Rage and Ruin by Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,167

you get my point.”

A slow curl tipped up his lips. “I do.” His head tilted to the side. “So, I’m scared, but what I feel—what I want is still there. It’s always there, and when I’m not with you, all I want to do is get back to you. At first I thought it was the bond, but it’s not. It’s something entirely different.” His mouth grazed my cheekbone, drawing closer to my lips. “And knowing that—knowing you feel...feel right—I’ll be damned if I’ll walk away from that, even though it terrifies me.

“I need you to understand something.” His gaze caught mine, held it. “I know that what I feel for you is nothing like what I felt for Layla. Nothing. And I realized something the night Stacey and I talked.”

That was the night he and I had gone to the next level. It had been only, what, two days ago, but it felt like weeks. “What?” I whispered.

“I...don’t know if I was ever in love with her,” he said. “I loved her. I know that, but I think I was in love with the idea of her and us. And I think...no, I know that the hardest part, what I’ve been dealing with since then, is realizing it would’ve never worked out between us, and how I couldn’t see that.” The hand around my braid slipped to my lower back. “I will always love that girl. There won’t be a time that I don’t, but I’m not in love with her.”

My heart pounded, and when I took a breath it felt like it went nowhere. “And Stacey helped you realize all this?”

That crazy-cute half grin appeared. “Yeah, she sort of called me out on it. Said some things I needed to hear—things I’d already been thinking.”

All right.

There was a swelling motion in my chest, one that threatened to lift me straight to the starry ceiling.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so mad about him staying out late with her.

But...

There was always a but.

I took another deep breath. I needed to say this. I needed to get it out there, because I could feel it building between us. The rules weren’t going to stop us. The dangers each of us faced weren’t going to be a hurdle. “I’m scared of getting my heart broken.”

His eyes met mine once more. “So am I.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “I couldn’t... If something happened to you, because we’re together, I...”

The hand on my jaw kept my gaze glued to his. “I know that my life is tied to yours, that if something happens to you, it happens to me, but that doesn’t keep me from being terrified that I’ll somehow lose you. I will do anything to get to you if something happens. There is nothing that will stop me,” he admitted. “A part of me understands why the senator did what he did. Hell, not a part of me. Everything in me understands, and the knowledge of what I’d do if I lost you? Yeah, that scares me, too.”

A tremor rolled down my spine.

“If my life wasn’t bonded to yours and something happened to you? If you were taken from me, there’d be nothing that would stop me from getting you back. I’d go to the ends of the Earth. I’d barter with everything I have,” he said. “I know that’s wrong. I know how bad that could go, but I would do it. And that’s not because of the fact that if you were to die, so would I. In death, nothing would keep me from you. That I swear.”

It was wrong. It would most likely go bad, but I whispered, “I’d do the same.” And that was the truth. “If you were killed?” Even thinking that hurt. “I’d do anything to bring you back.”

“So, knowing that? I sure as Hell am not going to let some rule keep us apart. Nor the fear of seeing you get hurt, and definitely not the fear of me getting hurt. I’m a lot of things, Trin, but a coward isn’t one of them.” His eyes searched mine. “And you’re not a coward, either.”

“No,” I whispered. “No, I’m not.”

That half grin grew into a smile, the kind that broke and mended my heart in a matter of beats. It was the kind of smile full of promises and possibility, and damn straight, I wasn’t a coward. My fingers tangled in his hair as I exhaled.

“Why is this coming up now and not two nights ago?”