Quarterback Sneak (Red Zone Rivals, #3)

by Kandi Steiner

She started explaining how her first handful had all this meaning and thought behind them, but then eventually, she just started getting things that looked cool or made her smile or just seemed like something fun to have on her body.

He swallowed the cry that those words elicited from me, pulling me into him and kissing me as if to seal that sentiment inside of me until I believed it. He didn’t kiss me with the passion to take my clothes off, he kissed me with the desperation to save me.

“We don’t get to choose our parents, and sometimes, I think we forget they’re humans,”

“But they have complex emotions just like we do, and sometimes, when they’re working through them, we’re collateral damage.”

“Ah, well, then you do what I did,” he said, sitting back and spreading both arms over the back of the love seat. His hands gestured to his surroundings as he did. “You make a family of your own.”

“You were kids, Julep. Neither of you even considered the possibility of an overdose. And in a different situation, one where that drug hadn’t been laced? You both would have been fine. You would have had a great time and laughed about it for years to come.”

“I will be here,” I said, tugging her hands to my chest again. “Every day. I’ll be right by your side reminding you that you matter, that you are needed, that there is a reason to have hope and a reason to live. I’ll be here reminding you that for me? You are that reason.”

“Marry me,” I repeated, swiping the fresh tears away. “And I will spend the rest of my life loving you. No matter how long that is. Every minute I am here on Earth is yours. And after that, too.”