More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“When you grow up like we do, some things just stick with you. You learn to see through the bullshit earlier than you probably needed to. And you see people. Especially the ones who are never as nice as they seem.”
“You’re not going to kill me?” I’m not going to die right now? Something flashes through his eyes. Excitement or anticipation or – Curiosity. That’s what it is. “No,” he finally says, and it’s almost a question – like he’s testing out the word on his tongue. “I don’t think I will.” He takes another step back, his finger closing around the doorknob the same way they closed around my throat. “Not right now. You’ve just become the most interesting thing on campus, Poppy Davis.”
A snake in the grass is still a snake in the grass no matter how pretty its scales are.
He’s smiling at me. And I hate the wide grin he’s giving me. I hate the way his cheeks flush from exertion. I hate his dark eyes, twinkling with victory. Because when he looks like this and he smiles like that, I almost forget he’s a killer.
I find myself unable to look away from him. Something is happening here. Something big. Something new. I feel it right down to my gut.
“You always say that. I don’t understand.” My forehead crinkles. “Say what?” “‘You didn’t need to do this.’” His voice pitches higher, as if in imitation of me. “As if you could make me do anything I didn’t want to do.”
“And what are we?” He can’t be saying what I think he’s trying to say. He’s not. He can’t. His gaze keeps me rooted to the spot. “I like you, sweetheart. I like you a lot. We’re not friends. We’re going to be more than that.”
“I figured out a long time ago that I don’t feel things to the extent most people do. My world is muted – and the things I do feel are easy enough to ignore. But around you, everything is…amplified.”
“This morning, when you looked at him, it took every ounce of my self-control to avoid walking over to Freddy Rook and bashing his skull in till he was no longer worth looking at. You do this to me.”
“Well, I never said I was a saint. Or above blackmail. You should get used to it.” “Should I?” “Yes.” There’s no room for argument in his tone. “You’re mine now.”
They’ll never know him like I do. And that realization shouldn’t send a territorial twinge through me, but some part of me likes knowing that, while the rest of the world may get his mask, I get him. All his dark and twisty bits.
“A pretty little doll that I get to show off…and only I get to touch.”
The sad charity case and the boy with the bleeding heart who couldn’t resist.
“Well, I never said I wasn’t a bad guy.” He cups my cheek gently. “But right now, I’m your bad guy.”
“You’re a monster,” I whisper. He just blinks at me – unfazed. “You knew that already,” he says quietly and strokes the mark he left on my neck. “But I’m a monster infatuated.”
“People are easy, you know. You figure out what they’re looking for – praise, admiration, money, social prestige – and you feed it to them so slowly that they never realize they’re eating out of your hand to begin with. But you…” When he turns and looks at me again, there’s so much intensity swirling in his eyes that I feel rooted to the spot. “I can’t feed you a line. I can’t curate a version of myself that you’ll respond to because you already know exactly who I am. It’s why I’m so drawn to you. “And now I don’t know what to do with all these…” He shakes his head. “Feelings. You say that
...more
“It’s like an…impulse. I need to know everything about you. I need to see where you’ve grown up. I need to see your family. I need to see every single part of your life – past and present – till I’m sure I know you better than you know yourself. It’s not a want. I have to.”
“At the end of the day, people still need to buy your art, don’t they, honey? I mean, finding clients and all that. Who knows if –” “I’d buy them.” Adrian looks at me as he says it. “I’d buy every single last one of them.”
“I think you may be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he mutters, and I hear it in his voice – a sense of wonder. Like someone discovering electricity or Diet Coke or chocolate cake or something equally life-changing for the first time. And then he starts touching me.
“You take everything I give you. You take it all, and you never break. You never even waver. You withstand me in a way that nobody else ever could. That’s how I know you’re mine. We are made for each other.”
Love is the highest form of power you can hand another human being. In certain hands, it’s a weapon, too.
“But what I feel for you –” His pitch eyes zero in on me, the light of the flames reflected in them. “It’s more. It’s not some vague, fleeting emotion. You’ve consumed me. You’ve crawled into my brain and infected every inch of it. You’ve turned me into a man obsessed. What I have for you…” He pauses. Searching for the right word. “It’s not love, it's limerence.” His grip on my waist tightens. “It’s not patient. It’s not always kind. It’s not selfless. It’s as dark and twisted as I am.”
