Page 22 of Crush
Luca’s thumb traces my cheekbone, the touch achingly gentle. “From the moment I saw you in that piazza, Anabel, I felt it. The way you looked at Cole, like he was the only thing in the world that mattered. The way you trembled when he touchedyou, even by accident. You didn’t just want him. You loved him. And you were so afraid of ruining it.”
My throat tightens. I remember that moment—the gelato on my lip, his thumb brushing it away, the way my pulse had roared in my ears.
“And you, Cole,” Luca murmurs. “You watched her like she was the sun. You blushed when she smiled at you. You ached for her, but you were too afraid to believe she could want you back.”
Cole swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Luca’s gaze flicks between us, his voice dropping to something deeper, richer. “I’ve spent centuries watching love bloom, but I’ve never felt it like this. Not until you two. Your wish wasn’t just words. It was longing. And I think it called to me because…” He hesitates, his throat working. “Because you were always meant to be mine, too.”
The golden threads between us pulse, like they’re agreeing.
“I didn’t understand it at first,” Luca admits, his fingers sliding into my hair, tilting my face up. “But the moment I touched you, the moment I tasted you, I knew. This wasn’t just a wish. This was fate. The three of us, we’re bound by something bigger than any of us. And this bond is real, and it’s forever. Immortality is yours, if you choose it. Everything I have is yours.”
The warmth of his words seeps into my bones, into the places I didn’t even know were cold.
“We’ll have some…red tape to deal with,” he says. “There may be a ritual we’ll have to perform in front of Jupiter to prove the reality of the bond, but…”
“What’s a little red tape in the face of forever?” asks Cole, grinning widely at both of us. Luca laughs and kisses each of us.
“I love you both,” Luca says, simple and sure. “And I’m never letting you go.”
