The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1)

by Mackenzi Lee

Lucky for me as well, or else we might never have met, and then what would have been the point of my life?

Percy is already at the carriage, his back to the house, which allows me an unobserved moment of staring at his arse—not that it’s particularly noteworthy arse, but it’s Percy’s, which is what makes it very much worth the noting.

A small shift in the gravity between us and suddenly all my stars are out of alignment, planets knocked from their orbits, and I’m left stumbling, without map or heading, through the bewildering territory of being in love with your best friend.

I look over at Percy again. He’s still looking up at the stars, the silvery light from the moon slithering across the water and stitching his skin. In the glow of it, he looks pearled and fine, a boy fashioned from precious stones and the insides of seashells.

Against the sky, the stars crown him, marking the edges of his silhouette like he is a constellation of himself.

we’re close enough that I can see the freckles beneath his eyes. If I had to pick a favorite part of Percy’s face—which would be impossible, really, but if held at gunpoint and forced to make a selection—it would be that small star-map across his skin. A part of him it feels as though no one else but me is ever close enough to see.

It is impossible to explain how you can love someone so much that it’s difficult to be around him.

Because Percy goes so deep inside me, like veins of gold grown into granite.

It occurs to me then that perhaps getting my little sister drunk and explaining why I screw boys is not the most responsible move on my part.

Love may be a grand thing, but goddamn if it doesn’t take up more than

its fair share of space inside a man.

Everything will always be second to Percy.

he pulls me in to him, folded into his arms like we together are a single thing.

It is remarkable how much courage it takes to kiss someone, even when you are almost certain that person would very

much like to be kissed by you. Doubt will knock you from the sky every time.

We are not broken things, neither of us. We are cracked pottery mended with lacquer and flakes

of gold, whole as we are, complete unto each other. Complete and worthy and so very loved.