Her arms wrapped around my neck, pulling me closer, her body arching to meet every deep thrust.
I wanted to make this last. I wanted to drag her over the edge and follow her down. I wanted to stay wrapped in her warmth, her softness, her fire.
Her breath hitched again, her nails biting into my back as she tightened around me and came apart. Her body trembled, pleasure unfurling between us, wrapping around my spine, and pulling me under.
“Elodie,” I groaned, my head dropping to the curve of her shoulder as I gave in, let go, let myself feel everything.
The last thing I knew was her whispering my name, her lips pressing against my temple, her body shaking beneath mine.
The tremors racked through her, little aftershocks thatmade her breath wash over my skin. My own heart was still hammering, my body heavy, sated, yet unwilling to move away from her warmth.
I pressed my forehead against hers, trying to steady my breathing, to ground myself in the feel of her—soft and pliant beneath me, her legs still loosely wrapped around my hips, her fingers tracing slow, lazy circles over my back.
I exhaled, pressing a lingering kiss against her temple before rolling us onto our sides, bringing her with me, not willing to separate from her just yet. The sheets tangled around us, a sheen of sweat cooling on our skin, but neither of us moved to fix it.
She tucked herself against my chest, her lips brushing over my collarbone, her breath still uneven. “Holy shit,” she whispered, voice husky and warm.
I let out a low chuckle, tucking a damp curl behind her ear. “Not bad, huh?”
Her hand smacked against my chest, but there was no real force behind it. Just warmth. Just something that felt dangerously close to contentment.
We stayed like that for a while, just breathing, just existing in the quiet aftermath of something that neither of us had expected but both of us had needed. I ran my fingers up and down the curve of her spine, and she sighed, melting deeper into me.
Then, softly, almost absently, she traced her fingers over one of many old scars on my chest. Elodie’s fingers ghosted over my skin, tracing the jagged line of the scars that ran over my shoulder and down the length of my arm. They were reminders of a past life, a past version of me I had stuffed into a box and hadn’t thought about in a long time.
“Where are you from?” she murmured, like she wasn’t just asking about geography, but about who I used to be.
I swallowed, exhaling through my nose. “Somewhere you’ve never been. A little nowhere town in Nevada.”
She was quiet for a beat, absorbing that, before she said, “And you came here because of Mary.”
It wasn’t a question.
I stared at the ceiling, my fingers stilling on her bare back. “Her family was here—Wes, her parents. When she got pregnant, it made sense to put down roots.”
Elodie stilled, her fingers no longer moving over my chest. “You loved her.” There was no jealousy, only warmth in her voice.
I hesitated, not because I didn’t know the answer, but because the truth was complicated. It always had been.
“It was complicated,” I admitted, my voice rougher than I intended.
Elodie didn’t push. She didn’t fill the silence with meaningless words or try to fix something that didn’t need fixing. Instead, she reached up, cupping my face in her hands, tilting my chin so I had no choice but to meet her gaze.
Her eyes searched mine, not demanding, not expecting—just waiting.
So I told her.
I told her how Mary and I had been a moment, not an epic love story. How we’d been young and reckless, caught up in something easy, something that was never meant to be permanent. How we weren’t even seriously dating when she got pregnant.
I told her how I didn’t hesitate when she told me.
“She wanted to do it alone,” I admitted, my voice quiet. “But I wasn’t going to let that happen. I made a promise. To her. To the baby. To my best friend. I promised that I’d show up, that I’d be there no matter what, and there was no going back on that.”
Elodie listened, her fingertips brushing slow, absentminded circles over my shoulder. She didn’t judge. She didn’t even flinch. She just absorbed my words, the way she seemed to absorb everything—fully and completely.
“I grew to love her,” I finally said. “But maybe not in the way I was supposed to. Certainly not in the way she deserved, but she was my family. And Levi ... I have loved him from the second I knew he existed. That’s never changed.”
She studied me for a long moment, like she was trying to see the cracks, the pieces of me that had been reshaped by the weight of my past.
