Your Fault (Culpable, #2)

by Mercedes Ron

Damn you, Nicholas Leister, why can’t I get you out of my head for at least one second a day?

“I think you’ve had enough.” That voice. I looked up, and there he was: Nick.

“I missed you, Freckles,” he whispered in my ear before pulling my head back and kissing me on the lips.

“I love you, Nick,” I said when his eyes met mine. “You and I aren’t made to be apart,” he responded.

“I love you like crazy, you know that, right?” I said. “I love you more,”

“This way, wherever you go, you’ll always have my heart with you,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. It was the cheesiest thing I’d ever said, but that was what she’d done to me. I was now an idiot in love.

I’d have preferred everyone did know what we’d been up to. That would keep all the little boys away from my girlfriend.

“You’re the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to me, Freckles, so don’t ever worry about thanking me.”

“I love you, Nick. Do you love me?” “I love you more than I love myself,”

“I want to see that face of yours when I wake up,” he confessed, and now his finger stopped on my lower lip. “I want to kiss your lips before I go to sleep,” he continued in a hoarse voice. “I want to feel you every time I go to bed. To dream with you in my arms. To watch you while you sleep. To take care of you every second of the day.”

Men come and go, but happiness is something you alone can cultivate.”

“You’re the one thing in my life that brings me peace. The one thing that makes me feel safe.”

“You’ve got me under your spell… I’m more yours than I am my own. I’ll do whatever you ask, whatever you want. I promise, babe.”

“When you’re tied too tightly to someone…it hurts when you break free, but it’s either that or you’re trapped forever. And I’m one of those who’s trapped forever.”

“I could spend hours just looking at you, Noah. You’re precious in every sense of the word.”

I realized we were both ruined. If I had thought before that I knew what pain was, seeing him in pain because of what I’d done was only that much worse. It hurts when someone breaks your heart, but that’s nothing compared to breaking the heart of the person you love with all your soul.

I understood now that the past ought to remain in the past because when we let it come back, it can devour our present.

When you meet the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, there’s no going back. Lots of people never learn what that feels like; they think they have, but they’re wrong.