We lay there in the tangled sheets, the city lights flickering through the windows, jazz still drifting softly from somewhere in the suite.
His fingers traced lazy patterns on my bare back—circles, hearts, his initials maybe—and I felt the last of the years between us dissolve.
No more running.
No more pretending.
Just us.
Finally, completely, irrevocably us.
“I love you,” I whispered into his skin. “I was going to tell you that at dinner.”
His arms tightened.
“Sophie Clarke, I’ve loved you since the day you pushed me off the rope swing because I called you short,” he said, voice thick. “Never stopped. Never will.”
I lifted my head, met his eyes.
“Then don’t.”
23
WYATT
She fit against me like she'd been made for it—curves pressed into my side, her head tucked under my chin, one leg thrown over mine like she needed the contact as much as I did.
Her breathing had slowed, steady and soft now, but her fingers still traced lazy patterns on my chest, circling scars she'd probably ask about, eventually. The room smelled like us—sweat and sex and something sweeter underneath, like the jasmine drifting in from outside had decided to join the celebration.
I didn't want to move. Didn't want to think. Didn't want anything except this—her warm and real and mine in my arms, the world locked outside where it couldn't touch us yet, where Klein and Dominion Hall and every decision I was avoiding couldn't reach.
We lay there tangled in the sheets, the kind of quiet settling over us that felt earned after everything we'd just done to each other, everything we'd finally said out loud. My body was spent, muscles loose and heavy in that way that only came after the kind of sex that rewired your brain. But my mind was wideawake, replaying every second like I needed to commit it to memory before reality came crashing back in with the sunrise.
The way she'd looked up at me with those blue eyes dark and trusting, whispering "take me" like it was a command I couldn't disobey even if I wanted to. The way she'd shattered around me, clenching so tight I saw stars, her nails digging into my back hard enough to leave marks I'd wear like badges of honor, proof this had been real.
God, she was everything. More than I'd imagined in the dark nights when I'd let myself remember her, when I'd convinced myself she was better off without me, that I was doing her a favor by staying away.
What a fucking lie that had been.
And now here she was, naked and sated in a bed I'd never expected to share with her, her copper hair spilling across my chest like fire I wanted to burn in forever, like the only warmth I'd ever need.
I pulled her closer, my arm tightening around her shoulders possessively, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She hummed softly, the sound vibrating through me like music, and nuzzled deeper into my neck.
"That was ..." She trailed off, her voice husky and satisfied, like she couldn't find the words either, like language had failed us both.
"Yeah," I agreed, because what else was there to say? Perfect? Life-changing? The kind of thing that ruined you for anyone else, that made every other woman you'd ever touched fade into irrelevance?
All true, but none of it captured how it felt—like I'd finally found the missing piece of myself, and it had been her all along, waiting in Valentine, waiting in Charleston, waiting for me to stop being a coward long enough to claim it.
We stayed like that for a while, just breathing together, her fingers still wandering across my skin like she was mapping me out, learning every ridge and scar and imperfection. I let my hand slide down her back, tracing the curve of her spine, dipping into the dimples at the base, savoring the softness there, the way her skin felt like silk under my calloused palms.
She shivered under my touch, pressing closer, and I felt myself stir again, already half-hard just from having her this close, from knowing I could have her again if I wanted, that she'd let me.
But I didn't push. Not yet. I wanted this—the quiet after, the intimacy that wasn't just bodies crashing together but souls finally catching up, finally admitting what had always been true.
"Tell me about Austin," I said eventually, my voice low in the dim room, rough from groaning her name. "What your life looks like there."
She shifted slightly, propping her chin on my chest so she could look at me, her eyes soft and unguarded in a way that made my chest ache. "It's ... fine. Busy. I have an apartment downtown—small, but mine. Friends who drag me out when I get too in my head. Work that's ... well, that's the part I'm figuring out."
