Until I'm Yours (The Bennetts, #4)

by Kennedy Ryan

He kisses her fingers, wrapped around his, like he can’t help it. Like when he’s that close to her, he can’t resist expressing how much he loves her.

Knowledge is the greatest charity because it continues giving.”

When we’re young, we live for the good times, setting moments on fire, laughing and dancing in the flames. We’re invincible. No one tells you the memories may haunt you like ghosts, knocking around when the house is quiet and you’re alone with your regret. No one tells you about the rubble of your destruction. No one tells you that you’ll get burned, and those fiery moments become your mistakes. At least no one told me. I wish they had. With this good man at my side who deserves more than the ashes of my transgressions, I wish more than anything someone had told me.

Your story is your most powerful weapon. We must use our hurts to help.

It’s easier to hide your secrets when people think you’re baring them all. They don’t dig as deeply or as hard.

“But how does it work?” “Because we want it to.” She twists her wedding band and ring. “Because it has to. He’s more important to me than I am to me, and I’m more important to him than he is to himself. We find ways to put each other first and to—even though we’re so different—value the things that matter to the other. To make sure the other person is positioned to achieve what matters to them. Whether that’s me creating a home for our family so Walsh can focus intensely on Bennett Enterprises, or him supporting my ventures and loving me unconditionally, making sure I’m fulfilled, too.”

“I know what it’s like being in a bad marriage with someone who makes perfect sense.” She shakes her head. “Give me the challenges of making it work with someone who makes absolutely no sense, but I can’t live without. It’s that desperation that makes you fight for it because you realize you have no choice. The alternative is to be without Walsh, and I’ve done that. I found out that I can’t do it. Or at least I never want to again. It’s miserable, and you ache like half of you is missing. And it is missing because even though on the surface we’re vastly different, he has my heart.”

I need you to take care of me in the ways that count.

Love and lust crest between us, climbing and climbing until we crescendo. She splinters around me, her tears wetting my neck and shoulder. I drop my head into the pillow by her hair, cupping her head, twining our bodies so tightly it feels like she’s drawing my breath and I’m drawing hers. Like her heart beats in my chest, and her heart beats in mine. I know in that moment, she’s the fire burning in my chest, and I’d chase her down. I’d follow her anywhere.