Under Your Scars (Under Your Scars, #1)

by Ariel N. Anderson

“I am equal parts impressed and concerned that you wrote this.” -My Husband

W Hubby

Oh, hi. I witnessed a triple murder last night and my first instinct was to wrap myself in blankets and cry instead of going to the police.

Fair ngl

“Until next time, Elena.” Oh yeah, I’m definitely going to imagine him saying my name like that with my vibrator against my clit tonight.

Also fair

“I’m pretty sure there’s a clause in my employment contract that says if I so much as breathe in your direction outside this building, I’ll be sued so aggressively my grandchildren won’t be able to afford to eat much more than dirt.

Reminds me of that one quote I highlighted in Cruel Paradise (Oryolov Bratva Book 1) by Nicole Fox

with trembling hands, I cup his masked jaw and force him to rest his forehead against mine. I don’t know what else to do to calm him down. He grips my wrists tightly, squeezing and then relaxing and squeezing again, as if he’s trying to ground himself. “I can feel them, you know.”

fuck.

“Feel what?” He takes a shuddering breath. “I designed the mask myself. There are sensors on the outside that project whatever is touching the mask onto my skin. It tingles. I can feel your fingers. I can feel your little breaths across my face.” He presses closer into me. “I can feel it all.” I run my fingers along his cheek and then I gulp before pressing my lips to the front of his mask where his own would be. I look up at him from under my lashes. “You can feel that?”

fuuuuck.

“If you’re so concerned about my humanity, Elena, then reach into my soul and find it, because I’m not sure I have any left.”

My heart goes out to this book

This entire section of the garden is like stepping into a fairytale. “I want to jump in it so bad,” I exclaim with glee, though I’m really only joking. “Your wish is my command,” he purrs, and before I have a chance to comprehend it, I feel him wrap his arm around my waist, spin me to face him, and then with a devilishly handsome smile, he sends us tumbling down to the ground into the whimsical blooms.

The best part about this quote is the fact that, once the book is finished, it really hurts to read.

I spy his black McLaren, and my heart skips a beat. This is his favorite car. His signature car. His baby, according to the interview he did when he was named Sexiest Man Alive a few years back.

I love men with good cars

“Hi Elena. Are you Mrs. Reeves yet?”

Soon, baby. Soon.

“Mr. Reeves, you have to marry Elena right now!” She pushes the two plastic rings closer to us. “Hurry! Before she marries someone else!”

Nodding along

“Otherwise known as my better half,”

Yes.

Christian told me on the way here that he doesn’t like the term ‘girlfriend’ because he thinks it sounds juvenile. He also hates ‘partner’ because it sounds too emotionally detached and ‘significant other’ sounds too corporate. He made a joke that he couldn’t wait to refer to me as his wife, and I swear I stopped breathing for so long that I turned purple.

He has a good point

“No,” he snaps with a tone change so abrupt I need a chiropractor from the whiplash he gave me.

He'll pay for it

“I don’t think your company would appreciate you taking a month-long vacation to tote your leech across Europe.” “It’s my company, Elena. They’ll get over it. You’ll be my wife by then anyways, so consider it our honeymoon.” My jaw drops open. “Is that a proposal? Because I still don’t see a ring on my finger.” Christian grumbles and grabs his phone from the nightstand. After a few seconds of scrolling, he tosses it onto my lap. I’m staring at an email thread with a photo of an absurdly massive purple diamond. When I see the eight-figure price tag for said diamond, I dramatically roll over the edge of the bed and land on the floor. “I think I’m gonna hurl,” I say into the rug. I feel Christian land on top of me, supporting most of his weight on his arms and legs so that he doesn’t fully crush me. “Because you’re pregnant?”

<3

Mine.

“The day we met…I was going to kill myself.”

“You’re the Silencer.”

CHAPTER 23 THE EXECUTIONER I should have burnt this city to the ground when I had the chance.

“I had a fucking gun to my head!” I shout, causing her to sink into the covers. I growl to myself. “I had my finger on the fucking trigger. If you started screaming a femtosecond later, I would have already blown my brains out.” My voice cracks. “If I don’t have you, then I have nothing. I am nothing. So if that’s really what you want, angel,” I pull my gun from the back of my pants and hold it to my temple, “then let me pull the trigger this time.”

fuck

Once I’m clean, I sit on the floor of the shower, under the hot spray of water, and stay there staring at the grout in between the stones on the walls until the water runs cold. And in a billionaire’s mansion, the water does not run cold for a very, very, very long time.

Elena, I don’t think I’ve ever been in so much pain. I want to be there when you leave, to say goodbye and tell you I’m sorry and beg you to stay. But I’m weak, so instead, I’m writing this letter and committing your sleeping face to memory. I couldn’t bear it if the last memory I had of you was the way you look at me now, after discovering the kind of monster I am. You look disappointed. Scared. Angry. But you’re angelic when you sleep. The perfect embodiment of the endearing nickname I’ve given you. I wish I wasn’t the root cause of the burdens you bear. I never believed in love at first sight. I never believed in soulmates. I made peace with the idea of being alone, and I had even made peace with death. And then I met you. I remember looking into your scared, tear-filled, honey-brown eyes the night we met and feeling an ache in my chest I had never felt before. I didn’t immediately realize it, but that ache was my soul latching on to yours, intertwining itself so deeply that no force on heaven or Earth could ever truly separate us again. That ache was my heart’s way of telling me that you would be the first and only woman I would ever love. You became my guardian angel. I will never let that sentiment go. If I wasn’t meant to love you, then fate would have let me pull that trigger. I may have saved you that night, but you saved me too. My heart has been yours ever since. I don’t just mean my love. I mean the actual, functional, beating heart in my chest is yours. You’re...

