Page 178 of Seven Lost Summers
“Fuck the pizza,” she says, her voice low, thick with heat. There’s a wicked glint in her eye that punches the air straight out of my lungs.
Then she reaches for my hand, her palm hot, wrapping around my wrist before sliding down to lace through my fingers.
The feel of her skin against mine is enough to make my thoughts splinter.
We follow.
I trail a step behind, watching the sway of her hips in those tiny fucking shorts, the hem riding higher with every step. Her shirt’s slipping off one shoulder, hanging loose enough to tease the curve of her tits. No bra. Nothing but temptation painted in every goddamn inch of her.
Nate walks beside her, his jaw flexing the way it always does when he’s fighting the urge to lose control.
I understand that pull.
I carry the same tension, coiling tighter with every step toward her room. Every heartbeat slams harder in my chest.
She’s not walking, she’s fucking leading us to our knees. To her bed, where nothing else exists but skin and sweat and every filthy, perfect way we’ve learned to worship her.
And fuck me if I’m not ready to burn for it.
“You know,” I say, as we step into her room, “we could still eat the pizza while we fuck. Bite between thrusts. Feed each other while I’m balls deep in you. Multitasking at its filthiest.”
Quinn laughs, breath catching halfway through, and Nate groans beside me.
“You’re impossible,” he mutters.
“Yeah,” I say, grinning. “But now I’m yours. Both of yours. So buckle the fuck up. I snore, hog the sheets, and come with a warning label.”
The door clicks shut behind us, and for the first time, it feels as if something has truly ended.
Not in the way heartbreak does.
Not in the way grief eats through you.
This is quieter. Deeper. It’s the end of every lie I’ve ever told myself just to survive.
All of it. The chaos, the shame, the years I spent trying to outrun the version of me my father built with his hurtful words. They all start to fall away. That power over me is gone.
For the first time in my life, I let myself want. I open myself to everything, the ache, the beauty, the weight of being loved this much without having to earn a single fucking second.
With Quinn holding my hand and Nate right beside me, something in my chest settles. It clicks into place.
I used to think I was made wrong. That I was too much or never enough. That I was cursed. That anyone I loved would unravel. That I dragged the wreckage behind me, bleeding worthlessness into their lives, poisoning everything I touched.
But standing here now, with them, I finally understand I’m more than the mistake my father convinced me I was. More than the shame he fed me. More than the curse he swore I’d carry until I destroyed everything I touched. He never loved me. He didn’t have the capacity. All he ever managed was making me think I was born already broken, before I even had a chance to be anything else. But I’m not him. I’ve learned how to love.
Quinn tugs us toward the bed. We follow. Of course we fucking do. This is the moment we stop running. The moment everything that’s been bruised and broken inside us finally breathes.
Three hearts.
One fire.
No boundaries.
No shame.
No rules, only the ones we carve with shaking hands, open mouths, and bodies finally learning what it means to belong.
This is where we begin.
