I make love to her like she’s the only truth I’ve ever known, slow, aching, reverent. Each thrust a declaration, each breath a benediction. I memorize the shape of her mouth when she gasps, the tremor in her thighs, the way her body reaches for mine, unable to bear even the smallest distance.
She trembles beneath me again, her hands clawing at my back, her voice breaking as she pleads for more. Her walls flutter around me, hot and tight, milking me as she comes, and it undoes me. My release hits with the force of a thunderclap, ripped from somewhere deep in my gut. Hot, hard, all-consuming. I groan her name into her neck, body shuddering as I pour into her, every muscle taut from the strength of it.
I kiss her through it, holding her close, anchoring us both in the storm we’ve made together. It’s not just physical. It’s soul-deep. And I know right then, I’ll never get enough of her.
The room hums with the silence that follows ruin. The kind of quiet that only comes after something breaks open and remakes itself. I don’t move. Not right away. I stay inside her, my forehead pressed to hers, both of us breathing as if we just survived a war. Maybe we did. Her fingers curl in the back of my hair, and she doesn’t let go.
I draw back just enough to see her face. Her lips are kiss-swollen, her cheeks flushed, hair stuck to her temple in damp strands. But her eyes, those damn eyes, they’re open. Watching me. Holding me still. She looks raw. Open. A girl who burned down everything she once called home and still showed up here.
I brush a knuckle down her jaw, slow and reverent. “You okay?”
A breath escapes her lips, shaky and soft. She nods. Not fast. Not strong. But real. Her voice is hoarse when she speaks. “I feel like my body’s still moving.”
My chest tightens. “That’s just your heartbeat syncing with mine.”
I groan low in my throat as I slowly pull out of her, the separation a shock to both our systems. She whimpers at the loss, her body instinctively curling into mine, aching for the connection again. I kiss her softly, then shift to my side, keeping her close, our legs tangled. I pull the blanket over us and settle her against my chest, one hand splayed wide across her back, refusing to let go.
She doesn’t speak again. But her breathing evens out against me. Her fingers tap against my chest. It’s soft, rhythmic, almost forming a beat. I glance down and catch it. Four slow taps. A pause. Then four again. A song. Maybe not yet. But the bones of one. She’s writing again. Even if she doesn’t realize it. This time, I’ll be the one who makes sure no one steals it from her.
I press a kiss to the top of her head. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away. Just lets me hold her.
"I love you," I murmur into her hair, quiet but unflinching. It’s not a confession. It’s a vow.
She lifts her head, just enough to meet my eyes. Her voice is hoarse, thick with emotion. "I love you too," she whispers. It’s soft. Unshaken. It floors me more than any shouted declaration ever could.
I’ve buried too many things in my life. Names. Memories. Pieces of myself. But this? This is the one thing I won’t bury. Candace Giles. Mine.
Chapter 58
Malachi
Thesun’sstartingtoset, bleeding molten gold across the rooftop railings. It should be beautiful, should mean something. Instead, it settles heavy in my chest, the weight more ash than light.
The heat sticks to my skin, the kind that clings through sweat and memory. My shirt’s plastered to my back, heavy with the day’s humidity, but it’s the silence that itches more than the heat. That slow, suffocating silence that presses in when the ghosts are louder than the city.
Savannah buzzes below me, streetcars clanging, tourists laughing, jazz drifting from some open-air bar two blocks over, but I can’t hear any of it without feeling I’m five seconds from unraveling. The city keeps moving, and I’m just... still. Suspended between moments. Pacing the balcony, jaw tight, fingers twitching for something I can’t name.
We came here looking for ghosts. Thought maybe I’d get answers. Maybe I’d find Amelia. My brother. A whisper of Cornelius. A crack in the damn silence. But all we got was a masked ball of monsters pretending they don’t reek of blood. Now it’s quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that carries the taste of a lie.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, sharp and insistent. I snatch it out, half expecting it to bite. Coach Tompkins. I hesitate. Just for a second. The kind of pause that means more than I want to admit.
Then swipe to answer. “Yeah.”
“Jesus, Hayes,” he says, voice rough and jagged. “You answer the phone like you’re being held at gunpoint.”
I glance out over the railing, watching a seagull dive straight toward the water. “Not far off.”
“You sound like shit.”
“I feel worse.”
He snorts. “You always were a dramatic little shit.”
I don’t argue. He’s earned the right to call it how he sees it. Coach Tompkins is one of the few who’s been with me through every version of myself, before the patches, before the blood, before the name Malachi meant something outside of pain.
Silence stretches on the line. Not uncomfortable. Intentional. He’s calling for a reason.
“You still in Savannah?” he finally asks.
