
“Tell me again,” I say, my voice quiet and low.
She giggles, and the sound of that fucking giggle nearly has me falling off the terrace ledge.
“I love you.”
My lips collide with hers and I groan at the feel of them. They move against mine in the practiced way she’s perfected, and I’ve never been so hungry in my life. My hands slide past her waist, then I pick her up by the back of her thighs. Malia wraps her legs around my waist, and I spin us, rushing forward until we crash against the stone column to support her while my hands get reacquainted with her body.
“I’ve missed you,” I whisper, breaking from her lips to kiss down her jaw and neck.
I need to taste every inch of her skin. And I do.
I tug and rip at her clothes, running my tongue and lips across every newly exposed piece of her flesh. She groans encouragingly, the sound making me grind against her involuntarily.
I pull away to tug off my shirt, throwing it over the ledge and down the steep drop below. Malia gets to work unbuckling my jeans and my hands move to hers when a teardrop hits my hand.
I freeze. In my greed for her, I’d stupidly forgotten about everything she’s been through, like a fucking asshole. My eyes take in the sheer agony that’s overtaken Malia’s features. The tears are steady now and I nearly drop her to her feet and nosedive off the ledge for being such a dick.
I start to let her down, but she grabs onto my shoulders and locks her legs around me.
A sob escapes her beautiful mouth.
“Tell me what to do,” I plead.
I have no idea what to do for her because I’m certain I just made everything a million times worse.
“Take me back,” she sobs in desperation. “Takeitback.”
My brows pinch together in confusion at her plea. Malia’s always been mine, so why would she—
Claim. She needs me to claim her. To erase him from her mind, body, and soul.
“Malia,” I say, shaking my head. “I can’t do that to you.”
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her, but I can’t take that from her. Not when she’s feeling like this, broken and sobbing.
“Please,” Malia begs, her hands desperately pulling me closer. “Li,please.”
In my sheer panic at seeing her like this, thinking I’d triggered more pain, I didn’t recognize it for what it is: a gift.
Malia Olin is offering me every shattered piece of her soul. A woman so fucking deadly and brutal is giving me her vulnerability—the most precious things she holds inside her, the thing no one else gets to see.
I thought I’d claimed her before. Maybe I did, in a way, but never completely. Malia doesn’t just want me to reclaim her body after Elio left his mark.
I bled for Malia, killed for her, turned my back on everything I’ve ever known. I burnt the world down and dug through the ashes to get her back. And only now do I understand what it means toearnher.