Page 48 of Wristlocked

“Now who’s the liar?”

“What the fuck do you want from me, Shadow?”

“I want you to admit it.”

“Why? So you can finish breaking my heart?”

“No, Lyot. No.” She crawls over and takes my face in her hands. “Because I was hurt when you gave that first away too, Lyot, and I finally figured out what it means.”

The world stops. And then blooms.

“You say it first,” I whisper.

“I’m in love with you,” she says. “Pretty sure I always have been. I just didn’t know it.”

“I’m in love with you,” I echo. “And I’ve known it from the moment we met.”

This time it’s slow and sweet and decadent. It starts with kisses that never end, and every inch of her skin unfurls beneath my touch. When neither of us can bear it any longer, I enter her on a sigh, and she buries her face in my neck and coats it with her tears.

This time she lets me love her, and everything we are is enough.

“But you still want me to share you with him,” I say hours later, lying in the damp tangle of sheets with her head on my chest.

“I wantusto share him.”

“That’s asking a lot.”

“Is it? Do you want to know how he talks about you all the time? He says it’s to hurt me, which is probably true, but it’s not the whole truth.” She tilts her head to look up at me. “He tries to make me say your name when he fucks me, and it turns him on.”

“What the fuck, Gia?”

She giggles. “You’re my safeword.”

“Jesus, that’s some sick, masochistic shit. And you want to drag me into it?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you—you’re already in it. I think we need you to—”

“Keep yousane?”

“Make us whole.”

She means it.

Shit.

“I’ll think about it.”

26

Gia

“So they’re willing to share, but they’re still not willing to actuallyshare?” Vaya asks, pausing in the act of pressing another smoky crystal to the design she’s marked out on my cheekbone.

“I’m not sure I should really be complaining.” I sigh. “You’ve seen what happens when I manage to get the two of them in a room together.”

“Lyot turns as watchful as a wary cat, and Gale is the toddler who can’t stop pulling his tail,” Jules agrees.

“A tatted six-foot toddler who wants to do a lot more than pull the cat’s tail.” Vaya laughs.