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I don’t want to have parts of Asher while he keeps the others hidden. I want the light and the darkness. The sanity and the madness. The beauty and the ugliness. I want everything. Just like I need him to accept me whole.
No one knew if you were going to fuck or shoot each other in the head.” She lifts a shoulder. “But you always had shitty communication with each other, so whatever.”
I shouldn’t have judged Old Reina so hard. She might have acted like a bitch, but she was also dealing with so much.
“I don’t like getting involved in people’s shit, but yeah, you two were like fire and water. You just never mixed, but I guess I liked to think you had your reasons.”
I can’t help watching him and his face…his handsome, dreamy face.
There’s something I’ve learned about Asher: he’s possessive to a fault.
With a huff, I step into the apartment and stand toe to toe with him. I can tell he likes it by the way a spark lights up his features.
Asher enjoys seeing me with no way out but him. In his sick mind, he wants to be the only one who has such a powerful effect on my life.
There’s something unintelligible in his gaze, a madness, an unknown.
He shredded my soul apart and carved himself a cozy place in there.
The only thing that fills my mind, heart, and soul is him. Just him.
“You’re mine,” he grunts. “You always were.” “Always,” I pant into the mattress. “Fucking always.”
After all, I’m Asher’s queen in public and his slut in private.
Only one word roars inside me: Mine. Mine. Fucking mine.
Yes, I have a problem when it comes to Reina. Even I admit it.
The longer I stayed away, the harder I wanted her, the faster I needed to touch her.
“Is there a point to your call?” I shake my head. “Shouldn’t you be cuddling with Elsa and making babies?” “Don’t ever mention my wife’s name and making babies in the same sentence or I’ll fucking kill you. Deal? Deal.”
Instead of going to the guest room where I usually sleep, my feet carry me straight to Reina. She’s like a fucking magnet, refusing to let me go.
I love this side of her a bit too much. That’s why a part of me wants to run her a bath and take care of her. It’s the same part that fell in love with her a long time ago and doesn’t want me to fucking do what I’ve planned.
A small part of me is rejoicing at the fact that he didn’t kill me. He can’t. I can see that torment in his eyes; it’s as clear as the feelings I have for him.
“You only need to kill me.” “Shut the fuck up, Reina.” “Why?” I cry. “Just why? Because you don’t hate me as much as you tell yourself? You can’t hate me? You want to be with me?” He crouches in front of me and traps my jaw between his thumb and forefinger. “Because I can’t fucking live without you. I tried it and it was hell.”
I might have had something to do with the way we are, but Asher never fought for me. Not even once. Yes, he beat people for me, but he never stood up for me or with me.
“I could’ve studied here, but I left because of you then I returned for the same reason. I hated you so much, you consumed me.”
Besides, he said I consumed him, maybe as hard as he consumed me. Maybe his hate has transformed into something else now, or is that too much to ask for?
“I like it better when you’re natural and uncut. Those masks will suffocate you one day. They’re not you.”
“You have to be careful, for fuck’s sake.” He runs a hand through his jet-black hair. “You keep attracting danger like a magnet. I don’t even know what the fuck to do with you anymore.”
love it when he kisses me like he’s been starving for me, like he can’t survive without kissing me.
Asher and I should have been kissing for years. Why did we take so long to do something so natural?
“Let me go.” “Why?” That intense possessive look returns. “You’re my fiancée, remember?” “Ash.” “Stop acting like you’re not mine or I’ll prove it right here, right now.”
He stares at my expression then at our linked hands with slight awe on his face. “I guess I never did this before either?” I ask. “You did.” He appears nostalgic as he strokes the back of my hand with his thumb. “When we were thirteen.” “But not after?” He shakes his head once.
“Yes, I did! You’re infuriating. I don’t even know why I…” …keep loving you so much.
God, I love him. I’m in love with him.
I have never felt as attuned to a person as I am to Asher. My orbit keeps turning around him, or rather, I keep floating in his orbit.
He looked at me with those bright green eyes through that black mask and told me without words how much he’s obsessed with me, almost as much as I’m obsessed with him. He showed me in his actions how much being away never erased the connection we had.
I feel safer than ever when I’m with this infuriating but deeply wounded man. I’m wounded, too, have been since childhood, and being with him has given me the hope I’ll be able to heal. We’ll be able to heal each other.
“And you are the only one, Ash.” “The only one?” “Yes. No one before you or after you. I know it for a fact.”
“I thought I was the only one so hopeless for you.” “I was hopeless for you, too, Ash.”
“You were my first and only, too, Reina.”
“You were the only girl I wanted to kiss since I learned what kissing is and the only one I wanted to fuck since I learned what fucking means. All the others were nothing compared to you. I couldn’t even get hard at the sight of them, and that didn’t change when I went to England. Every time I felt the urge, I pulled out your picture or thought of the nights we had together and jerked off to them. I might have wanted to ruin you, but I could never stop the need to own you, too.”
“I never wanted any other man but you, and I never will.” I wrap my arms around his neck. “You ruined me for everyone else.”
“And you’re mine.” “I’m yours.”
I’m almost his…queen. His one and only.
“Why Cloud003, though?” I murmur in my sleepy haze. “Cloud because of Gray, my middle name. 003 because of the day I first met you, January 3rd. It’s the reason behind this room number, too—1003.” I smile against his skin. Damn this man and the lengths he went to for this. I love you, my mind screams. I love you so much, and it kills me to think you don’t feel the same.
I hug him back because I have those same regrets. We lost so much time. We floundered and drowned and couldn’t come up for air for so long. All that pain fades away now, almost as if it were never there.
“Reina…” he murmurs my name like a prayer he’s been dying to say.
“You can’t leave me, not anymore.” His lips brush against mine in a brief, heartbreaking kiss. “You’re my world now.”
You’re Mia’s Sokolov’s daughter and Nikolai Sokolov’s granddaughter. You can do this.
There was also someone, the boy who turned into a messed-up man, the boy I loved and the man I fell in love with all over again.
I realize it’s not my Reina. She’s not the girl who had me whipped then destroyed me then slowly put me back together again.
Asher and I always miss each other. Like parallel lines, it’s almost as if we were never meant to cross paths. Whenever we do, a disaster occurs and we have to go back to that parallel existence, that helpless attempt to keep the order, and as a result, we become miserable.
