Gleam (The Plated Prisoner, #3)

by Raven Kennedy

I don’t think I’ll ever have the kind of love that I crave.

Maybe it’s foolish to risk standing up here, but sometimes, you have to do foolish things just for the sake of doing them.

We tell ourselves twisted lies to tangle around our wicked truths, all so that we can get caught up in the bind and not have to face bare regrets.

“You’re very floppy.” I rest my head against his firm, muscled chest. “You’re very hard,” I counter. A rich, dark laugh slips from his mouth. “You’ve no idea.”

“My own good was stuck on a pirate ship, with an aura like a beacon that flared across the Barrens,” he grits out, a thick spun voice meant to tie knots around me. “My own good was cowering before men who were nothing—fucking nothing—in comparison to her.”

“I’m saying that you are my own good. And for you, I gave you a choice, but you chose him.”

How is it that I could feel so safe in his arms, and yet in such danger at the same time?

“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.”

“How long have you two been married?” “Three months,” Manu chirps. “Three years,” Keon corrects with a roll of his eyes before he steals more food off his husband’s plate. “Ah, that’s right,” Manu says, plopping a grape in his mouth. “Time flies when you’re riding good c—” “Carriages,” Keon quickly intervenes, cutting him off with an elbow to the arm, stealing hurried looks at the frowning advisors.

Why is it that a man can make you feel like nothing, when you have given him everything?

Knitting, sewing, embroidering, harping, reading, napping, drinking. Mindless, pointless things to take up my time. So many days spent without purpose, without joy or heart or life. I may as well have been a statue, should’ve turned myself solid gold and saved Midas the trouble.

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

“I’ve wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you, Goldfinch. I was just waiting for you to catch up.”

“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.”

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

“You look good against that wall, but you’re going to look even better pinned up against it while I fuck you.”

He used a silver tongue against a golden heart, and the glint of his lies dimmed every truth I knew.