Clarke
Avalon looked beautiful sprawled beneath me. Naked. Flawless. Mine.
We hadn’t bothered turning off the lights when we had entered the Big Barn, hands hungrily clawing at each other, and for the first time I was seeing her almost entirely naked in the light.
When we had first succumbed to our shared desires days ago, Avalon had been careful to keep my bedside lamp off, leaving us in just the natural light of the September moon.
Had she been ashamed of her scars? Worried that I might see them and think less of her? Scared that I might judge?
She had never looked more perfect; her scars were evidence that she had tried. She had tried to make her pain noticeable, screaming for someone to look at her and stay. To care.
I remembered that look on her face from that first night after she had told me about her assault and I had said that I cared. How long had she gone without hearing those words?
I didn’t want to think about the nights she had spent alone, crying in the bathroom and bleeding on the floor but an image flashed across my mind nonetheless.
Did she have matching ones on her wrists? Had she been scared she would bleed to death and only then would her parents decide to care?
Had that been the plan all along? To die just to be seen?
Running my hand up her torso, I laid flat on my belly and pulled her legs back towards my face. Avalon propped up a leg and arched her back as I lapped up and down her walls, moaning my name.
I gently thrust my index and middle finger inside her once more, feeling the slick wetness of her pussy coat them. With my thumb, I brushed over her sensitive clit and thrust into her again.
Avalon cried out my name, louder this time. Her hands clawed at the ground and her fingernails dug into the hardwood floor as her thighs tightened around my neck.
Reaching up, I cupped one of her breasts and rolled the taut nipple between my fingers. Avalon continued squirming, her breathing heavy; I knew she was about to come any minute now, but her efforts to hold it in was cute.
“It’s okay, baby,” I urged, rubbing her clit with my thumb again. “Let it out, you deserve it.”
A small hum was her only response and I laughed. “My, you sure are a stubborn little thing.”
I pulled myself onto my knees and leaned over her, keeping one hand on her heat and one over her breast. Gazing down at her, I saw sweat glistening across her chest and forehead.
Lust and desire coated her eyes as she looked up at me, her mouth parted slightly. I kissed that mouth, at the same time thrusting into her with more force than before.
Avalon whimpered into my lips, her thighs squeezing my hand. Her own lips were salty from sweat and I could smell arousal seeping from her pores.
I thrust into her again and again, harder each time until a warm liquid coated my fingers and her whimpers filled my ears.
“That’s it, good girl,” I praised, pressing my face into her neck as she came. “Good fucking girl.”
My girl. Mine.
Avalon was a sleepy, mumbling mess when we stumbled into bed. Allowing me to remove the remainder of her clothing and scrub the rodeo air off her, she kept smiling like a drunk fool. I tried my best to keep my own composure, softly murmuring gentle praises and reassurance.
Later, when she finally fell asleep in my arms, a soft snore escaping her, I let myself imagine what it might be like to be loved by her. Truly loved.
Would it be like the stories in Melody’s room? Would it be like my parents—fierce and unwavering? Or something entirely new— wild and free and entirely ours?
I imagined waking up to the smell of pancakes, her footsteps padding down the hall. I imagined her face glowing in the morning light, smiling at me like I was something worth choosing. I imagined a life where mornings began and nights ended with her.
“If you stare any longer, I’m gonna have to charge you,” Avalon murmured sleepily, eyes still closed.
I laughed, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I was wondering how long you’d pretend to be asleep.”
She curled into me with a groan. “I want to stay in this bed with you forever.”
“I know,” I whispered, stroking her hair. “Me too. But Delia’s coming over to go over wedding details.”
Avalon shot upright, eyes wide. “Colton proposed?”
I nodded. “They want to be married by the end of the week.”
“End of the week?” she gasped. “That’s in four days!”
I cupped her cheek, steadying her. “Slingshot weddings are an Opal Springs staple. No one here stays engaged longer than a week.”
Her mouth fell open. “Still. Four days is… four days.”
I pinched her cheek gently, earning a giggle. “Good thing we have an extra set of hands.”
She pointed to herself, eyes huge. “Me?”
I kissed her. “You.”
If there was ever a moment, I wondered how long a person could talk without stopping to breathe, it was now. Delia had been mid-sentence when Avalon and I walked into the Farm House, and in the fifteen minutes since we’d been assigned to string dried fruit onto thread, she hadn’t paused once.
