Page 106 of Over the Edge

Flynn groaned, his control slipping as my release triggered his own. His movements became more urgent, more primal, as he chased his pleasure. I wrapped my legs tighter around him, urging him deeper, wanting to feel every moment of his surrender.

“Lyric,” he gasped, his voice breaking on my name as he shuddered above me. The warmth of his release filled me, his body tensing then gradually relaxing as he came down from his high.

For several heartbeats, we lay tangled together, our breathing gradually slowing. Flynn’s weight pressed me into the mattress and I traced idle patterns across his back, marveling at how different this felt from every other time we’d been together. The urgency was gone, replaced by something quieter but infinitely more powerful. I felt anchored, present in a way I hadn’t been in years—maybe ever.

When he finally moved to roll off me, I tightened my arms around him.

“Not yet,” I whispered.

He settled back against me, careful to brace some of his weight on his forearms. “I don’t want to crush you.”

“You’re not. I like feeling you.”

“How about this?” He rolled, dragging me onto on his chest.

I nuzzled in closer. “This is perfect.”

“Yes, it is.” His hand moved to my shoulder, fingers finding the jagged scar that ran from my collarbone to just below my shoulder blade, a souvenir from a mission gone wrong in Caracas. He traced its outline with a gentleness that made my throat tight. “Does it have a story?”

“Machete. I zigged when I should have zagged.”

His quiet chuckle vibrated under my ear. “Rookie mistake.”

“I was green.” I smiled against his skin. “Thought I was invincible.”

“And you don’t now?”

“Oh, I’m still invincible,” I said, lifting my head to grin at him. “Especially since I’ve learned when to zag instead of zig.”

He laughed again, captured my hand, and brought it to his lips. Against my knuckles, he whispered, “Jesus, I love you so much,” the words a warm breath across my skin.

It wasn’t the first time he’d said it. Each time before, I’d deflected, or flinched, or changed the subject, or simply let the words hang in the air without acknowledgment. Each time, I’d seen the flash of resignation in his eyes, the acceptance that I might never say it back. Yet he’d kept saying it anyway, offering the words like a gift that required nothing in return.

But something had shifted tonight. The walls I’d built after Elodie died, the barriers I’d reinforced through years of loss and betrayal, had finally begun to crumble. Not all at once—not completely—but enough that I could see beyond them to what waited on the other side.

I thought of all the reasons I’d held back. Fear of loss. Fear of vulnerability. Fear that loving someone meant eventually losing them. But hadn’t I already learned the hard way that walls didn’t protect you from pain? They just kept you from fully living.

Flynn had started to trace patterns on my back again, giving me the space he always did, expecting nothing. He’d whispered those three words against my skin so many times, never demanding them in return. He’d wait forever, I realized. He’d keep loving me even if I never said it back.

But I didn’t want that anymore.

“Flynn.” I shifted in his arms, moving up so our faces were level, our noses almost touching.

“I think—” I stopped and shook my head.

No, dammit. No qualifiers. No half-measures. Not with him.

“No, I know—” Again, the words caught in my throat.

“It’s okay, princess,” he murmured, pushing a wayward strand of hair back from my face. “You don’t have to say it.”

God, who would’ve thought there was so much sweet patience under all that swagger when we first met?

I was under no illusions—he wasn’t perfect. Far from it. He was still cocky as hell and sometimes infuriatingly stubborn. He’d make me crazy with his recklessness and his habit of charging into danger and his alpha male possessiveness. But he was also loyal and brave and kind in all ways that mattered. He’d been patient with me in a way no one else had ever been, taking the time to peel away all my other identities to find the real me. And, in the process, he had become the person I trusted most in this world.

No, he wasn’t perfect.

But he was perfect for me and I would be an idiot to let him go.

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