He was wrong. So wrong.
Avonna speaks her truth without shame. With perfect clarity.
“I don’t care a bit.” I kiss her cheek. Her lips. her throat. “You aren’t asking too much. You’re fuckin’ perfect.”
Her eyes close, tears clinging to the edges but refusing to fall.
She isn’t broken.
She’s prophecy.
So is he.
Two pieces of the same pull. Tugging on me from both sides. Inside my head, I see it clear as sunrise.
Avonna. Me. Liam.
We’re three pieces of the same goddamn whole.
I slam back into her, and she cries out, biting her lip to keep from screaming. I know I’m close.
“Let go, baby.” I hold her face between my hands. “I want to feel you come around my cock.”
She fucking explodes, head thrown back, pussy spasming around me. I follow, chanting her name like a confession.
We collapse in a heap.
She turns, voice hoarse from pleasure and confession. “Did I spoil everything or are we soulmates?”
I meet her gaze. My mouth opens. Closes.
She exhales something between a laugh and a sigh. “It’s okay. You can take a moment.”
Shaking my head, I smile and my fingers trace lazy, grounding circles onher skin.
“I don’t need one. I couldn’t have said it better. You don’t scare me, baby. You make me braver.” I snuggle her under my arm. “I never thought it would be possible. You’re goddamn right we’re soulmates. I’m so feckin’ in love with you, I can barely stand it.”
Her hand finds mine. Our fingers knot. Silence settles.
Truth is no longer trying to outrun itself.
“I love you too, Linus O’Donnell. If we found each other…” She pauses. “Then someone else is out there too. Do you think it’s him?”
I close my eyes.
Aye.
I see him as clearly as I see her. Dark eyes, callused fingers, a laugh filled with defiance, a heart too scared to stay open. The three of us, bent but not broken, fractured but never alone again.
He’s the piece we’re missing.
We’re not whole yet.
Someday, God willing, we will be.
thirty-one
Liam
