Avela’s POV
The words left my mouth before my brain caught up.
“I love you, Lucas. I love you so much.”
The second they were out, the air in the room turned thick, warm, smelling like us, froze solid. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought it might crack one. I stared up at him, still buried deep inside me, still pulsing with the aftershocks of what we’d just done, and I watched the shock roll across his face like a storm.
His eyes went wide. His lips parted. He didn’t breathe.
Oh God.
I hadn’t meant to say it. Not yet. Not like this, naked and sweaty and open in every possible way. But it had torn out of me because it was true, because in that moment, with him looking at me like I was everything, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Now it felt like the stu
