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Finn and I broke apart, and the blond man peeked at the clock on the nightstand.
“Ah, fuck. Almost nine. I gotta get to class.”
“Yeah, me too.” Elijah rolled over and buried his face in my hair, trailing his lips over the skin of my shoulder in a way that sure didn’t make it seem like he had anywhere to be. I squirmed under his touch, grinning broadly as I tilted my head to give him access to more of my neck.
He took it greedily, and Finn kissed my lips again before pulling away with a groan.
“Goddammit. Is passing this class really that important?”
I laughed and shoved at his chest lightly. “Yes. Go!”
His dimples popped as he grinned at me, and he leaned over to steal one more kiss, deepening it just enough to leave me breathless.
“Love you, Legs.”
He threw the covers off and hopped out of bed, heading out of my room as I turned back toward Elijah.
“That goes for you too, you know. You need to get up,” I told him, although I didn’t protest when his lips found my neck again, his hand wandering up underneath my tank top to gently massage my breast.
“Yeah. I will. I just need another minute,” he said against my skin.
I knew what he meant.
The guys and I had been living together for a year, but it still sometimes felt like it wasn’t enough—like we could never touch each other enough, never hold each other close enough. We all still carried scars from our pasts, and one of mine was the persistent fear that the people I loved would vanish from my life in a blink.
But I tried not to live in that place or let old thoughts and fears drag me down.
Life was too fucking short for that.
When Elijah ran his lips along my jaw, I turned toward him and wrapped my arms around him, and we made out like it was a lazy Saturday morning instead of a Tuesday late in our second semester of college.
We were all freshmen at Stanford—we’d collectively taken a year off after graduation, and it’d been the best, most healing year of my life. The Princes had watched their parents be tried and convicted of embezzlement and murder, and although it’d been painful, there had been something therapeutic about it too. I thought maybe it was the thing that had finally convinced Mason I was right—that we weren’t our parents.
We had stayed in Roseland for that entire year, and I’d continued to work with Scott on my rehabilitation. About six months after I graduated, he’d finally caved and become a permanent resident of the city—he’d been taking on additional clients at the rehab facility for a while by that point, and he didn’t have any strong attachments back in Oregon.
It was a little thing, his decision to stay, but it made me glad. He and Philip had become weirdly good friends, and knowing my grandpa had a buddy around had made it easier for me to leave for Stanford.
He also had Jacqueline, of course, and I was glad about that too. I was working to forgive my grandmother for everything she’d done in the past. It was still a struggle sometimes, but I tried a little harder because I didn’t think she’d ever forgive herself.
She still sucked at expressing her feelings, and she was still stiff and uncomfortable with me in person. But she’d started writing me letters—the old fashioned, arrive-in-the-mailbox kind—and in her careful, elegant handwriting, I could feel both warmth and sorrow. At first, I’d felt strange writing back, not quite sure what to say. But our letters to each other had gotten longer and longer, and I thought maybe someday we’d find a way to say all those things to each other face-to-face.
Reluctantly, Elijah pulled away from me, his hazel eyes sparking with heat and his hands still roaming my body.
“You have class today?” he asked.
“Uh huh, but not till eleven. Then I’m seeing a couple clients this evening.”
“Yeah?” He beamed. “Good.”
I grinned back. “Yep, I’m excited. But seriously, you better go, or Finn’s gonna come back in here and get you.”
He rolled his eyes but pressed away from me and stood up. The fallen angel tattoo on his back shifted with his movements as he walked across the room, and I watched him go.
I had traced every inch of that tattoo with my fingertips more times than I could count, but I never got tired of seeing it.
Sometimes you have to fall to be free.
When I emerged from my bedroom a few minutes later, Finn and Elijah were nowhere to be seen, but Mason and Cole were at the table eating breakfast. They tended to be the early risers among us, even when they didn’t have to be up for anything in particular.
