Page 215 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

I licked my lips without meaning to. His eyes followed the movement.

“Cassian.”

“Yes.” His voice was rough.

“Are you listening?”

“Yes.” He wasn’t.

“Cassian,” I said firmly. “I need you to listen.”

He swallowed. Nodded. His eyes stayed on mine. This time, they didn’t drift.

“If you fuck things up again, I will kill you.” I meant every word. Absolutely, irrevocably serious.

His face softened. He nodded slowly, accepting. “Make sure there are no fingerprints on the sword.”

I scoffed, my lips twitching despite myself. “I’m not an amateur.”

His thumb traced the curve of my cheekbone, slow and tender. “Of course not.” A smile tugged at his mouth. “My wife is an expert.”

“That’s another thing.” I held his gaze. “We’re not getting married again—”

His mouth opened, a protest already forming.

“Right now.” I finished the sentence before he could object. “We need to spend time with each other before we make that decision again. Let’s just… be together. Okay?”

He didn’t like it. I could see it in the set of his jaw, the way his eyes flickered with something that might have been disappointment. But he didn’t argue. He just pulled me a little closer and said, “I’m still calling you my wife, though.”

I smiled. “Sure.”

I had a feeling he’d never stopped.

I swallowed, the last of my fears rising to the surface. “And lastly. If I fuck this up somehow in the future—”

He was already shaking his head, already reaching for me, already ready to refuse.

“—you’ll just have to deal with it.” I finished.

He paused. And then a smile spread across his face, slow and bright and so full of warmth it made my chest ache. “Deal.”

My hand rose to his face, resting against his jaw. He caught it, turned his head, pressed a kiss to my palm. And then, so quietly I almost missed it, he said, almost to himself. “I’m so fucking lucky.”

A laugh escaped me. “You’re such a dork.”

His arms came around me, pulling me into him, holding me against his chest. “And now you’re stuck with me.”

His mouth found mine again, unhurried. A soft press, then another, his thumb tracing my jaw as if he had forever and planned to use every second of it. I felt the shape of his smile between kisses, breaking against my lips, spilling into me.

Maybe three years from now, if I woke up with no memories again, I would look back at this moment and think I was an idiot for giving him another chance. But right now, standing in his arms, with his mouth against mine and his heart beating against my chest, I couldn’t bring myself to care what future me thought.

I was choosing him. At this moment. In all the moments that came after.

I was choosing him.

Chapter 35

There were some moments in my life that I kept close. Moments I pulled out when I needed something to remind me that things could go right, that the world could balance itself, that people got what they deserved.