Page 40 of Not Made to Last

“Pick something from the menu,” he reminds me, and I’d forgotten about the phone in my hand.

“Fine,” I say, tugging on his nape and guiding him back to where I want him. His breath warms my neck when he chuckles, and I wrap my legs around his torso and pull him down to position. I smile when he groans, bites down on my shoulder. Then sucks.Hard. “You’re going to mark me.”

“That’s the point.” He scrapes his teeth along my neck until his mouth finds my ear. “Food, Cheeks.”

“Stop distracting me then.” I raise his phone behind his head and start scrolling through the menu. Then pause. “You realize you’ve given me full access to your phone, right?”

“Don’t care,” he says, making his way down to my breasts.

“Instagram. Snapchat… your photos… probably some nudes…”

He tugs my top down with his teeth, repeating, “Don’t care.”

“I could go through your messages…” Nowthat’stempting.

He traces the top of my bra with his tongue. “Have at it.”

I take it as an invitation and open his messages in search of something scandalous. Something to tease him about. The most recent contacts are his sister, his mom, and Curtis—his cop friend who I’d met. After Curtis is Oscar, and I assume it’s Oscar Mendoza—a kid on his team with a good arm, at least according to his egg-throwing capabilities.

After Oscar is a name I’m all too familiar with. A name that has my pulse racing and breath catching. It’s a name that appears over 260 times in a 464-thousand-word book.

I click onMercedes, my heart as thirsty as my eyes.

Mercedes

Hearts are made of cardiac muscle, so they can ache, they can strain, and they can bend, but they can’t break. Not in these bodies. Not in this lifetime.

Rhys hadn’t responded to the message I’d sent last night, even though he’d read it right away, and I’d spent the next few hours wishing I could take back my words. Just because I’m cynical about all matters pertaining to the heart, that doesn’t mean that everyone else should be. In fact, most days, I wish I was the opposite. I wish vulnerability lived inside me the wayI see it in others. The way I see it in Rhys. But every piece of tenderness—ofwarmth—I’ve ever held on to has only burned me in the past.

Now, I live in an ice chest, guarded by walls so thick and so high that even sunlight can’t break through.

I exit the messages and lock the phone, drop it as if it’s fire in my hands.

“Have you decided?” Rhys asks, kissing just above my belly button.

“You order for me,” I say, then shove down the knot in my throat, bury it deep inside me. “I suck at deciding.”

He sits up, still between my legs, and I hand him his phone. I watch his face, his brow furrowing as he seems to type out a text, then throw the phone on the mattress beside me. Finally, his eyes meet mine, widening slightly. “You okay?”

I nod. “Yeah,” I lie. “Why?”

He runs a thumb over my cheek, his touch cold against my blush. “You’re all flushed,” he says, pressing his lips to my cheeks. First one. Then the other. I gently grasp his nape, holding me to him, and catch his mouth before he can pull away.

And then I kiss him.

I kiss him just like I did the first time—as if I’ve been starved of his taste, deprived of his touch.

And it feels the same now as it did that night.

Kissing Rhys Garrett is like breathing in sunshine, warming me from the inside, thawing my heart, my soul, until cracks appear in my ice-cold armor.

19

Rhys

Swear to God, I try so hard not to laugh, but the emotion takes over my body, and I can’t stop the sound that forms deep in my gut. I nuzzle Liv’s neck to stifle it, but it’s useless.

“Stop it,” she whines, tightening her hold around my neck. We’re both sitting up on her bed, only she’s straddling my lap, and at some point, not quite sure when, she’d ripped off my T-shirt. Notripped, as in literally, but she may as well have.

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