Revive Me, Part One: The Act (New Haven, #2)

by J.L. Seegars

To be held in his imploring gaze makes me feel like I’ve been dipped in a warm bath of whiskey and honey.

She’s an exquisite, perfect thing. With all her secrets and half-truths and anxious habits that make me want to make all her problems go away.

Somehow, some way I’ll have to get used to the surge of intense gratitude that seizes me every time this man steps up to the plate for me. Solving problems I can’t wrap my head around. Formulating responses when I can’t speak.

We’re quite a pair, Mallory and I, both unavailable and seeking asylum from former connections in the safety of each other.

“Mallory, as long as we’re doing this,” he gestures between the two of us, “I can promise you that you won’t see or hear about me being with anyone else. All of my time, attention, and affection is yours.”

“I’ll always be in the mood to hold your hand.”

And I’d rather let them believe that I’m happy and in love than have them know the ugly truth.

This plan felt like such a good idea when my mind was soaked in doubt and worry for Mallory and for myself. I wanted to protect her, to solve both of our problems in one fell swoop, but I think the only thing I’ve done is create another problem.

It hurts to see her like this, all wrapped up in years-old turmoil I can’t pull her out of because she won’t let me. I could stand here all day holding out my hand, offering to help her, and she still wouldn’t take it. That’s how tight this guy’s grip is on her. How deeply he’s buried his claws in her flesh.

Because daughters don’t continue legacies, sons do. Any child your aunt has with her new husband will carry his last name, not ours. By getting married, she’s agreed to be absorbed into the legacy of her new family and do what she has to in order to continue it.

Ugh I hate Chris's dad

I was mesmerized by her. Drawn in by her beauty and held hostage by the serious frown tugging her lips down into a pretty pout

I marveled at her. Impressed with the way she seemed to shed all of her stress and worry the moment she was presented with a problem to solve.

Her determination and strength. It signaled to me, called to the part of me that won’t stop, won’t rest, won’t yield to any outside forces threatening to derail it from achieving its goals.

Her withdrawal is a stark and necessary reminder of our circumstances and the hard rules around the roles we play. I can’t keep letting the lines get blurred, not with both my and Mallory’s future on the line.

I know she doesn’t need me. I just wish that she did.

Men always want to feel needed. Not wanted, but needed. Hmm 🤨

What was once a small, infinitesimal infatuation, has expanded into something more. Affection with an insurmountable wingspan. Feelings with roots that only dig deeper the more I try to yank them up.

I want to come out of this feeling stronger and more powerful than I have in a long time, and the only way to do that is to use Trent’s obsession with us to draw him out.

Mallory is playing a dangerous game 😳

I feel like I’m floating, walking on a cloud made up of all the parts of myself I thought would be lost to me forever.

“I’m not grumpy. A little too serious maybe, but never grumpy.”

Me AF

Right now there’s a serenity to her I haven’t seen before, and I want to know where it came from, so I can do everything in my power to give her more of it.

He smiles down at me, inching up on another one of my secrets. He’s gotten too good at that, filtering through my words to find the truth.

My heart aches for that young girl who didn’t know any better, who couldn’t be bothered to consider what she was missing because she was in love.

“I told you a while ago I do take some things seriously, princess.” “And overnight guests just so happens to be one of them,” I quip, trying to hide the fact that his deep timbre is turning my blood to fire. “No.” He frowns. “You, princess. Your happiness. Your safety. Your well-being. I take it all very seriously.”

She doesn’t need to detail her trauma for me to believe her, and I don’t want, or need, the full story to know I want her.

I laid all of my truths out there for him to see, and it felt good to let them go. To share and trust him to understand. To trust him period.

“I was, but I’m starving. Do you wanna go get something to eat?” “You asking me out on a date?” “I’m asking you to join me for a meal.” She laughs. “But you can call it a date if you like. I’ll even let you pay.”

“It’s more than nice, Mallory. Your smile is the thing I want most in the world. I spend every waking moment trying to find new ways to get you to give it to me. I wish for it on every shooting star and repeating number on a clock.”

“Not fake, princess. Real. Everything I feel for you, everything I want with you is real.” “Real,” I repeat the word, tasting the possibility, savoring the potential, the reality of us. “Is that something you could want?”

“Nothing has to happen tonight,” he says, and I know he means it. The air of calmness around him assures me of that, but the fire burning just inside the corners of his eyes belies the coolness in his voice. It tells me that somewhere under the tranquil facade I suspect he’s putting forth just for me is a man starving for contact. For release. For me.

Mallory Kent could ask me for the moon, and I’d find a way to get it for her. She could ask me for the stars, and I’d steal them from the sky. She could ask for my heart, and, well….she already has that. She just doesn’t know it yet.

And when I wake in the morning to the sound of my alarm and Mallory’s soft snoring, I realize that for the first time in forever, I slept through the night. No nightmares. No strangled cries from my mother’s ghost. Just the peaceful perfection of a heart that’s finally found its home.