Chapter 331 Let me have you

Chapter 331: Chapter 331 Let me have you

Aria’s POV

The line went dead in my ear.

Julian Cross had hung up on me. No explanation, no apology, just a soft click and then nothing, as if the questions he’d asked had never left his mouth at all.

I lowered the phone slowly, staring at the dark screen.

What did he want from me?

"Aria."

Damian was already crossing the room. There was something in his face I’d never seen before, and it made my stomach knot.

"Were you at a children’s home in Harbor City?" His voice was low, but it wasn’t the controlled command he used with everyone else. It came out almost unsteady. "Answer me. Please."

The word *please*, from Damian Blackwood of all people, startled me more than the question did.

"I was," I said carefully. "But that was a lifetime ago. I was seven, maybe eight. Honestly, I barely remember any of it—it’s mostly a blur." I searched his eyes. "Why does that matter to you?"

He didn’t answer. He closed the distance between us and pulled me into his arms, hard, crushing me against his chest like he was afraid I’d dissolve if he let go. I felt his heartbeat hammering against mine.

"Did you know a little girl there?" he murmured into my hair. His cedar-and-lavender scent wrapped around me, thick with something raw. "Green eyes. She used to sit on the back steps by the garden wall and feed the birds when she thought no one was watching."

That girl was me.

I went still.

I pulled back just enough to look up at him, and I couldn’t stop the prickling suspicion crawling up my spine. Because how could he possibly describe any of this? I had no memory of ever seeing *him* as a child. Not once. And yet he was laying out the small, private pieces of my childhood like he’d lived them himself.

"Damian, why are you asking me this?" My voice came out sharper than I meant it to.

For a long moment he just looked at me, his black-grey eyes storming with something I couldn’t name.

"When I was young," he said quietly, "I spent a winter in a recovery facility. My father sent me there after—" His jaw tightened. "It doesn’t matter why. What matters is that it was the darkest stretch of my life. I didn’t speak to anyone. I didn’t want to be alive, if I’m being honest with you."

I stood frozen, barely breathing.

"There was a fence between that place and the grounds next door. A children’s home." His hand pressed flat against the small of my back.

"There was a girl there. She used to sit by that fence every afternoon. She talked to me even when I never said a word back. Left me things. A drawing once. Half a candy bar another time. She had these eyes I’ve never been able to forget."

The room tilted around me. A memory surfaced, blurry and half-drowned under all those years.

A boy on the other side of a chain-link fence, thin and hollow-eyed, always sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest. So sad that just looking at him used to break my little heart in two.

"There was a boy," I whispered before I could stop myself. "He never talked. He always looked so... lost. I used to give him my chocolate."

I felt his whole body go rigid against mine.

"That was you," he breathed. His hands came up to cradle my face. "*You* were her. God—it was you the whole time. I looked for you for years. All I had were those green eyes. I never got your name."

He shook his head, taking in every inch of my face. "You look so different now. I stared right at you all this time and never made the connection."

A shaky laugh escaped me. "You don’t exactly look the same either, Your Majesty."

He kissed me before I could say another word.

I gasped against his lips and he swallowed the sound, walking me backward until my spine hit the wall. His hands were everywhere—my jaw, my throat, the curve of my waist—like he couldn’t decide where to touch first, like he needed all of me at once.

"Damian—" His name broke apart in my mouth.

"Don’t." He dragged my dress up over my hips, his palms rough and greedy against my thighs. "Let me have you."

I did. God help me, I did.

He lifted me clean off my feet and I wrapped my legs around him on instinct, my fingers fisting in his hair. My back scraped the wall as he ground into me, and the friction alone had me trembling, soaked, aching in a way that made me dizzy.

When he finally pushed into me I cried out, and he groaned low into the curve of my neck, holding still like the feeling was too much to move through.

"You’re mine," he rasped, and then he was moving, hard and deep, driving into me with a hunger that stole every thought from my head. I clung to him, nails biting into his shoulders, gasping his name over and over. Each thrust pushed me higher, wound me tighter, until I was shaking apart around him, my whole body clenching down as I came with a broken sob.

He followed me over the edge, shuddering, his forehead pressed to mine, both of us breathing like we’d run for miles.

For a long moment neither of us spoke. He just held me there, still buried inside me, his heartbeat slamming against my chest.

"The Moon Goddess," he murmured against my temple, his voice wrecked and reverent all at once, "gave you to me twice. Once at that fence, when I had nothing left. And again now." His arms tightened around me. "I’ll never stop thanking her for it."