“I’ve got nothin’ to give you, only a bloody past and a prison record. I can’t breathe with too many people around. I can’t sleep without holdin’ you in my arms. I’m barely a man so it terrifies me to be standin’ here and tellin’ you this but you deserve to know. You deserve to know that I love you. I’m in love with you. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.”
“The world won’t feel so crowded then, right? With just you and me.”His eyes bore into mine. “No.”
“Thought I said I didn’t want you to wear those clothes.”“You did,” I whisper.His chest moves with a breath. “You’ve got five seconds to rectify your mistake and drop ’em on the floor.”
“What happens to the ones who don’t make it through the program?”Arsen studies me for a few seconds, his features tightening once again. “They disappear. For good.”
“You know,” I begin, letting go of his collar and stepping away, “ever since you got up all in your feelings for that girl, you’ve turned into a real fuckin’ pussy. And you know which girl I’m talkin’ about, don’t you.”I’m not surprised when it comes.His fist. That he plants on my jaw.
“You’re still paying for your crimes, aren’t you?” I remind him. “All those letters you wrote, they didn’t even have your right name on them.”His eyes flick back and forth between mine.“So then, you’ll write me a letter every day and you’ll start with Dear Reverie.”“Dear Reverie.”“Yes, and then end it with Your Arsen.”
“I’ll fit. Even if it takes the whole goddamn night, I’m gonna make it fit.”“It’s t-too much. You’re too much.”“Yeah, I am. So this time, instead of being a fuckin’ brat, you’ll listen to me and do as I say, yeah?”
You call me your criminal asshole cowboy and that’s exactly what I am. I’m a selfish fuckin’ piece of shit, baby, because I’ll take what you give me and I’ll steal what you don’t.
He’s as tall and broad—I realize that when people say burly, he is what they’re talking about. —that wicked scar running down the side of his face. From the top of his forehead all the way to the bottom of his left jaw.And he has to be the prettiest man I’ve ever seen. His eyes are a glimmering green, and those scarred lips are thick and plush.
“Because love’s worse than any wild animal in these woods. A wolf would kill you but love’s the kind of animal that’ll eat you up but won’t let you die. It’ll keep you alive and in pain for the rest of your life.”
A strange kind of intensity wafts from him and his voice. “Don’t like when men put their hands on things that belong to me just as much as I don’t like those things putting their hands on other men.”“I’m not a thing,” I remind him.He hums. “Semantics.”“And I definitely do not belong to you.”“I’ve got a paper in my pocket that says different.”
I did fuck it up last time.In my defense, though, I stuck to the truth. They asked me if I regretted what I did, and I said no. I said if I got a do-over, I’d do things differently and instead of beating him bloody, I’d focus on choking the life out of him.
“I’m gonna take their daughter to the courthouse in a white dress I bought her and make her mine. Because death alone isn’t enough for the family who took everything from me. I’m gonna take everything from them and it starts with you.”
All I know is that if I don’t get away, he’ll kill me. He’ll kill me because I’m from Wildfire ranch. It doesn’t even matter that I’m not a Turner. He’ll kill me simply because of my association, because the Graysons have vowed to kill every single one of us.
“You’re my North Star. My way home. My destination.” Letting his hands slip from mine, Ethan lowers. To one knee. “You’re the light that guides me. And I don’t ever want to lose you.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small velvet box. “Tell me you believe me, Starlight. Tell me you still love me.”
“If you ever threaten my wife again, I will kill you. And no one will ever find you.” I step over him. “Because I know where the animals live. And I will feed you to them, piece by fucking piece, until all that’s left of you is a pair of empty fucking shoes.”Ralph scrambles into the car.And I swing the axe.
“After I called you, I did an internet search about what you should do with abandoned mountain lion cubs.” I wince as I say it, and we both know why.Every search turned up with the same thing. Do not touch them. For a plethora of reasons.Ethan runs his tongue along his teeth. A move I suspect is meant to hide a smirk.
The web that Jack wove, it doesn’t fucking matter. Not to me.So I’ll tell her later. When we’ve built more trust between us. When I’m certain she’ll listen to everything I say.
I don’t know if it’s safe to fall for this man. But I can already feel it happening.Ethan just spent hours talking to me about nothing because I asked him to.He married me because I asked him to.He scared off a mountain lion…I look at his chiseled profile. “Do you have a girlfriend?”Ethan slowly turns his head to face me. “No. I have a wife.”
Ethan is wearing a pair of dark aviator sunglasses. The lenses are nearly black, and the thin metal frame is silver.And… wow.How do sunglasses make him even hotter?
“You act like a bad guy, but I don’t think that’s what you are.”“No? Then what am I?”“I think you’re a good boy.”“Say that again.” He moves even closer, until our bodies are flush. “Call me that again.”“Ethan?” I slide my hands up his stomach, over his pecs, to his shoulders. “Are you my Good Boy?”
He points at the flower in my hand. “That’s illegal.”I look down. “Flowers?”“Picking flowers in a state park. They’re protected.”“But I didn’t pick it. I cut it.”His eyebrow stays up.
Returning to that place would be hard enough, but knowing he had to return only to fight again? Even if it was fighting to free the others, even if it was the right thing to do...He was tired. Tired of fighting, of battle, of blood. He wanted a quiet life, with a quiet place to rest his head.
My mouth is on her neck, my hand between us yanking my belt open. Her nails rake through my bloody hair, digging in so hard, it hurts.“You turned on by blood?”“I’m turned on by watching you fuck people up,”“You’re in luck. I’ve got a list of people to fuck up,”
The soft tip of her finger touches the tattoo on my ribs. A flash of pain ripples through my memory. It’s a brand, underneath the ink.
One moment he was a warrior fighting for his life in a labyrinth, and the next he was sitting here putting fireflies in her hair because he couldn’t cover her in gemstones.
Her magic stretched out, brushing against his skin just to see what he was feeling. And it broke her heart to see that he was glowing with a bright white light. Hope, she realized. Hope was nearly bursting out of him.She’d never seen anything more beautiful than him.
“I did some bad shit. I was the one who hurt people,” I say. “Brothers might seem harmless, but he’s just like any other crime lord. Some of the things we did changed my fucking brain.”Her throat bobs.“Brothers said something to me once. He said, ‘guilt is a funny thing. It’ll make you mean if you let it’, and I never forgot that. He was right.”
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