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Pools of brown stared back.
An emotion I’d never seen in them before shone.
“There we go.” I pulled her covers over her as she lay back on her pillow.
My chest tightened, and I found myself kneeling at her bedside, my fingers stroking through her hair.
Her tiny mouth twisted in comfort, her words that sweet slur when she said, “Today was really my favorite day in my whole life. Just like Ms. Dae is my favorite day, and you’re my favorite day, too.”
Her statement speared me to the spot.
I felt…
Staggered.
Shattered.
Unprepared for the rush of affection that surged, rushing through my veins and infiltrating all the places I didn’t want it to go.
I leaned over her so I could press my lips to her temple.
“You’re my favorite day, too,” I whispered, terrified by its truth.
Standing, I turned to find Paisley in the middle of Evelyn’s room with her hand pressed to her throat.
For a moment, we just stared at each other, held in this uncertainty.
Then she turned and slowly walked out into the hall.
I followed.
Drawn.
I pulled Evelyn’s door partway closed, and I found Paisley facing me in the dim light of the hall.
Energy crackled.
Sparks of desperation.
Every-fucking-thing I could no longer ignore.
“Caleb.” My name barely hit the air.
At the sound of it, I broke.
I crossed the space. No restraint left.
My hand dove into her hair at the side of her head, and I curled the other around her waist and tugged her against me.
We collided in a torrent of greed.
Mouths and tongues and spirits that no longer knew how to exist without the other.
We spun, gripping at each other, desperate to erase every inch of space.
Her back banged into the wall, and she arched into me as I kissed her.
Kissed her with a madness that burned me to the soul.
This girl who’d scored herself into the places I wasn’t supposed to let her go.
But she was there, sinking her fingers into my shoulders and raking them down my chest. “I need you,” she mumbled at my lips.
“I’ve never needed anything the way I need you,” I admitted.
I forced myself to plant my hands on the wall over her head, pulling away a fraction, my breaths shallow as I stared down at the beauty that stared back. “I would lose it all for you, Paisley.”
Her head shook. “This isn’t about losing anything, Caleb. This is accepting a gift. This is about finding what was meant to be.”
My chest tightened at her promise.
“No one will fucking touch you. No one but me.”
The words were shards.
An oath.
I swept her off her feet and carried her into her room, kissing her as we went.
I laid her sideways in the middle of her bed.
She was covered in that sundress that had driven me out of my mind the entire day. White hair cascading around her delicate face, those lips parted and damp and her eyes doing those wicked sweet things that I’d always known would ruin me in the end.
“Do you hear me? No one will touch you but me.”
“I hear you,” she whispered.
“Do you have Evelyn’s monitor?”
Nodding, she fumbled to pull her phone out of her dress pocket, and she set it on her nightstand. I moved back to the door where I clicked it shut and locked it.
The alarms were set around the perimeter of the house, no way for anyone to get in.
I strode back to her, my hand going to the side of her face and slipping into the soft locks of her hair. I tipped her head back.
“I need you, Paisley. I need to feel you. I need to know that you’re whole and safe.”
My voice was rough, harsh and pained and vibrating with the wrath. The wrath of the day and the wrath of what I knew was to come.
Because I could feel it trembling all around us.
Lawlessness.
Her fingers curled into my shirt. “You have me, Caleb. You have me.”
THIRTY-SIX
PAISLEY
I gazed up at Caleb while he stared down at me with a severity that I’d never seen in him before.
Icy eyes burned blue flames. So hot they seared me through.
I curled my fingers tighter into his shirt and tugged him closer, reiterating the promise. “You have me.”
He did.
Wholly and completely, even though I doubted he understood the extent of it. What he’d come to mean.
His mouth crushed against mine. Demanding as he fisted a hand in my hair. Our lips pushed and pulled in a war to get closer.
His tongue delved inside, stroking in greed and necessity as he hovered over me in all that violent savagery.
Like he couldn’t have this any other way, either.
Like he needed me as badly as I needed him.
My fingers tore through the buttons of his shirt. Frantic, I got them undone, and I shoved the fabric over his shoulders. He left me for a second to twist it free of his arms.