From her seat at the dining table, back turned to us, she narrated every detail of Colton’s proposal—the way the moonlight hit his face when he knelt, the exact shade of the flowers he’d given her, the way her heart “nearly leapt out of her chest.” Melody, half-asleep on the sofa, listened with a soft smile.
“They were my favorites,” Delia said dreamily. “Amaryllis—but not just any amaryllis. The apricot ones.”
Her excitement warmed me. As I threaded a slice of orange beside a few cranberries, I glanced across the room and caught Melody’s eyes.
She looked better than she had last week.
The doctor Avalon flew in had given her something that eased the pain, and she’d been moving more—though Mama made her promise to save her strength for the wedding.
“Do you think she’s going to stop anytime soon?” Avalon muttered beside me. “I want to do something else, and I keep stabbing my finger with this stupid needle.”
I looked down at her garland— blood oranges and berries sewn in a pattern far less precise than mine. But she was trying, and that alone made me smile.
“Let me see.” I gently took the needle and thread from her hand and lifted her finger. “Ah. Yes. I see.”
A small bead of bright red blood swelled at the tip of her index finger. I grabbed a napkin from the hamper Mama kept near the mixing bowl, wiped her finger clean, then brought it to my lips.
Avalon giggled, leaning forward on her toes.
“There. All better.”
Another giggle sounded—Melody’s—before she quickly looked away, pretending to study the blanket tucked around her.
“Thank you,” Avalon whispered, brushing her thumb across the back of my hand just as Delia spun around.
“Hello? This is supposed to be my wedding-planning day.” She narrowed her green eyes at us. “Save your mushy-gushy stuff for after I’m married.”
Avalon and I exchanged a look.
“Yes ma’am,” she said, scooping up her abandoned garland. “But are we covering all of Texas in dried fruit? This seems excessive.”
Delia gasped, hand to her chest. “It is just enough. Clarke, tell her it’s fine.”
I leaned toward Avalon with a sigh. “Lia has always had a flair for the dramatic.”
“I heard that,” Delia grumbled, flipping through her cookbook again. She circled items with the enthusiasm of someone planning a feast for a small nation. We would definitely have to narrow her list down later. If she had her way, every dessert Mama had ever baked would be at the reception.
“It’s fine,” I murmured to Avalon. “Whatever we don’t use for the wedding will be used for Christmas.”
“Christmas,” she echoed softly. But her voice wasn’t thinking about dried fruit or holiday storage. I knew exactly where her mind had gone—the same place mine had.
Where would we be at Christmas? Would she still be here? Would she go back to California? Would she come back if I asked?
I placed my hand over hers. She looked up, storm-cloud eyes reflecting the same uncertainty in my own.
“It’s okay,” I said quietly. “We’ll figure it out.”
She nodded, turning back to her berries. “We better get these put together then. They won’t string themselves.”
Delia snorted from the table. “I don’t see why I can’t have everything at the reception. It is my day, after all.”
“You’ll give everyone diabetes and a sugar high,” I said, setting aside my finished garland. “What’s next on the agenda, boss lady?”
Delia launched into another list—one that seemed to grow longer with every breath. I tuned out around task number seven. Avalon must’ve done the same, because she tucked herself into my side with a sigh.
“You know,” she whispered, “the night Delia and I first met at Rorie’s, she pulled me aside and told me all the ways her father taught her to gut a deer.”
I snorted, burying my face in her hair to hide my laugh. I’d told Delia she wasn’t allowed to hurt Avalon, but I knew she’d find a loophole.
“She said she could make my death look like an accident,” Avalon continued, laughing softly. “If I ever hurt you again, she’d make it look like I was just another preppy nepo baby who never stood a chance in the Texas terrain.”
Her voice wavered—just slightly. Enough for me to hear the emotion beneath it. I turned toward her, checking that Delia was still absorbed in her cookbook.
“Hey,” I murmured, taking Avalon’s arms gently. My thumbs brushed up and down in slow, reassuring strokes. “It won’t be like that. Not this time. We’ll be fine, Avie.”
The nickname slipped out naturally—too naturally—and I didn’t regret it. I’d been holding it in for weeks, waiting for the right moment.
Judging by the way her eyes lit up, this had been the moment.
“Avie,” she whispered, smiling like I’d handed her the sun. “I like that.”
I kissed her smile. “I like you.”
She giggled, leaning into my side again. “Let’s pay attention before Delia finds a way to make both our deaths look like an accident.”