Under Your Scars (Under Your Scars, #1)

by Ariel N. Anderson

“It means that I’m going to make you want me as bad as I want you. I’m going to make you fantasize about how it feels to have my fingers in your greedy little cunt. I’m going to make you beg for my tongue against your clit. I’m going to make you so wet and needy for me that you’ll do anything to get me to relieve that hot, achy feeling inside you. Once you admit you want me, that’s when I’ll show my appreciation. With every part of me. On every part of you.”

“I don’t want to kill you, angel. I want to keep you all to myself. You’d better take off those rose-colored glasses and accept that the only place you belong is in my black heart.”

I’m not perfect. Far from it—I am unstable. I am broken and my soul is empty. I have nothing to offer her except pain and suffering and lies. Yet I can’t stay away from her.

“You’re not just some obsession I picked up out of boredom. You’re my life essence. The air in my lungs. The beating heart in my chest.”

“You are my everything. Mind. Body. Soul. I fucking love you, Elena, and you will love me back. I don’t care if I have to destroy you in the process.”

“You’ll be mine one day. Fully. I love it when you fight me, but if you would just shut up and stop, even for one second, you might see what’s right in front of you.”

“Listen to me,” I plead. “I love you. I will love you forever. Even when we’re nothing but bones in the ground, I will find you in the afterlife and cherish you like I always have. I will hold you and kiss you and fall asleep with you wrapped in my arms. I will spoil you and give you a wedding ring with my last name to match. I will buy you yachts and islands and mansions all over the world so you can feel safe. I will do all of this even if you fight me because you know better than anyone that boundaries have never stopped me. One day, only when you’re ready, I will fill you with my love again, and I promise I will do it so thoroughly you will forget all that pain you went through for me. You’ll forget about the secrets and the lies and how betrayed you felt when you found out the truth. I will chase away all your demons because you know I’m scarier than they’ll ever be. I’ll do everything for you until the only thing you know how to do is love me back.”

“I think every day about burying myself inside you and filling you with my love again. I think about chasing away all the memories of what they did to you. I want to erase them from your head. I want to replace the fear they made you feel with the desire I make you feel. I do want you, and you know better than anyone that I will give you whatever you want.” I reach up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I just don’t want to hurt you in the process.”

Safe isn’t a place. It’s the people that love you.

“Kiss me,” he commands. “Kiss me like you mean it, and if you can handle a kiss, I will get in the shower with you.”

“What if I want you to break me?” I ask, my eyes not leaving his. “What if I don’t want you to be gentle?” “Then I’ll love you violently instead.”

love you.” I say through gritted teeth, her hair wrapped tight around my fist. “I love you so much it makes me insane. I love you so much it makes me dangerous. I love you so much that I would burn this world for you and all the people in it just to keep you all to myself. Do you understand me? If it comes down to a choice, you will choose me. I don’t give a fuck if it costs the remainder of your soul. You are mine and only mine.”

“When I told you that you made me believe in soulmates, I didn’t just mean in this lifetime, or even in this universe. My heart has always belonged to you, even if I didn’t know it at first. I would love you even if I had no heart to give you, because you are the sole reason for my existence. My soul would love you if we lived on different continents and spoke different languages. My soul would be tethered to you across oceans and mountains and harrowing canyons as black as my heart. My soul would be yours if I pulled the trigger the night we met, because not even death could keep us apart. God couldn’t keep me from you, because God isn’t real, but you are, and that’s all the motivation I would have needed to find you.”

“Good girl,” he growls. “Such a good fucking girl.

“Christian is the only person on this planet that’s allowed to break me, because he’s the only person on the planet who knows how to put me back together again.”

I don’t want an umbrella. I want to feel the ache in my bones from the cold tears of a million angels weeping for me.