Casteel let go of my hands and stretched up, cupping my cheeks. He leaned in, pressing his forehead to mine, and I swore I felt his hands tremble. “Always,” he whispered in the breath we shared. “Your heart was always safe with me. It always will be. There is nothing I will protect more fiercely or with more devotion, Poppy. Trust in that—in what you feel from me. In me.”
