Heathen & Honeysuckle (Pacific Shores, #1)

by Sarah A. Bailey

“You remind me of honeysuckle. Nectar sweet as honey, like the sound of your voice. But the berries are deceiving—poisonous if consumed.” He shrugs playfully. “Beautiful and deadly.”

“I want to bring you with me because you scare my ghosts away, Darby.”

“Don’t ever hide your smiles from me, Honeysuckle. I need to see every single one, especially the ones I put there.”

“Leo,” she breathes. “Stop looking at me like that.” “Looking at you like what, Honeysuckle?” “Like you know exactly what my soul feels like, and you’ve been incomplete without it all this time.” I do. I have.

“For what it’s worth, I really did love you,” I whisper. “My word is worthless…but I loved you

“You’d wait a whole year just for me to come back?” “I think I might wait my whole life for you to come back, Darby. Something tells me there would be no point in trying to move on from this, because I’d end up searching for you in every place I go, in every person I meet, aimlessly wandering until I find you again.”

My heart, my soul, the entirety of my being—they all belong to Darby.

“You don’t need a piece of my soul, Honeysuckle. You already own the whole goddamn thing.”

“You’re my ‘it for me’ person. You were my first love. Then, the one who got away. Now, you’re my ‘it was always you.’ And it doesn’t matter what happened in between, because you’re gonna be my forever person too.” He cups my face, bringing his mouth to mine. “You’re my once-in-a-lifetime kind of love, Darby.”

“I’ll write you a love letter every day for the rest of my life if you just come home, Honeysuckle. Stay with me.”