Page 79 of Cruz

“Yes,” I whisper.

His hand tightens around mine.

“Yes?” he repeats, like he needs to be sure.

I step closer. “Yes, Cruz. I’ll be your old lady.”

The relief that moves through him is visible. His shoulders drop. His eyes close for half a second. When they open again, there’s so much naked feeling there that I can’t breathe.

“I love you,” he says.

The words are rough. They aren’t polished or poetry, but they’re everything. My chest breaks open, but not in a bad way. More like a window thrown wide after years of being painted shut.

“I love you too.”

His hand comes up, cradling my face. He kisses me like we have all the time in the world and not nearly enough of it. Slow and deep and shaking with all the emotion he can’t say, even now. I feel it anyway. In his mouth. In his hands. In the careful way he holds me, like I’m precious and real and fully capable of holding him back.

When we part, my cheeks are wet.

He brushes the tears away with his thumbs.

“Happy tears?” he asks.

“Mostly.” I sniff. “Some overwhelmed tears. A few ‘what the hell is my life’ tears.”

“That seems fair.”

I laugh and lean into him, wrapping my arms around his middle. He holds me against his chest, his chin resting on the top of my head.

Below us, Hart carries on. The people who have become tangled up in our lives in ways I never expected. Liam is down there, settling into the club, into adulthood, into himself. I don’t have to hold him so tightly anymore. That doesn’t mean letting go. It means trusting the roots I gave him and the wings he’s building for himself.

The wind slips around us, cold enough to make me shiver. Cruz immediately notices and pulls me closer.

“Ready to head back?”

I glance at the bike. At the road and the town below. Then I look at him.

“Yes.”

He helps me with my helmet, careful as ever. Before he closes the visor, he kisses me once more, quick and sweet.

Getting on the back of his bike feels different this time. Maybe nothing has changed in the last five minutes. Maybe everything has. I wrap my arms around him, and when the engine rumbles to life beneath us, I hold on without fear.

Not because the road is safe.

Because I choose the ride.

Because I choose him.

And because he chooses me right back.

Epilogue

Sloane

One Year Later…

I was unnerved at first by the buzzing sound that the tattoo machines make. It ramped my adrenaline up, and I was already nervous to begin with. It’s kind of like going to the dentist and walking in, smelling that smell and hearing the drills, and just knowing that it’s going to be a horror show.