Gleam (The Plated Prisoner, #3)

by Raven Kennedy

“I’m glad you’re choosing you,” he says quietly, and my lips part, like I want to swallow the rumble of his cadence. “You are?” I go completely still as he moves his hand and grips my chin, like he wants to make sure I’m paying attention. I am. “Yes, Goldfinch. Because I’m choosing you, too.”

I pin him with a glare. “Why don’t you take that piercing in your bottom lip and stick it through your top one too?”

Midas nods. “I’d actually like to speak with you.” I’d actually rather chew iron nails and shit them back out, but the life of a king isn’t easy. “Fine.”

“It’s all or nothing, Auren.” “What do you mean?” “I want all of you,” he tells me, a newfound hunger in the depths of his green eyes that stirs heat beneath my skin. “Every piece, every memory, every minute, every inch. This isn’t going to be some casual dalliance. This isn’t going to be temporary. I want you soul, mind, and body. I want your trust and your thoughts. I want your past, your present, your future. So make very certain that you want me for the right reasons. Be certain that you’re choosing this, because once you do, there’s no turning back.”

“Love happens in all kinds of ways. Fast. Slow. In bits and pieces, or immediate. Filled with lust, one-sided longing, a snap realization never noticed before. Deeply. Thoroughly. Love is a whisper we didn’t hear or a sound that drums in our ears and drowns out everything else.”

My stomach jumps with a thrill I don’t want to admit. He thinks I’m gorgeous. Okay, yeah, he thinks I’m a liar too, but the takeaway here is the gorgeous part.

There comes a point in your life when you have to choose between having regrets and the possibility of making mistakes.

Sometimes, you look at the silver lining so much that you drift into denial about the clouds.

“You can’t cut off the strings of your puppet and still expect it to move for you.”