A Strange Hymn (The Bargainer, #2)

by Laura Thalassa

Once he gets to the far side of the bed, his towel drops to the ground, and holy virgins and saints, that backside is everything.

“You were everything I never knew I wanted. You were chaos. You were desperation. You were the most mysterious secret I’d ever come across. Everything about you drew me in—your innocence, your vulnerability, hell, even your tragic life. You were the most captivating creature I’d ever met.”

I guess I now have my answer to that stupid “rhetorical” question: If a friend asked you to jump, would you? Apparently, twat-waffle that I am, I would.

If Des were a city, he’d be Barbos. The lights, the chaos, the criminality, the sexuality, the excitement. It’s all part of who he is.

I am the darkness, his eyes seem to say, and you are my lovely nightmare. And no one will take this away from us.

“Sacred Gardens,” I murmur as we walk under a flowering trellis and enter the wooded clearing. “That sounds like something teenage me would call my vagina.”

Temper snorts. “Callie, we’ve been friends for nearly a decade. Stop beating off the bush—” I wince. “Around, Temper. Beating around the bush.”