More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
quite possibly the most beautiful, most dangerous man I’d ever met.
For a man I barely knew, he had more power over me than almost anyone else.
If my thoughts were chaos, she was my anchor.
I was weak for Stella Alonso, and I hated it.
“Touch Stella again, and you’ll no longer have a fiancée.”
“That bad?”
“No.”
“That good.”
Light and dark. Two halves of the same coin.
Christian Harper was a man who thrived on controlling everything, including his feelings.
“Careful, Stella.” His low warning pulsed between my legs. “I’m not the gentleman you think I am.”
Yet in the span of a second, she’d upended that as she had every other thing in my life.
“Touch her for any reason other than to save her life, and you die.”
Despite what happened two nights ago, her light still shone through, and she was more resilient than a lot of people, including myself, gave her credit for. That’s my girl.
the sense that despite her beauty, her life was more dark days and lonely nights than it was rainbows and sunshine.
The angel and the sinner.
but Ava, Jules, and Bridget were my family by choice.
Sometimes, all we needed was the knowledge someone somewhere cared about us.
Stella might think she was the latter, but she was too talented and shone too brightly to be hemmed in by other people’s expectations.
“If you saw yourself the way other people see you,” he said quietly. “You’d never doubt again.” Curiosity and something infinitely sweeter and more dangerous fluttered to life in my heart. “How do other people see me?” Christian’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “Like you’re the most beautiful, most remarkable thing they’ve ever seen.”
Less of a kiss, more of a promise.
“It’s because you haven’t looked me in the eye since New York. Because you’re all I can fucking think about no matter where I am or who I’m with, and the thought of you hurt or upset makes me want to raze this city to the ground.” Soft, almost desperate viciousness coated his voice. “I’ve never wanted someone more, and I’ve never hated myself more for it.”
“I’m not a jealous man, Stella. I have never envied someone for what they have or who they’re with, and yet…” My fingers glided down to her wrist. “I’m jealous of every person you smile at…”
It. Is. Maddening.”
Stella had seared so deep into my consciousness that she was all I could smell. All I could feel. And, even when I closed my eyes, all I could see.
“You have another, secret best friend? But…I’m your best friend!
Something warm and foreign moved in my chest, eating away at the steel barriers I’d erected.
By the time I finished, I felt calm enough to slide into bed next to Stella.
None of them held a candle to Stella. She glowed in a way that had nothing to do with her outer beauty.
I would throw myself into her flame and let it burn me alive if it meant her warmth was the last thing I felt before I died.
“I could watch you count every grain of sand on the beach and it would be exciting.”
“Then why did you come?”
“For you.”
Stella was mine and mine alone.
It was real and raw and so fucking perfect I wanted to keep us here forever, troubles in D.C. be damned.
Stella was my greatest high. A temptation with no escape. An obsession with no end. An addiction with no cure.
“I notice everything about you.”
“You’re extraordinary.”
“An angel about to come from being fucked like a whore.”
Whether in heaven or hell, in dreams or real life, Stella was mine. And I didn’t fucking share.
“Morning, Butterfly. Sweet dreams?”
Stella Alonso had consumed my world in a way that made it impossible to go back.
“I want to make a few things clear.” Christian’s lips brushed mine with each word. “Touch another man, he dies. Let another man touch you, he dies. Tell me I can’t touch you…” His grip tightened on the back of my neck as his voice dropped. “And I will fucking die.”
I was on my knees, but I had the power to bring him to his.
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Stella.”
“The day I met you,” he said. “Was the luckiest day of my life. You’ve always been the brightest part of my world, Butterfly. And you always will be.”
“I believe in everything when it comes to you.”
“I would never hurt you.”
The calm to my chaos, the silence to my storm.
“My dream is to be with you. And my biggest fear,” I said, my voice low and ragged with emotion. “Is losing you.”
