Page 224 of Kiss the Villain

“Harper.”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” The words taste hollow, like I’m grasping at memories that don’t quite fit anymore. “My perception of love is skewed. She was pure, and I liked that, I guess. I liked her company.”

But even as I say that, it sounds weird. What I felt for Harper was quiet, soft, like a ripple in a pond. But what I feel for him? It’s a storm. Relentless, all-consuming chaos that’s burned its way into my very core.

He literally flipped my world upside down. Took everything I thought I knew about myself and smashed it into a million unrecognizable pieces.

But I can’t say that. I’m still jittery and in pain.

I’m also terrified that if I lay my heart on the table, he won’t take it. And I’ll be left picking up the pieces all over again. So I bite my tongue, keeping the words buried where they can’t hurt me.

“I never loved Cassandra,” he says out of the blue, the rough timbre of his voice vibrating against my back, sending shivers down my spine. “I liked her as a friend, but it was never love.”

“H-how do you know for sure?” I whisper, my voice cracking under the weight of his words.

“Because you’re the one who ripped my heart open and made yourself a place inside, Gareth. You’re the one who makes me irrationally mad and hurt because a dead teenager had your heart before me, and I can never be pure enough to compete.”

His words crash into me like a tidal wave, and my heart soars, rising like it’s been untethered from the ground. It’s dizzying, overwhelming. My chest feels impossibly full, bursting with his presence, his scent, his touch, his voice—they flood my senses, leaving no room for anything else.

I open my mouth, my lips trembling with the words I want to say. To tell him that no one—absolutely no one—has my heart but him.

That, as obsessive and unusual as it is, my heart beats only forhim.

But before I can utter a word, a sharp, piercing sound rips through the moment.

Gunshots.

38

KAYDEN

Well, this is inconvenient.

And annoying.

And all manner of frustrating.

I’m going to slice open whoever interrupted what Gareth was about to say.

While looking up at me with bright eyes the color of a tropical island and all the beasts lurking within.

But guess we have no choice but to get past this pesky problem.

We dress in record time as the chaos downstairs crescendos. Gunshots rip through the air, sharp and deafening, followed by the sound of shattering glass and splintering wood.

The violence isn’t slowing—it’s accelerating.

While I’m confident Simone and her men can hold their ground for a while, I can’t stay here. Not when the situation is escalating by the second.

I’m the best-trained fighter in this house aside from her, and my presence down there could mean the difference between survival and a bloodbath.

Gareth doesn’t seem fazed by the loud noises as he slides on his T-shirt. Normal people would at least be apprehensive, even with security in place, but he just looks at me with those slightly wide eyes. An expression he has when he tries to figure me out, read the emotions on my face.

“Give me a knife,” he says. “Actually, that’s useless. I want a gun, though I’ve never shot at people before, but there’s a first time for everything.”

He’s grinning, practically bouncing in place with excitement. Goddamn menace would be murdering people left and right if given the chance.

“You’re not coming with me, Gareth,” I say in my firmest tone, the one I usually use when he’s being a brat.

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