Under Your Scars (Under Your Scars, #1)

by Ariel N. Anderson

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

She’s the exact opposite of me. The real me, at least. I can put on a suit and fake the charm all day long. But take off the suit and strip away the smile, and what’s left? A savage. A savage beast that fell in love with an elegant beauty that I will never be worthy of.

“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.”

“Naughty girl. You want me to cum in my pants, is that it?”

“How do you know me better than I know myself?” “Because I see more than you think I do. And I see an angel who just got her wings.”

It warms my stone-cold heart to see her so excited about something. It makes my chest tighten, because I know it means that what she’s gone through hasn’t stolen all her happiness.

She doesn’t want anyone to see her as weak.”

If either of you try to make her choose sides, both of you will lose her.”

I’d give her absolutely anything she desired if I got to call her my wife at the end of the day.

He looks down at me, bright red and completely embarrassed. Because I made him cum in his pants.

I am not a good man. Please don’t get it in your head that I am. I love Elena and I would do absolutely anything for her. Anything. That makes me the worst kind of man. Love is the most volatile poison in the universe.

Elena will always be safe with me, even if it costs me everything in the end.”

“You’d start a war for love?” “For Elena? I wouldn’t just start a war. I’d win it.”

Everything about her presence in my life feels right. Like this is exactly where I was always meant to end up.

“I’d offer you my heart and my soul, but you’ve had both of those from the moment we met. What more of myself do I have left to give that you don’t already possess?” I sigh wistfully. “I have my last name, if you think it's worthy enough to follow the five letters you’ve carved into my heart.”

Eszopiclone.

cause

*case

don’t you ever even fucking think about threatening to leave me again. Ever, Elena, or you can kiss your freedom goodbye.” “I haven’t been free since we met,” she spits out.

Being strong has never been so hard.

“Letting go can sometimes be more merciful than holding on.”

Three minutes without oxygen. Three minutes without a heartbeat. Three minutes without his love. That’s all it took to shatter me.

“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.”

“Put me in that pretty mouth,

“I’m already in a cage! I’ve been in a cage from the moment we met.”

I’m all yours to use, to devour, to hit and to scratch. However you want to love me, that’s what I’m here for.”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I love you. I love every piece of you. Even the parts I shouldn’t love. Even the parts of you that have unraveled all the parts of me. Especially the terrifying parts that you’ve tangled into my soul.”

“Now break me so you can love me back together.”

I’ve fallen in love with the most unlovable, virulent, tragic parts of him. And I’ve decided I love the taste of poison.

God help the man who took Elena, because she belongs to only one psychopath. Me.

If fucking my love back into her is the last thing I ever do, it will be a satisfying death. That’s how every man wants to go. In between the legs of his lover.

Her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes are hazy and fucked out, like I’ve sent her to heaven. It’s where she belongs, after all.

The only crime I’ve committed is being born a Reeves, and yet I’m living a life fucking sentence having to be tied to the man who stole my entire life from me. The least you could do is not make us all so goddamn miserable.”

She’s crying. Not sobbing, not wailing, but her face is painted in the kind of sorrow that only appears when someone’s had enough. When she’s been hurting and suffering so long that she’s no longer living—just surviving.

snugging

*snuggling

“When I was a kid, something really bad happened to me. I was really angry and sad. Those feelings like to fight a lot.” I stretch out my arm and use my fingers to trace along the scars. “All of these remind me of when I was in the middle of the battle and didn’t know how to stop them.”

If I don’t escape now, I’m going to share this tomb with Frank Valenti, and I’ll be damned if he’s who I arrive in Hell with.

“It’s okay to not be okay,

“It’s easier to pretend I am, though.” “Easier for everyone but you.”

“I think that’s the harsh reality of being a woman,” my mother continues, “we’re always so focused on everyone else, that we forget we need to take care of ourselves, too.”

I hope life never steals the way she sees good in everyone.

“You asked me to chase away the monsters under your bed. But the monster was never under your bed, was it? It was in your heart.”

his eyes plead for mercy that he doesn’t deserve.

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.

caught between a man who only knew how to love violently, and a father who couldn’t let go of the past, driven to madness with his own grief.

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.