Page 222 of Bend

I lean down and kiss him, long and deep, and somewhere in the middle of it I realize I’m crying. Tears slip down my cheeks and onto his, but I don’t pull away or wipe them off. I’m too fucking tired to hide any of this from him.

When I finally break the kiss, I stay close enough that our mouths still brush when I speak.

“Wolfe loved you.”

Thorne’s eyes close.

“He did,” I whisper. “So fucking much. He saw you, Thorne. Even when you were too busy fighting yourself to see any of it.”

A shudder moves through him, hard enough that I feel it everywhere we’re touching. His hands tighten around my waist and pull me closer until there’s barely any space left between us.

“I loved him too,” he says, voice breaking around the words. “Fuck, Echo, I loved him so bloody much.”

His forehead drops against mine.

“And now he’s gone, and I haven’t got a fucking clue what I’m supposed to do with all of that.”

My chest caves in because I don’t either.

So I hold his face between my hands and keep moving slowly against him.

“Neither do I.”

His eyes open.

Thorne swallows hard, tears caught in his lashes as gaze slips past my shoulder and catches on the room around us, on the bed, the walls, all the little pieces of Wolfe that still make this place feel like his. I see the guilt hit him almost immediately, the way his jaw tightens and his eyes go somewhere far away even though he’s still holding me.

I cup his face and turn him back to me.

“Don’t.”

His eyes meet mine.

“Don’t go somewhere else right now. Stay here with me.”

His brow pulls together, but I keep my hands on him, thumbs brushing slowly beneath his eyes.

“Focus on me. On this. On what’s between us.” My voice softens. “I’m here, Thorne. I’m not going anywhere.”

His throat works when he swallows. “You don’t know that.”

“I know what I’m choosing.” I lean closer until our foreheads touch. “And I’m choosing you. I’m choosing this. You’re not losing me.”

Something in his face cracks, and for a second he just looks at me like grief has made every promise harder to believe.

So I kiss him.

Slowly.

“You’ve got me,” I whisper against his mouth.

His hands tighten around me. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Stay with me.”

That finally brings him back. His eyes stay on mine now, and when we begin moving together again, it’s with the same slow rhythm we started with, neither of us trying to rush toward anything. I keep one hand against his chest, feeling his heartbeat speed beneath my palm while his arms hold me close enough that every breath belongs to both of us.

The emotion builds with everything else, tangled so tightly together that I can’t separate one from the other anymore. Grief, relief, love, fear, the unbearable comfort of having him here when Wolfe isn’t.