Page 102 of Shattered Promise

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.”

39

ABBY

Dinner is alreadyloud by the time I slide into my usual seat. I’m next to Francesca and across from Mason and Theo, my mother on my left.

Someone’s laughing too hard—probably Beau—and Margot is trying to convince Vivie she needs to eat her veggies or she’s going to get pimples.

Francesca and Eloise are debating over what counts as a “classic” movie, and Dad’s trying to uncork a bottle of wine with a set of keys because someone misplaced the opener again.

I used to love this chaos.

Now, it just makes my skin buzz in that too-many-tabs-open way.

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