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“You’re right that you aren’t your sister, that you aren’t any of those other men you know, that you aren’t even like us. We all went through tragedy and came out the other side vicious, jaded,angry.We all traded any softness we ever had for something darker, something uglier. When Nem was almost killed, those broken parts inside her, she sharpened to lethal points. You didn’t do that.”
“Because I’m weak,” I whispered.
“No, because you’restrong.Stronger than the rest of us. When life shattered you, you dulled those edges so you wouldn’t cut others with them. You kept that sweetness of yours, no matter how hard the world tried to drive it out of you. Instead of lashing out at others, you keep putting yourself out there, keep risking yourself for others even when they’ve given you no good reason to. Even now, instead of focusing on revenge, you’re willing to give yourself up just to try to ease the burden of the people around you. If that isn’t strength…”
Hayden sighed softly. “I spent most of my life protecting others, but when things got hard, when things went wrong, I lost a part of myself. I lost that desire to protect and the person I saw in the mirror didn’t feel like me anymore. Don’t ever mistake kindness for weakness. It’s a lot harder to be kind than it is to be vicious.”
He offered those words up like they were obvious and easy, as though I should have known them already. It was strange, because they were exactly what I’d wanted to hear without even realizing it.
I thought about Nem, about Jarrod, about the Quad. They’d all pursued revenge the moment they could, willing to kill and hurt anything in their way to get what they wanted. They took life without a second thought, and I’d grown up believing that was what it meant to be strong.
But maybe I was wrong about that? Maybe I’d mistaken that?
It felt too convenient, like the answer I’d wanted to hear all along. Sometimes what we really wanted wasn’t the truth though—it was just easy.
Fingers touched my chin, and Hayden turned my face toward him. He’d pulled his lips into the smile that always made my heart beat a bit faster, and now was no exception.
He ran his thumb along my cheek. “You’ve got dirt on your face.”
“Gardening isn’t for the weak,” I said with a laugh.
Except, he didn’t pull back. He didn’t remove his fingers from my chin, and after clearing away the smudge, he moved his pointer finger over my bottom lip as though memorizing the texture, the way it gave beneath the gentle pressure.
I knew what he was thinking. It didn’t take experience to guess, not when he stared at my lips as he touched me like that. I recalled my kiss with Vance, the fact that I’d crossed that line already.
I’ve crossed a lot more lines than that.
And I didn’t know how else to thank him for what he’d said, for offering me a ladder when I’d been so deep into the pit of self-loathing that I could no longer see the sun.
No, that’s not it.Saying what I wanted was due to gratitude ignored all the reasons I really wanted it. It made it about him, made it not about my own desire, and that was cowardly.
So I leaned in, closing my eyes, wondering if he’d stop me.
To my amazement, he didn’t. He moved his finger from my lip but kept his grip on my chin. The press of his lips to mine made me melt more than the hot sun or humidity. He was gentle, careful, treating me as though I were precious. He tilted his head, then used the grip on my chin to tilt mine the opposite way.
His breath tasted of mint, as though he’d had one just earlier, and it almost made me laugh to think he’d done that for me. Or, rather, it might have made me laugh if he didn’t part his lips slightly and suck softly at my bottom lip, the sensation drawing a moan from me.
Vance had kissed me so suddenly—both times—that I hadn’t really gotten the chance to enjoy it, to savor it. It had been over so fast that he’d left me with a slight tingle and bewilderment about what had just happened.
Hayden did the opposite, his kiss like a light in the distance that drew me deeper and deeper into a dark forest. Yet, I chased his light happily, content to follow him anywhere so long as he kept doingthat.
I curled my fingers in the front of his shirt, trying to get closer, to feel more of him. He clouded my mind and my rational thoughts, making it so I couldn’t think about anything except this. How was it that just a kiss could turn me so mindless?
Because it’s him.
He broke the kiss, teasing my bottom lip with his tongue before whispering, “Promise me, Kenz, that you won’t do anything foolish.”
I opened my eyes, finding him embarrassingly close, his words a rude wake-up call in the middle of the passion.
“Even if you gave yourself up, we wouldn’t stop, we wouldn’t give up. We wouldn’t just let him have you, so doing it would really just put us in more danger.”
“I lived my whole life until a year ago expecting to just become the trophy wife of some man. I never wanted that future, never would have been okay with it, but for you?” I licked his bottom lip, finding the warm skin damp from our kiss. “I think for you it’d be worth it. It was the future I expected all along, but for the first time, it’d be worth it. I’d accept it happily if it meant you all could move on, could have the futures you deserve.”
He blew out a long breath, as though my words exhausted him. “Any future where you’re suffering isn’t one I want or could tolerate. Trust me—trustus—we’ve got an idea.” He pulled back, turning his gaze from mine.
It didn’t feel like a rejection, though, and having his eyes off me helped my mind sputter back to life again. Without him staring at me, I could think again.
“Promise me that you won’t do anything rash,” he pressed.
