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“Who made you afraid of an open world? An open sky? Was it Venda? Your parents?” “No one did anything,” I answered quietly. “Then hold on to me,” he said. “Let me show you the stars.”
“Do you suppose,” he finally whispered, “that this could be part of making . . . the best of it?”
“I like you, Jase Ballenger,” I said softly. “I think if you weren’t a thief, we might be friends.” “And if you didn’t whisk out knives and threaten to cut pretty necks, I think we might be friends too.” I wrinkled my nose. “Oh, how obsessed you are with your pretty neck.” His hands tightened on my wrists. He pulled me close, his teeth nipping at my neck and between kisses, he whispered, “It is not my neck I am obsessed with, Kazi of Brightmist.”
I hoped Mason was wrong. I hoped I was wrong. Because I was still tangled up with her and I didn’t want to be cut loose.
“Yes, I want to kiss you, Jase Ballenger. Not for show or to make the best of it. I want to kiss you because I want you, every part of you, even the parts that infuriate me beyond telling, because you’ve infected me with a poison that I don’t want to flush out, because you’re a mad viper twisting around my middle, cutting off my breath, yet I want you more than I want to breathe. Yes, Jase, I want to kiss you, just because I do, but the one thing I cannot do is promise you any tomorrows.”
sometimes you can’t begin to know everything you’ve lost until someone shows you what you might have had.
“Look at you! You’re drenched,” she said and grabbed my hand, pulling me inside. “You need a dry shirt and—” “I only need you, Kazi, that’s all I need.”
Love didn’t even seem like the right word to explain how I felt about her. The word seemed too small, too used, too simple, and everything I felt about her seemed complicated and rare and as wide as the world.
“I love you. I love you with every breath, with every thought that’s inside me. I’ve loved you from the first time I kissed you on that ledge. Even before that.”
He crossed the room, and no one tried to stop him. He walked up the steps and looked down at me, his eyes searching mine, and then he pulled me into his arms, crushing me, his face nestled in my hair. “I already told you,” he whispered in my ear, “and I won’t take it back. I love you, Kazi of Brightmist, and I will never stop loving you, not through a thousand tomorrows. Come back with me. Please.”