“Let me go! Christian, let me go!”

FUCK

“Do they hurt?” I ask. “Not enough.”

Dad: I would say no. You’re healing, but a bath might brew bacteria in the wound. You can take a bath, just don’t submerge it. Me: But you’re the great Elliot Young. Aren’t your stitches magic or something? Dad: Don’t be obtuse, Ellie. It’s called sorcery. Dad: Take the bath. Promise me you’ll clean it with alcohol when you’re done. I’ll write a prescription for an antibiotic.

The internet weirdos who have no life instantly took note when I followed a person instead of a company, and God help me, her life story popped up so fast on Reddit that it gave me whiplash.

Promise me, Christian, you won’t smoke when you’re older.” “I promise, mommy,”

L i a r.

“Whatever you want.” “You’re always so quick to say that.” “That’s because I’m thoroughly pussy-whipped for you.”

“Thirty-six,” I answer with a raised eyebrow. She laughs. “I expect at least two grandchildren by the time you’re forty. If she doesn’t have a ring on her finger by next Christmas, I think I will die.” I chuckle, pulling out the engagement ring that’s been burning a hole in my pocket for weeks. I present it to Bethany for inspection. She twists it and bounces on her toes in delight at the way it sparkles. “Does it get your seal of approval?” She sighs, and dramatically puts her hand to her head and pretends to fall over. I catch her easily. “If Elena doesn’t marry you, I will.” “You know, I don’t think Elliot would appreciate me stealing his wife and his daughter. I might start World War III.” She hands back the ring. “You’d start a war for love?” “For Elena? I wouldn’t just start a war. I’d win it.”

On Christmas Eve, I wake up with Elena’s side of the bed ice cold. My first instinct is that something’s wrong. That she’s had a nightmare and is hiding somewhere in the mansion with her wrists slit.

fuck

a pearlescent white McLaren 720S, and a custom license plate that simply says, ‘ANGEL’.

The first night we were there, as we were tucking Caroline into bed, she looked me dead in the eyes, kissed my cheek and said, “I have the best daddy in the whole wide world.” I almost fucking bought Disney World for her after that.

Daddy Issues scream in jealousy

“I can’t believe you’d let me go without a goodbye kiss, angel.” My eyes fly open, and I go stiff in complete shock. Christian’s eyes are open. He’s smiling at me, with that same charming smile I fell in love with and those icy blue eyes full of life. “Daddy!” Caroline giggles, pulling out of my arms and receding into his. She lands on him with a thud and he grunts in pain. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. And then, all at once, that shock is replaced with pure, unfiltered relief. If he wasn’t in that bed with a bullet hole in his chest, I would have launched myself into his arms and squeezed him until it hurt. Instead, I choke out a garbled, ugly sob, hold his cheeks in my hands, and kiss him. “What took you so long?” Christian circles my wrist with his cold fingers. “I met Death.” I take my bottom lip in my teeth. “And?” Christian brushes a strand of hair back from my face, and looking deeply into my eyes, he whispers, “I told him to go fuck himself, because I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Christian has been more active over the last few days. He can shower on his own now, which instantly brightened his mood. I laughed so hard I snorted when he told me to, quote, ‘get the fuck out so I can wash my nutsack in peace’.

She lost her first tooth two days ago. That night, the tooth fairy, also known as Christian, put a one-hundred-dollar bill under her pillow, a cupcake on her nightstand, and a custom Swarovski-crystal Lamborghini Sian electric car at her bedside.

That electric car is currently at the bottom of the pool because Caroline didn’t know how to turn it off once she grew tired of it. She stepped out, and there it went, right into the deep end.

decision.” “But if I’m the CEO and you’re going to be my top attorney, who’s going to take care of Caroline?” I take his hand in mine and squeeze it. “She’s going to start preschool in the fall. We’ll have to pick her up every day in a different colored Range Rover to assert our dominance.”

I let out a heavy sigh followed by a loud, unhinged, blood-curdling scream. I catch my breath, and then crawl back to Elena’s body, sitting in a pool of her blood. I pull her body into my lap and kiss her forehead, and then I reach for my gun. “Daddy?” My world freezes as I peek over my shoulder to see Caroline standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Her rabbit is in the crook of her elbow as she stares at me with her index finger in her mouth. “Mommy said there would be pancakes.” My entire chest feels like it’s being stabbed over and over again. With every beat of my heart, it only prolongs the pain. I look back down at Elena before glancing back over my shoulder. “Okay, baby. Just…turn around and count to one hundred, and I’ll get you some pancakes, okay?” “But daddy, I don’t know how to count to one hundred.” “That’s okay, babygirl, just turn around and count as high as you can.” I’ve been hanging on by a thread named Elena, and now she’s gone. I hold my angel to my chest and wait for Caroline to reach ten before I put the gun to my head. And like I was always meant to, I pull the trigger.

FOR THE LOVE. OF. FUCK WHAT ABOUT CAROLINE?