That secretyou wrote for me.
 
 That thing I just said to you.
 
 “Nice of you to feed my ego,” he murmurs, bringing a hand up to cup the side of my face.
 
 “Being too nice to me again,” I say, my words barely audible.
 
 “Seems like you were the one being nice to me.”
 
 “You talk to me. Youlistento me. You won me that little fucking cat that looks like Pearl. Why aren’t you running away from me, Rayne?”
 
 “Because I like you,” he says, like it’s the simplest thing. “You still drive me insane, but I like you, too.”
 
 When I put my lips against his, it feels more like aneedthan it ever has before.
 
 I’m so tired of not knowing who is after us.
 
 So tired of feeling like I’m failing at the one thing I should be good at, which is knowing how a deranged person thinks, and getting one step ahead of them.
 
 And I need Rayne’s kiss in a way that scares me.
 
 Because I’m starting to feel like I’m not going to know how to live without him.
 
 He doesn’t kiss me like I’m some fucked-up secret, or like I’m a hate-fuck he plans on forgetting.
 
 And if the world is going to crumble all around us, I need to have him right now.
 
 I push in even closer.
 
 I wish I could merge with him.
 
 That clean laundry scent, and the faint hint of the sunscreen he puts on every morning.
 
 When he moves down, kissing my neck, I breathe out softly, melting into his touch.
 
 “God, I fucking want you so bad. All of the goddamn time, Rayne?—”
 
 “You have me,” he murmurs against my skin, thenpresses a trail of kisses up my neck and onto the side of my head. “I’m right here.”
 
 I’m too lost in him to think about the fact that we’re in the hallway.
 
 Too focused on the sound of his breath to think much about the stairs, just behind us.
 
 And I forget how good Weston is at keeping quiet around a house.
 
 Wes and I always used to sneak around at night, avoiding our father’s wrath if we ever made a sound that woke him up.
 
 I suppose that’s how Weston ends up at the top of the stairs.
 
 In the hall.
 
 Behind us, without us knowing.
 
 Rayne is holding me like I’m something precious to him. Like I’m his boyfriend, not some dark secret.
 
 And I’m resting my head in the nook of his shoulder, kissing the lines of ink along his collarbone.
 
 “Oh.”