Page 140 of Saint

Slowly, he peels my shirt off, leaving me standing in front of him in just my bra and underwear.

His fingertips graze the still-healing gashes on my ribs.

They remind me of the marks on Kole’s chest. Trials I never wanted to go through.

“I see survival.” He traces one of the marks. “I see a fighter.”

His finger slowly draws the line of another until he pauses on the final one.

“I see pain.” He slowly drags his finger down my skin. “Pain only you could survive. Because you’re so strong, Violet. Unbreakable. And I’d know. I tried.”

He plants a kiss on the side of my temple, the smallest flicker of amusement bringing light to this moment. And somehow, that vulnerability draws out my first smile in two weeks.

“Really?” I lay my hand over his, pressing his palm flat to my stomach. “They don’t bother you?”

“It bothers me how you got them.” He pulls my back to his chest. “But seeing any part of you could never bother me. You’re perfect. Imperfections and all.”

“That’s kind of a contradiction.”

He shrugs.

Spinning, I wrap my arms around his shoulders and look Kole in the eyes. I soak in his words and hope if he says them enough, they’ll heal me.

Kole leans in, wrapping his hands under my thighs and lifting me up onto the counter so he can stand between my legs. But he doesn’t move for more. He just holds me in his arms and watches me. He sees me for every flaw, and I honestly believe in his eyes it’s beauty.

The girl who was born surrounded by death. Raised with half a family. Screaming into the abyss at the bottom of the ocean until he found me.

“I don’t know how to love you right,” Kole says, brushing his fingers along my jawline and tracing it the same way he traced my scars. “But I love you every way I know how. Because you are everything to me. I’d die for you.”

“I don’t want you to die for me.”

“I don’t care.”

I can’t help but smile at that, even if it’s a little heartbreaking to think I could ever lose him.

“I love you, Kole,” I admit. “It’s not perfect either because I know I’m not. But I love all of you, even the parts you use to try to scare me away.”

His eyebrows pinch, and he grips my jaw, pulling me to him.

And it’s all I need because his kiss says more than words ever could. They spill his love into me.

It’s dark, painful, deep.

It swims through every vein and twines with every bone.

Kole kisses me until it’s no longer just his mouth pressed to mine. It’s his body, his skin, his heart. It’s our destiny.

And he’smyKole.

Epilogue

Violet

Four Months Later

This part of campusisn’t nearly as well-lit as the rest, and I’m now realizing why Kole usually insists on meeting me at the end of the day to drive me home.

Except tonight, he was busy.

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