Page 45 of Tick Tock, Darling

His breath was warm against my lips. “You’re all I have ever wanted. I pledged myself to you for eternity. You’re mine.”

Then he was inside me, a slow, perfect stretch that stole the air from my lungs. I gasped, arching to meet him, our hips finding a rhythm as ancient as the tide. I could taste the salt on his skin when I kissed his shoulder, desperate and hungry. He was everything—the solid weight of him, the scent of his sweat, the way his hand cradled the back of my head. No longer would I be afraid of love. Not with Caspian.

Something gave way in me and I couldn’t stop it.

It went through me like the light had, white and hot and everywhere at once.

He plunged deeper and came inside me. He collapsed on top of me, trembling. I held on and didn’t let go. His weight, his heart going against my chest, the whole length of him shaking.

Nobody had ever come apart because of me. Not once.

My eyes stung and I let them.

He brushed back my hair. “I could listen to you call out my name forever.”

“I love you, Caspian. You’ve taught me I don’t have to be in this world alone.”

“Never. I’ll always be at your side. You’re my heart, my Christmas Star.”

He fell asleep with his hand still in my hair.

I lay there in the dark and let the light come up off my skin, soft, filling the whole room. It lit his face. Lit the ceiling, the window, the tree burning down the hall in a house that wasn’t empty anymore.

The Christmas Star. That’s what I was now.

I’d spent my whole life certain that loving somebody was the fastest way to lose them. Then a vampire tore up his own jeans in a wrecked church so I wouldn’t burn my hand, and crossed two worlds, and let a whip open his back rather than give me up.

The first one hung over a stable and showed three men where to find what they were looking for.

Mine had done the same thing. It had brought me here, to this bed, to him.

Merry Christmas, Caspian Hook.

I love you. I’ll love you for as long as this thing in me burns, and longer.

I let the light stay on until morning.