Page 42 of Bend

He lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh, all frayed around the edges. “You are an actual menace.”

“Mm.” She tips her face toward him, brushing one last kiss to the corner of his mouth. “You want him. I want you both. So let’s stop pretending.”

That gets his eyes back on hers.

Then on me.

He doesn’t say a word, and yet his eyes say everything.

Echo’s hand slides from my chest to my shoulder, then from his shirt to his jaw, holding us both in the moment for half a second longer. “There’s no prize for resisting something we both know you want,” she murmurs.

Thorne swallows hard.

The room feels tiny now. Cheap motel air. Hum of the AC. Lamp throwing everything in gold. My goddamn pulse is pounding like it’s trying to get out of me.

Echo looks between us one more time, like she’s taking stock, then slowly lets her hands fall away.

Not all at once.

Just enough.

Just enough that there’s nothing left between us but the choice.

Thorne’s eyes drop to my mouth.

Stay there, and Christ, that nearly undoes me by itself.

I hold his gaze and let him see that I’m here, that I’m not about to laugh this off in the morning, that if he wants it, I’ll meet him there.

Echo leans in close to his ear, her voice low and pleased. “Go on.”

That breaks whatever thin thread he’s been hanging from.

He steps into me and kisses me like he’s done fighting it.

It isn’t careful and it sure as fuck isn’t tentative.

It’s hot and hungry and a little angry around the edges, like he’s got hours of tension and a dozen swallowed thoughts caught behind his teeth and this is the only way he knows how to let any of it out.

My hand is on the back of his neck before I even register moving, and I kiss him back just as hard, because there’s no world where I’m giving him anything less than everything I’ve been holding back.

He makes this rough, helpless sound that goes straight through me.

My other hand catches his waist and drags him closer, and he comes without hesitation now, one fist tangling holding me by my hair like he needs the anchor of it.

There’s nothing polished about the way he kisses me. It’s just want. Real, messy and so fucking overdue in the best way.

“Fuck yes, There we go,” she murmurs, eyes moving between us. “That’s better.”

Thorne lets out a rough exhale, still close enough that every breath brushes my mouth. His hand is still fisted in my hair, like he hasn’t remembered how to let go yet. Echo’s fingers smooth over his chest, then up into his hair, grounding him while she kisses the corner of his mouth, slow and coaxing.

“You feel that?” she asks softly.

He laughs under his breath, a little wrecked around the edges. “Bit hard to miss, innit?”

Her smile curves. “Good.”

Then she looks at me, still holding him. “Don’t let him run.”