Bride (Bride, #1)

by Ali Hazelwood

“My smell. Do I smell like . . . ?” “Mine.” It’s a rumble in his throat. “You smell like you’re mine, Misery.”

“You think, but you don’t know. You don’t know anything about what it’s like to find your other half,” he continues, voice low and sharp. “I would take anything she chose to give me—the tiniest fraction or her entire world. I would take her for a single night knowing that I’ll lose her by morning, and I would hold on to her and never let go. I would take her healthy, or sick, or tired, or angry, or strong, and it would be my fucking privilege. I would take her problems, her gifts, her moods, her passions, her jokes, her body—I would take every last thing, if she chose to give it to me.”

“It’s hard for me.” “What is?” “To see you like that. To let anyone else touch you when you’re hurt or sick or just . . . I didn’t need that qualifier, actually. To let anyone else touch you is . . .” He rubs the back of his hand against his mouth. I can’t quite follow—and then I can, when he says, “I’m not sure who I can trust anymore.”

“Of all the good things I’ve felt in my fucking life, you are the best.”

Maybe you’re not meant for me the way I’m meant for you, but I’m going to choose you anyway, over and over and over again.