Page 119

Somewhere in the universe, all the pieces of him were coming together under that sound. She was stitched into him, melded into his bones, his veins.

When he slid inside her, he cursed, low and soft.

Maybe there was a world where they were together. Where he walked the busy streets of New York beside her, hands linked. Where they built their own rules and traditions. Where there was a small baby in a bassinet that looked like her. There was a world, he had to believe, where they wore rings and shared the same name.

“I love you,” he breathed, lifting her leg higher around his hip. “Even when there is nothing left of me, I will be yours. Always.”

Her tears soaked the pillow below her head. She drew him to her and helpless, he went. He surrendered, heart and soul, to her touch, the crush of her mouth, the squeeze of her legs around him.

This was heaven.

It had to be.

This was what it was like to be remade.

Avery’s breathing hitched, mouth shaped into his name. He felt her release, the way it barreled through her, and he followed, bowing his head over her heart.

He tucked her against him, skin sweaty and sticky.

She drew idle circles over his chest and Wolfe squeezed his eyes shut, desperately trying to remember every moment of this. Every second.

When the sun rose, he would be weaker.

It would be harder to hold her like this. His hands wouldn’t be his own. They’d be lost to the shadows between the rays of the sun.

Avery tipped her face up toward his. “What are you thinking?”

She curled on her side, one hand tucked under her cheek, the other dancing across his chest. Her cheeks were flushed, stained a pretty shade of pink.

He didn’t want to ruin the mood with worries about tomorrow. It was the one thing he’d never managed to quite figure out when he was alive—how not to succumb to the worries of the future.

It’d been a perfect day. A perfect night. He didn’t want to ruin it by wondering how much longer he had like this with her.

“Honestly,” she tacked on, eyes narrowed.

He swallowed thickly, painfully. “There is a chance—that tomorrow—”

That I won’t be as I am. That this may be my last night to hold you.

“I know,” she said softly. “But you’ll still be here with me, won’t you?”

“Aye,” he murmured. “I’ll be with you.”

She gave him a little grin. “Then that’s all I need right now.” Her eyes fluttered shut. “Just you, right here.”

He gathered her close, resting his cheek on the top of her head.

“You said you’d be here for your birthday,” he said, suddenly remembering one of their first conversations. “When?”

“Friday,” she said around a yawn.

“So soon,” he whispered. He counted the days between now and then. In five days time, he’d be contained to the mists again, back struggling to make her a cup of tea and holding a book. “We’ll celebrate,” he promised. “What would you like to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never really celebrated it. It’s just a day.”

Outraged, he twisted his neck to look at her. “It’s not just a day. It’s the day your soul came into this world. That is worth celebrating. Think of what this world would be without you.”

Think of what I would be without you.