Gleam (The Plated Prisoner, #3)

by Raven Kennedy

“That seems aggressive,” I murmur. What does it say about a male who owns more daggers than shirts?

“I am,” he says without remorse, his sharp jaw tight with tension. “But I’ll be the villain for you. Not to you.”

“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.”

His brows hitch up. “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.” Slade edges toward me, though I barely notice because I’m so hooked on his words that I’ve forgotten to blink. “You’re incredibly private. Closed-off. Conditioned to shut out your true feelings and deny yourself what you want. So you wouldn’t have said all of those things unless you were in love with me, Auren.”

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. I’d rather make those

mistakes than live without ever tak...