Page 132 of The Dark Obsession

That still sounds so wrong.

“Ty…” I take his face in my hands, looking straight into his pained eyes. “You make my life so much better.”

His body goes still under my touch, closing his eyes before he lets out a shuddering exhale.

“Say it again.”

“I didn’t know it then, but my life began the moment I woke up with your masked face hovering over me.” Our lips almost touch as I continue.

“In making me yours, you freed me, Tyson.” Saying it out loud, I know it’s the ultimate truth.

“You deserve so much more, little one.” He rasps, raking his fingers through my hair. “But I’m a selfish bastard and I’ll never let you go.”

I smile, nudging our noses together.

“Good, because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” Right here, enveloped in his arms.This is my home.

“This.Us.” I palm his cheek. “It’s everything I could have ever wished for and so much more.”

For one long breath, he presses our foreheads together.

“I’m dead inside, Malory.”

I shake my head against his, looking deeply in his bottomless eyes that hide so much.

“Not entirely.” It might have been the case in the very beginning.

Maybe not even then, and definitely not anymore.

I think I’ve known all along that there’s more to this man.

“I’ve seen it, Ty, the way you look at me. That’s not the look of someone who’s indifferent, unfeeling.”

I keep holding his face tightly between my palms as a lone tear spills over, running down his cheek.

“I don’t know how, but something inside me broke the first time I saw you. And it’s been ripping me apart ever since.” A choked sound tears from his throat.

“Before you, there was nothing, but now…” His eyes close for a breath. “I can't live without you, can't fucking breathe without you. My world is empty, I am empty without you.”

He takes my hand in his, placing it over his heart.

“What I feel for you, little one. That’s all there’ll ever be.”

His breath hitches. “What little humanity I have left, it’s all yours.”

Standing up on my tiptoes, I kiss aways the droplet that has reached his jaw.

“I love you just the way you are.” I breathe.

Tyson’s eyes flare, his arms crushing my body to his in a death grip.

“You love me?” He looks at me in disbelief. Like he didn’t allow himself to even hope these words would ever leave my mouth.

“I love you.”

I love him, irrevocably.

All the darkness and the light.

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