Chapter 31
Thirty-One
AVA
The words detonate, punching through my ribs, seizing my heart in their ruthless grip, and tearing it free. And then, like it belongs to him, Soren cradles it in the open, unflinching.
I love you, Ava Bell.
I want to believe him. But belief has teeth. It chews through you when it’s wrong. Right now, his love—his certainty—it’s a trapdoor. A story too good to be mine.
The moment I believe it’s real, it’ll get ripped away, and I’ll fall back into the darkness. So I do the only thing I know how to do.
I push away from him and pace.
Turning my back. I try to build the wall again faster than he can tear it down. “I can’t do this,” I whisper, barely able to get the words out.
“Yes, you can.” His voice is firm. “You already are.”
“No,” I snap, spinning on him. “You don’t get it. You don’t know. You haven’t lived inside my chest, where every time something feels safe, it ends up cutting me open. Where people I’ve trusted have burned me to ash. Where love isn’t a promise—it’s a threat.”
He doesn’t react.
I hate him for that.
I hate him for being so still when I’m coming apart.
But, I think I love him too.
My voice shakes. “Do you know what it’s like to be waiting for the good thing to end constantly? The clock ticks on every soft moment. That’s what I do, Soren. That’s what I’ve learned.”
“I know,” he says quietly. “I see it. Every time you pull away. Every time you make a joke instead of admitting you’re scared. Every time you flinch when things between us are right.”
“I’m not flinching,” I breathe. “I’m drowning.”
It’s true. The panic is closing in. My knees buckle before I can stop them, and I collapse to the floor. My body can’t carry the fear anymore.
I cover my face as though that’ll somehow hide the tears. Hide the fact that I’m breaking.
“I’m sorry,” I choke. “I’m sorry I’m like this. But, please, I need you to know that you make me feel things.”
“What kinds of things, Bells?”
“You make me feel like a fairytale and a firestorm.”
Suddenly, Soren’s on the floor too, sliding in behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist, securing us together
One hand slides up my back. He’s offering a heartbeat I can borrow, and he’s willing to keep rhythm for both of us until I can remember how.
“I’m not leaving,” he whispers into my hair.
That’s when the final layer—years in the making, brick by trembling brick—shatters.
I curl into him, sobbing into his chest like it’s the first breath I’ve had in days. He holds me through it, quiet and constant, as though he knew this was coming all along.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whisper.
“You don’t have to,” he says. “You just have to stay… with me”
My fingers grip his legs. And for the first time in my entire life, I let someone hold me in the middle of the storm—and I don’t try to run.
Because he’s right. I do get this kind of story. And maybe this time, I don’t have to write the ending alone.
Soren’s arms are still around me when the sobs fade into silence. My cheek rests against his chest, damp with tears. His heart thumps beneath my ear, and for once, I don’t need to armor up to match it.
I just breathe.
I’m safe.
I shift in his lap, my hand sliding up to cup his jaw. His eyes meet mine. My heart melts at the devotion I see. The patience. The love.
“Soren,” I whisper.
His thumb brushes across my cheek. “Yeah, Bells?”
“Take off your clothes.”
A brow lifts.
“I mean it,” I say. “I want to feel like I haven’t lost control.”
Soren doesn’t ask questions. Or make a joke. He obeys. Piece by piece, he undresses with my help, right there on the floor, until nothing remains but the man who’s seen me at my worst—and stayed.
I rise slowly, unhooking myself from the past that’s clawed at my ankles for too long. My dress slips off first. Then my bra. Then my panties. Layer by layer, I strip away more than fabric.
I strip away fear. Shame. Doubt.
I move to straddle him, and Soren’s hands settle lightly on my thighs, but he doesn’t grip. He doesn’t guide. He lets me control the moment.
Cradling his face in my hands, I gaze down at him, finally seeing him for who he is—which isn’t the viral fantasy, or the book boyfriend brand—but the man who braved my family, created a night made special for me, watched the Twilight Saga…
Told me he loved me and meant it.
And got on the floor when I broke.
“I need to do this. My way.”
His voice is hoarse. “Anything you want, Bells.”
I kiss him. Sure. Deep, pouring everything into it—everything I’ve held back. The terror. The hope. The way he’s unraveled me with every single touch, all of his words, and each time he looked at me.
I sink down onto him, taking him inch by deliciously hard inch. There’s no rush. No urgency. I want to feel every bit of his eager cock.
Soren groans beneath me, his hands tightening, but he doesn’t move. He lets me ride the rhythm, lets me lead us both deeper into this new thing we’re building.
My hands slide down his chest. My hips roll. His name leaves my mouth like a song he wrote, and when he answers with mine on lips, it’s tender and cherishing.
This man is not a risk.
He’s the reward.
I keep moving, grinding, learning the parts of him that tremble when I clench around him. I kiss his throat. I tell him I want all of him—every broken, beautiful piece. His eyes never leave mine. And when the climax hits—when I flutter around him and he pulses inside me—I don’t break.
I become.
I’m something new. Something more.
We collapse, breathless, sated, and I curl into his chest, no longer afraid.
Soren runs his fingers through my hair, whispering words I can’t quite catch.
“What did you just say?” I ask.
Soren presses a kiss to my temple, and the world tilts. The sound of it — so sure, ordinary — punches through my ribcage like sunlight through a shuttered window. “I said… You saved me, Bells. Forever, I am yours.”
The words land, and all the places I’ve kept locked up rattle.
My lips part to tell him the truth back, that he saved me too, that he rewired something that had been snapped and rusted inside me, but the sentence dies behind my teeth.
Fear crawls up my spine like cold ivy, and the reflex to brace, to fold the fragile parts of myself into a smaller shape where no one can reach them, takes over.
I taste salt from a laugh I try to force out and feel ridiculous for wanting to cry and laugh and fling myself at him all at once.
So, I close my mouth and inhale the smell of him, pine and snow, and honesty, and press my hand to the place where his heart would be if I could map it.
My fingers tremble. I can feel, in the unbridled ache beneath my ribs, how much he means it.
He means so much to me. That should be enough.
That should let me say the words, hand him back the gift he’s given.
But the memory of promises that turned to paper boats and drowned keeps its hold.
Trust is not a light I can switch on. It’s a road I’m too fearful to walk down.
I want to offer him everything he’s handed to me—the safety, the staying, the reckless kindness.
But the part of me that learned to survive by leaving a piece of myself at every exit still hesitates at the door.
Therefore, I say nothing. I curl into him in the only way I know how: with my trembling body, with a silence that means yes and maybe-not-yet all at once.
Soren doesn’t push. He holds me like I’m the most deadly and most beautiful thing he’s ever been trusted with, and that stability almost breaks me open.
Because some wounds take longer than one night, one poem, one promise to trust again.
I’m terrified of handing him my whole heart and watching him learn how to let go, and proving me right all over again.
Proving that love isn’t forever, except in stories.
That even the best of them leave, no matter how tightly you hold on.