44. Chapter 44 #2
“You.” It comes out cracked. “Your soul isn’t . . . it isn’t an abstraction to me. It’s not supposed to be like that. But you . . .” He looks straight at me. “You’re my soulmate.”
“What?”
“I feel you all the time, like a second pulse.” His voice roughens.
“I’d know the instant it left you. And when they put it into the furnace, I’d still know where it was.
The bond doesn’t break when you die. It doesn’t let go.
Ever. I’d spend eternity bound to whatever remained of you, knowing I was the reason you were there.
” His hands curl into fists at his sides.
“You’re asking me to condemn the one person who has made me want more than the life I was given, then carry what I did forever. So no. I won’t do that to you.”
“Soulmate isn’t . . . you can’t just say stuff like that to me now.”
But the word slips past my defenses and reaches the old, foolish part of me that still knows how to hope.
Soulmate.
As if fate could look at all of me and decide I was worth choosing. That I was exactly the person someone had been made to find. I hate how badly I want it to be real. But my thoughts are a machine that never powers down, and right now it’s about to tear this apart before I’ve even accepted it.
“I wish it had happened differently.” His voice drops.
“Because I do want to stay, Evie. More than I’ve ever wanted anything.
” He swallows. “And watching you stand here and offer away your soul because you think you can’t manage without a bargain .
. . I don’t know how to make you understand what that does to me. ”
“Milo—”
“You’re the most stubborn, resilient, quietly brilliant person I’ve ever encountered, and you’ll make something extraordinary out of this life.
” His thumb brushes beneath my eye, catching moisture I hadn’t noticed gathering there.
“You don’t need a bargain for that. And you don’t need me to rescue you.
You’re going to be all right, even if I hate that I won’t be here to see it. ”
A dozen questions hit at once, but the new truth between us is too raw to examine. If I keep thinking, I’ll tear it apart before I even understand it. I fist both hands in his shirt and drag our mouths together.
His lips part around a startled breath as the force of it drives him backward. Cotton strains between my knuckles until his shoulders meet the stone with a muted thud. I close the remaining distance, molding myself to the long line of his body and taking every scrap of closeness he offers.
Milo’s thigh slots between mine, the seam of my jeans grinding exactly where I need it. His hands close around my waist, grip firm despite the tremor in his fingers. I roll my hips against his leg, and his head drops back, exposing the tense line of his throat.
“Evie. Slow down.”
“No.” I kiss the sharp angle of his jaw. “Please, let me have this.”
He looks wrecked already, curls a mess, glasses sliding down his nose, but the concern on his face outshines everything else.
“Tell me if you want me to stop.”
“I won’t.”
“Okay.” He swallows hard. “Take whatever you want from me.”
I settle into a slower, grinding rhythm, the thick press of his cock shifting against my stomach. Damp heat spreads through my underwear.
Milo stays rigid beneath me, muscles locked while his breath stutters each time I bear down.
When he cups the back of my head and kisses me, it’s clumsy and open-mouthed, our lips parting whenever the friction wrings another sound out of me.
My palms slide under his shirt, and the instant they meet hot skin, his stomach clenches.
“What do you need?” he rasps.
“More of this.” I release a keening whine. “You, moving less.”
“I can do that.” A soft huff stirs my hair. “Use me. I’m yours to ruin.”
The pressure gathering low in my belly winds tighter, until even breathing takes effort. His grip on my hips firms, anchoring me when my thighs start to shake.
“That’s it.” Milo’s mouth moves to my throat, resting over the frantic beat there. “Keep going. I need the memory of you this close etched so deeply into me that even eternity can’t wear it away.”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
The rhythm stops, and its sudden absence aches through every place we were touching. Milo’s arms fold around me, drawing me into his chest until my cheek meets the soft cotton over his heartbeat.
“I know,” he murmurs against my temple. “I’d give anything for this not to have an ending.”
The ache under my ribs swells too fast to swallow. I move my face to his neck and bite down, needing somewhere to put the enormity of it. He answers with a groan that vibrates through both of us.
One of his hands moves beneath my thigh and lifts me. The shift drapes me more fully over his leg, held in place by the broad palm that settles over my ass. This time, he takes over.
Milo’s knee rises beneath me in a slow, controlled roll while he draws me forward to meet it. My forehead drops to his shoulder. For a moment, I can do nothing except cling to him while each upward push strips another thought clean from my mind.
He repeats the motion, firmer this time. My jeans are damp enough now that the drag between us has become indecently smooth. The next rock of his thigh comes with a needy whimper, like giving me this undoes him nearly as much as taking it is affecting me.
My thighs clamp around his leg, and I’m right there, one more roll and—
Every bulb in the basement blazes to life at once. The brightness strikes hard after the dark, bleaching everything white behind my closed eyes. I jerk back, and Milo’s hands fall away as we separate in a clumsy tangle of limbs and half-caught breaths.
From above, muffled by the door and the last rolling growls of the storm, a voice carries down. “The lights are back! Evie? Are you down there?”
“Yes.” My answer comes out hoarse. I clear my throat and try again. “The door’s stuck. Can you open it from your side?”
Footsteps cross the floor overhead. The knob jerks, the latch releases, and the swollen door drags open, scraping the frame. Light spills down the narrow stairwell.
I press my palms flat against my eyes. Breathe once. Twice.
It doesn’t help. My body is still unsteady from his mouth, and yet my thoughts have already seized on the confession and begun worrying it raw. He’s carried that knowledge of us being soulmates for however long and never trusted me with it.
The timing is atrocious, but the secrecy cuts deeper. I don’t know when he realized what the word means to him, or how many moments between us have held an entire truth I couldn’t see. Now that I know, I can’t return to the ignorance of five minutes ago.
I’d rather he’d kept it to himself.
“This was a mistake.”
“Evie.” Milo steps toward me. His hands hover at his sides. “Please don’t walk away from this.”
“I’ve got guests waiting upstairs.” I straighten my shirt, fumbling the hem twice before my fingers cooperate.
“Ask me anything.” He closes the distance between us. “Be angry with me. Tell me I should’ve said it sooner, because I should’ve. But don’t shut me out without letting me explain.”
The plea in his voice catches against every emotion already crowding my chest. “I can’t do this right now.”
“Stay and let me talk to you.”
“No.” I move toward the stairs.
“Evie, please.”
His footsteps follow. When I reach the first step, his hand closes around the railing beside mine.
“Let me come with you.”
“No.” I climb before he can move around me and pull the door wider between us. “Leave me alone, Milo.”
For once, he listens. I watch the warmth in his eyes collide with the wall I’m erecting.
This is better for both of us.