After Rebirth, I Became My Ex's Aunt-in-Law-Chapter 169: Trading Skeletons for Sunlight

Aria didn’t ask him to put her down. To be fair, her legs were still the consistency of overcooked noodles, but even if she could stand, she didn’t want to. She let her entire weight settle into the iron-clad grip he had on her waist.

Damien was holding her flush against his chest, supporting her effortlessly. But he was still rigid. She could feel the erratic, heavy thud of his heart pounding against her own chest. She could see the sharp, dangerous ticking of the muscle in his jaw.

Aria slid her hands slowly up the lapels of his suit jacket. She dragged her palms over his broad shoulders, her fingers tracing the strong, tense column of his throat before wrapping securely around the back of his neck.

She looked up into his golden eyes. They were dark, swirling with that terrifying protectiveness.

"What can I do?" Aria whispered, her voice soft in the quiet room. "Tell me what I can do to calm you down."

She used his grip on her waist for leverage, pulling herself up just a fraction of an inch to press a soft, lingering kiss to his lips.

Damien let out a harsh, ragged breath through his nose. His eyes slipped shut for a brief second as he leaned into her touch, but when they opened again, the lethal edge was still there.

"I’m not afraid of them, Aria," Damien rasped, his voice a low, gravelly tone that sent a shiver straight down her spine. His hands tightened on her hips, his grip bordering on painful. "Do not underestimate what I am capable of doing to the people who touch what belongs to me." 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"I know you aren’t afraid," Aria smiled softly. She untangled her fingers from his collar, moving her hands up to play with the silver hair at the nape of his neck. Her fingers combed through the strands, her touch deliberate and gentle. "I am the one who is afraid."

Damien’s brow furrowed. The sheer conviction in his voice faltered. "Of the French Cartel?"

"Of you dying," Aria corrected flatly.

She held his gaze. She gave him nothing but the raw, unvarnished truth.

"You act like you’re untouchable," Aria murmured, her thumb stroking his jawline. "But you aren’t immortal, Damien. You don’t have superpowers. You are a man. A man who can take a bullet. A man who can bleed out and die just like anyone else."

Damien stared at her, the breath hitching in his chest.

"I am impatient," Aria confessed, her voice thick with emotion. "I want Lydia to suffer. I want to watch the people who murdered my mother burn to the ground. I want it so badly it makes me sick."

She leaned her forehead against his, closing the last fraction of space between them.

"But I refuse to trade an old pain for a new one," Aria whispered fiercely, her emerald eyes shining with unshed tears. "I will not trade getting closure on losing my mother for the absolute agony of losing you. I want my husband safe. I want you healthy, and I want you in my arms."

Damien’s lips parted, but no sound came out.

"You are the love of my life, Damien Sinclair," Aria stated, the absolute certainty in her voice leaving no room for doubt. "You are my soulmate. You are the literal reason I fought to stay alive when I thought I was going to die. So, we are going to do this the smart way. Because I am not losing you to my own demons."

The remaining tension in Damien’s body shattered. The homicidal warlord evaporated, leaving only a man completely and utterly on his knees for the woman in his arms.

He moved his hands from her waist, grabbing both of her wrists. He didn’t pull her away. He guided her palms flat against the left of his chest, pressing her hands firmly over his rapidly beating heart.

"Feel that?" Damien questioned, his voice cracking with a raw, bleeding sincerity that made Aria’s throat tight.

Aria nodded, feeling the frantic, desperate rhythm thumping against her skin.

"The only person on this earth who is capable of stopping this heart from beating," Damien vowed, his golden eyes blazing with an intensity that burned right through her, "is you."

He rested his forehead heavily against hers, his eyes slipping shut as he exhaled a shaky breath.

"I am obsessed with you," Damien confessed into the quiet space between them. "You are the sun of my world, Aria. And I will thoroughly destroy anyone who tries to cast a shadow on you. But I will do it your way. I will be careful. I will stay alive. Because the thought of leaving you alone in this world is the only thing that actually terrifies me."

Aria let out a watery, broken gasp.

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

It was desperate, messy, and overflowing with a terrifying amount of emotion. Damien groaned, catching her face in his hands, kissing her back with a hunger that consumed all the oxygen in her lungs. He devoured her mouth, tasting the salt of a stray tear that had slipped down her cheek.

His intense, unyielding devotion made Aria’s heart flutter wildly against her ribs. In her past life, she had died starving for a single scrap of affection. She had been neglected, ignored, and discarded.

And now, she had a man who would gladly bend the entire world to his knees just to make sure she was smiling.

It was scary to love someone this much. It was a terrifying vulnerability. But as his tongue swept past her lips, his hands holding her like she was the most precious thing in the universe, Aria finally admitted her own dark truth.

She was just as deeply, incurably obsessed with him as he was with her.

He was everything she had left to lose. And she was going to protect him just as fiercely as he protected her.