Page 131 of Promise Me Not

I say nothing, just wait.

“I…I can’t stand the thought of not.”

It takes me a moment, two really, but then her words register. They were mine after all.

I close the last bit of distance between us, my hands falling to my sides. “Well then, Pretty Little,” I rasp, my voice too thick, need coursing through me like never before. “You know what to do, don’t you?”

“I’m scared.”

“Not as scared as I am.”

“What if I hurt you?” she asks quietly.

“I’ll forgive you.”

“Promise me,” she whispers. “Promise me, Mason.”

“I promise you, baby.”

She surges onto her toes, and the world fucking stops.

Sparks fly, fireworks boom, and the brassy note of a trumpet blares.

She fucking kisses me, and it’s soul-wrecking. Bone-crushing.

She’s ruining me with nothing but her luscious lips.

They’re pillowy, thick, and full, and so goddamn soft, like clouds of silky sweetness.

She tastes like sugar and honey and mine.

My arms wind around her, and I don’t know what I’m doing until I feel the glass against my skin, her back now flush against it, my need for her to be close taking over.

She arches into me, her tongue chasing and tangling with mine, the sweeps delicate but daring, long strokes and needy flicks. And when a low, whiny whimper slips from her mouth into mine, I have to grab on to the wall to steady myself.

My body is fucking shaking, an overwhelming sense of rightness I couldn’t explain if I tried consuming me, burning me alive from the inside out. I’m on fucking fire. It’s sensory overload and endless suspension. It’s an electric current that only she can charge, and it’s coursing through every fiber of my being.

It’s fuckingus, and if I have any say in this world, it will never change, because… my god.

I get it now. This right here, this is why I exist.

It’s why my family bought a house decades ago in a little town called Oceanside and why a girl named Lolli became best friends with a boy named Parker. It’s why she fell in love with my cousin Nate. To lead them to Oceanside.

To leadhertome.

She might have had more than one purpose in life, but the reason for that is clear to me, and he’s sleeping but five feet away. But I was sent here with one purpose, and that is to love them both as if they’re mine.

In my eyes, they are.

I won’t let anything come between us.

I won’t love anyone the way I love them.

I couldn’t possibly.

I can only hope she feels the same and that she knows I love her son like he’s my own. He may not be my blood, but that doesn’t matter. He’s still mine, and if this changes things, if tonight means they’re becoming mine for real, he’s the only little one I want for us. It will be just us three forever. He will never have to wonder if the lack of blood we share leads to loving him differently. It doesn’t. It won’t.

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but how could I not?

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