Twisted Lies

by Ana Huang

To everyone whose favorite color is morally gray.

If my thoughts were chaos, she was my anchor. They always went back to her.

“Careful, Stella.” His low warning pulsed between my legs. “I’m not the gentleman you think I am.”

Green eyes. Green dress. Symbolic of life and nature. Green. Apparently, it was my new favorite fucking color.

“Because I don’t want to be jailed for murder if anyone touches a hair on your head.”

Some photos were worth a thousand words. This photo said only one. Mine.

“Touch her for any reason other than to save her life, and you die.” I didn’t care how long Kage and I had been friends. No one touched her except me.

“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.”

“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…” A brush over her fingers. “Every laugh I don’t hear…” My touch dipped to her knee and made a slow, languorous journey up her thigh. “Every breeze that touches your skin and every sound that pours through your lips. It. Is. Maddening.”

I’d waited this long. I could wait a while longer. Because when I claimed Stella as mine, I would do it so fucking thoroughly there wouldn’t be a shred of doubt in either of our minds as to who she belonged to…or who I belonged to in return.

I may not be her first, but I would damn well be her last. Because once I took her, I would never let her go.

“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.”

“You belong with me. Exclusively. There is not a world or lifetime where that’s not true.”

“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.”

“My dream is to be with you. And my biggest fear,” I said, my voice low and ragged with emotion. “Is losing you.”

Because all the most beautiful days of my life have been with you, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world. I would rather be miserable now after having been loved by you than be happy without having ever known you.

You will always be my first, last, and only love.

Love was accepting me for who I was, flaws and all. Love was believing in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.

The world wasn’t black and white, no matter how much I wished it were. And sometimes, we found our happiness in the shades of gray.