Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“I already can’t take it back,” she says.
A beat.
Then—
“I love you.”
She doesn’t say the words as much as they seem to fall out of her. Break out of her, as if they hurt. Like they were never meant to be said here.
Not in this.
Not with what we are.
My entire body goes still.
“I love you knowing exactly what you did,” she says. “I love you knowing what you took from me.”
I tighten my grip. “That’s not love.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No.”
“It is,” she says, fiercer now. “Because I’m not confused. I’m not pretending it didn’t happen.” She gulps, breathing in. “I’m choosing you anyway.”
God, she’s breaking me. I pull her close. She hits my chest and doesn’t pull away.
“You shouldn’t love me,” I say against her.
“I know.”
That almost takes me down. Because she’s not asking me to fix it. She’s not asking me to make it better. She’s choosing it as it is.
Emotion coils through me, everything I’ve been trying to not feel for her but knowing in my heart anyway.
She slides her fingers up my chest and over my shoulder into my hair. She pulls me down, and this time, when our mouths meet, it’s different.
Slower.
Heavier.
She knows what I am. She knows what I did. And we’re here anyway.
I slide my hands over her arms, her waist, back up to her shoulders, her cheeks, as if I need to memorize this moment before it disappears.
And the words I’ve never said to anyone before erupt out of me as I break the kiss.
“I love you too.”
She sighs. “Say it again,” she whispers.
“I love you.”
She closes her eyes, seeming to revel in my confession for a moment, but then opens them. They are no longer soft and gentle and blue-gray. Now they’re a silvery sword, ready for action.
“Now we finish this,” she says, her voice low. “The truth, the setup, all of it.”
I nod.
Because there’s nothing else left.
Because this is what we chose.
Together.
But somewhere underneath it all, I feel something darker settle.
Something I can’t put a word to. Not yet. But whatever it is, I’ll carry it for both of us. Whatever is coming, I won’t let it break her.
Even if it breaks me.
50
DELANEY
I wake slowly, sensation returning before thought does.
The weight of blankets. The faint ache between my thighs. The soreness in my mouth from kissing him too hard, too long. The smell of him in the sheets, on my skin, in the air itself.
For several seconds, I keep my eyes closed.
Because if I don’t open them, I can stay here a little longer—in that strange place between sleep and waking, before the world becomes real again.
Before I have to say it again inside my own head.
Samson Vexley killed my father.
I love him.
The words arrive anyway.
Not as a shock.
Last night was the shock. Last night was the breaking open. Last night was the moment the ugly truth stood between us and I looked at it—really looked at it—and chose him anyway.
That’s what feels different this morning.
Not that I love him.
Not that he killed my father.
But that I still don’t regret choosing him.
One feeling rises above the rest.
It’s certainty. Dark, terrible certainty. He killed the man who gave me life. And still, if I had to choose again, I would choose the beast.
My eyes open.
I’m in Samson’s bedroom, in Samson’s bed—the bed where I gave myself fully to him.
I almost feel like I’m outside ordinary time, that none of this has truly happened. This place seems older than time in some ways.
Like prisoners maybe lived here.
Or monsters.
Of course not, but secrets do live here. I know that now.
And still I choose the man who’s sleeping beside me.
One arm is bent above his head. The other rests low across his abdomen. His breathing is even, but even asleep, he looks ready to lunge at the next threat. As if some essential part of him never unclenches. Never yields. Never lets go enough to be harmless.
Beauty and the Beast got that wrong, I think.
The beast doesn’t become less dangerous when he loves. He becomes more dangerous, because now he has something to lose.
I look at his handsome face, the hard line of his jaw, the dark lashes against his cheek, his black stubble.
Heat rises in my chest, something almost like pride and something almost like grief.
The bruising along his knuckles has darkened overnight. I think about those same hands on me. On my throat. On my hips. On the wall beside my head. I think about those hands fifteen years ago on a dock in the dark, as he killed without question.
Blind strength.
Not stupid. Not mindless. Just trained. Used.
A man born with power he doesn’t entirely own.
That’s part of what I chose too. Not just the violence in him. Not just the hunger. But the terrible possibility that someone else put that violence where it needed to be and called it his destiny.