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that temptation turned to torture as she’d learned how to wield it.
The pink tip of her tongue slid over her lips, tasting the promise I’d given.
Gwen was the youngest in the family
nurse
made it easy for his hook-ups to have a natural expiration date.
She said the words so calmly it was like she hadn’t placed a grenade in my palms and pulled the pin.
I thought there would come a time when there would be enough sentences after hers that the missing piece wouldn’t feel so gnawing, and I could finally move on.
sometimes, we survive something so traumatic that it’s impossible to get over—a loss so deep that hardens to stone.
It’s not the kind of thing you get over,” Gwen said, her voice deepening with emotion. “It’s the kind of thing you have to learn to make a part of you.”
She didn’t deserve to have to carry the truth about what her death did to me.
I wanted to peel my shirt off of her and find the borders of her blush.
Archer’s intentions were harder to piece together than the damn flooring, and I was done being a puzzle master for the day.
The happiness in her voice was genuine—the kind of genuine that worried me. It was as though she could only look forward to things in other peoples’ lives because there wasn’t and wouldn’t be anything to look forward to in her own.
classic books that were adhered to the walls, their pages opened to a significant quote or passage.
my emotions were still more mixed than my cocktail.
“Your mouth is going to have to greet my fist first before it makes it to hers,”
It was like she’d let go of the tiniest end of the string that held her together just waiting for me to reach out and unravel it.
how comforting it was to know that something that meant so much could never be left or taken from you.”
“Permanence isn’t something that should be feared… or taken for granted.”
nothing was said about the past or our kiss, but we circled around it like vultures just waiting for the first scent of weakness to delve deeper.
I swatted his arm with the folder, but it was about as effective as beating a rock with a piece of tissue paper.
“Ghosts don’t need to be protected,”
“They do when they keep haunting me.”
The wet tip of her tongue slid over her lips like she was preparing to taste satisfaction in her request.
It suddenly struck me with such significance, that not only was I willing to agree because I wanted her forgiveness. I wanted the damn tattoo because I wanted her to give me something that she couldn’t take back.
I wanted one fucking piece of her that I couldn’t lose again.
I refused to give all my precious wounded pieces to a man who wouldn’t give me any of himself in return.
My eyes found his, fell into their depths, and willingly drowned.
“I don’t need a machine to mark you, Keira,”
“I’m going to end on that sweet clit of yours,” he swore, and my mouth dropped open, instantly going as dry as the Sahara. “I’m going to suck her so fucking hard your orgasm will brand you from the inside out. It will ink into your nerves a kind of pleasure that will never be erased—the kind of pleasure that will turn you to fucking stars.”
Archer Reynolds had turned me into a constellation with the tip of his tongue.
“It’s everything, Keira. If I fuck you, I want more than just the trust it takes for you to give me your body. I want you to trust me with it all,” he explained through clenched teeth. “Your past. Your secrets. Your fears. Every fucking thing because that’s the kind of man I am—the kind of man I’ve always been. I won’t settle for parts of you, and that is a big fucking deal.”
“If this is your shot at permanence, I won’t be the exception,” he rasped. My mouth dried, fear taking hold of me like a hand around my throat. “No, you just want to be the rule.” The rule of law. The rule of duty and responsibility. The rule of protection. The rule that couldn’t be broken.
Those lips that destroyed me with pleasure now only brought pain when they firmed into a hard line, refusing to emit a response.
“This isn’t the first indelible mark you’ve left on me, Keira,” he swore roughly. “It’s just the first one you’ve seen.”
But it was better this way—better for him to remain a constellation in my life, made of stars that would never dim or disappear or be put in danger.
Maybe that was why Artemis begged to have Orion knitted into the fabric of the night—because she couldn’t have him but neither could she lose him.
For the business, I was sure it looked good that the head of the company was willing to get on the phone with a client on a weekend, but it was nothing more than a self-preservation tactic.
A desperate attempt to breathe when my body drowned with wanting her.
I wanted to know each and every way I could make her smile because that was a feat in itself—bringing lightness to a woman who’d endured more darkness in the first twenty-three years of her life than anyone should have to.
Maybe I’d thought that protecting her was what made me deserving of her trust.
I was just as familiar with sacrifice as Keira was familiar with solitude.
The idea he’d left me with of his family and community seemed like the only thing strong enough—safe enough for my roots to grow.
I felt a little woozy. Like my universe tilted a little further toward the man it wanted at its center.
my heart ached for the boy who thought he had to protect the world and then punished himself simply because he’d never be able to stop every evil.
“I’ve lived enough lies, Archer, to know what is the truth,” I told him breathlessly. “And the truth is, past, present, or future, I will always regret every chance I give up to be with you.”
“Keep talking like that and the things I do to your mouth won’t just be criminal, they’ll be lawless,”
“I wanted a kiss four years ago. There’s been tax and inflation piling on that request,”
I didn’t blame him for not surviving. If that was the only way to see her every night, I’d pin myself to the night sky, too.
I was in danger here. Not my life, but definitely my heart.
