Page 47 of Shattered Promise (Avalon Falls #4)

She sighs, voice dissolving in the smoke.

“It wasn’t a bad experience, if that’s what you’re worried about.

You were perfect—except for the whole not remembering part,” she says, waving her hand around.

“It just always felt like an almost . Like something that happened to someone else. I guess I wanted it to matter to you, too.”

“Abby.” I say her name like a prayer, like an invocation. “You always matter.”

She shakes her head, almost laughing at the earnestness of it, but the sound dissolves and leaves us sitting there, shoulder to shoulder, with nothing but the pulse between our joined hands.

I don’t know how to fix the past. All I can do is show her now.

So I tug her toward me, just enough that her thigh slots over mine and her hair falls between us like a curtain.

The fire flickers behind her, gold and hungry.

I take her face in both of my hands and tilt it up, giving her every second to say no, but she doesn’t move.

Her lips part, her breath trembles against my skin, and then I kiss her.

Not quick or polite or any of the ways you’re supposed to atone for old mistakes.

This is the kind of kiss that asks permission and gives it, the kind that promises I’m here, I’m not leaving, I am never forgetting you again.

She makes this small, desperate sound in the back of her throat and I feel it everywhere, an echo of every silent wish I ever made for her.

Her hands fist in the front of my shirt, dragging me closer, and closer, until the blanket falls away and her arms are bare and goose-bumped in the night.

I run my palm down the length of her spine, feeling the way she arches into me, the way she shivers and presses her mouth harder to mine, like she needs to fuse us together.

She tastes like sweet marshmallows from the s’mores she insisted we make earlier and something uniquely her.

The world narrows to the way she fits in my hands, the way she sighs my name against my lips, the way she is both the fire and what it’s burning down.

When I break away, it’s only to breathe, and even then, I can’t go far.

I rest my forehead against hers, eyes closed, hands steady on her cheeks.

I want to say something, to carve this moment out and keep it somewhere safe for the next time she forgets how much she matters.

But all that comes out is her name, soft and hoarse, over and over until the word loses meaning and becomes just the ache in my chest.

She laughs, breathless, and drags her fingers along my jaw. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you kissing me like that,” she admits, voice shaky with wonder.

I blink, fighting the sting in my eyes. “I plan to do a lot more of it, so you better start.”

For a second, she just looks at me, like she’s trying to memorize the arrangement of my face, the way my eyes go soft when I look at her, the way my hands are never steady unless they’re holding her.

She touches the corner of my mouth, like she’s smoothing out a crease, and then lets her palm linger against my cheek—tentative, almost reverent.

“So what now?” she asks, the words are barely more than a whisper, but they feel heavier.

I glance at the baby monitor, its faint blue glow like a planet in the dark, then back at her, tangled and barefoot and trembling.

“Now,” I say, “we do things right.” I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, slow and careful, like she’s made of spun gold.

“No forgetting. No almosts.” For a second, I can feel a future unfurling from this night, a hundred more fires, a hundred more chances to mean it.

She holds my gaze, and it’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen. “Okay.” Her arms wind around my neck and she pulls me in for another kiss, the soft weight of her settling against me like she belongs there.

She shifts on my lap, the hem of her dress pooling around her waist and knees bracketing my hips. The only sound is her breath, quick and shaky, the pop and crackle of fire, the distant hum of bugs in the grass.

“I have another secret,” she whispers against my mouth.

“Give it to me. I’ll take care of your secrets from now on.” My hands shake as I run them up her thighs, slow and open, like maybe if I touch her enough I can fill the years we lost.

She leans back just enough to look at me, her eyes cut glass and firelight. “I, uh, always wondered what it’d be like to . . .” Her cheeks flush pink, and she bites the inside of her cheek, turning her face away. “Never mind, it’s silly.”

I catch her chin between my thumb and finger, coaxing her to look at me. “You can say anything to me, Abby. Always.”

She lets out a shaky laugh, breathless and wild, eyes darting to my mouth before she finally gives in. “I always wondered what it would be like to have sex out here. Under the stars. With you.” Her voice is hushed, the words nearly swallowed by the night, but I hear them clear as a siren song.

I want to tell her yes, I want to say me too, but my throat is a fist and all I can do is reach for her, both hands cradling her face, thumbs tracing the lines of her jaw like maybe I can memorize the shape of the secret she just gave me.

“You want me to fuck you under the stars, baby?”

Her lips part on an exhale, her eyes hooded as she stares at my mouth. Her tongue slips out, swiping across her bottom lip as she nods.

I lean in and sink my teeth into the other side of her bottom lip, pulling it free. “I want to hear you say it.”

She inhales sharply, her lips brushing against mine. “I want you to fuck me, Mase, right here under the stars.”

The sound she makes—soft, urgent—is some wild animal that’s only ever lived in the thicket between my ribs.

I slide my hands beneath her thighs and pull her flush to my chest, the blanket gone, nothing but the thin cotton of her sundress and the heat we make against the cool night.

Her legs slip around my waist, locking me in.

Her hair falls like a curtain around us, gold and smoke, and I push it back so I can see her face. The freckles on her nose. The pink on her cheeks. The way her eyes flick from my mouth to my eyes and back again, hungry and unguarded.

“I’ll give you anything you want, yeah? Anything. Name it and it’s yours.”

For a long second, she just looks at me, bottom lip caught between her teeth, the tips of her fingers digging into my shoulders. I can feel the shudder that moves through her, the way her body says yes before she even opens her mouth.

“Just you,” she says, voice thready, shaking with how much she means it. “I just want you.”

I kiss her again, because I have to, because I need to, because there are no words for the way I need her right now. My hands move down, finding the curve of her ass, drawing her as close as she’ll come.

“You have me.”