Page 117 of Bound to a Killer
Whatever’s going on with her mom will be fine, considering it was self-defense and the real criminal between them was her shitty ex. But she doesn’t need to worry herself with the details of whatever brief investigation is going down just yet. They’ll eventually come in to question her, and it’ll all unravel then.
Her brows pinch together, adorably. “But, so…is she okay? Is my mom okay?”
My hand lifts to cradle the side of her face, a featherlike caress. “Yes. Everyone’s okay; don’t you worry your pretty little head.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her voice a tight rasp, her eyes glistening. “I should’ve told you I was there sooner.”
“No.” I shake my head, my voice cracking. “This wasn’t your fault. Nothing that happened to you was your fault. I should’ve never left your side after that night.”
Somewhere between our conversation, our faces inch closer, her breath warming my skin as she speaks. I swallow against the blockage in my throat, but it’s not enough to clear the painful swell lodged there.
How would I live with myself with anything bad that ever happened to her? How did I ever think she’d be better off on her own, that I’d somehow survive being torn away from her?
“I almost didn’t get the chance to tell you,” she murmurs, her voice breathy and light, shooting straight to the part of me that’s already shamelessly stiff.
My eyes drop to her lips for a beat, almost getting lost in them before I remind myself to ask, “To tell me what?”
My voice dips lower, hoarse, as desire begins to weave itself between us the way it always has. She nibbles on her lip for a second, and I feel the tension in my core tighten as my gaze is drawn back to it again. I watch carefully as she enunciates her next words.
“I was worried I wouldn’t get to say goodbye. That I wouldn’t get to see you again, hear your voice, or feel the warmth of your touch. To tell you that I love you.”
My heart goes still. My chest clenches tight as the word reverberates through my head, over and over again, thinking I must’ve misheard.
“Love?”
A small smile curves on her lips as she nods, her teeth skimming across them before her eyes drift down to mine, locking there, her breath heavy. “I’m certain you already know. I’ve said this already before, but I’ll say it again…nothing’s changed for me since what I told you back at that hotel.”
I don’t give her time to say anything else. I don’t even think. I just close the distance and press my mouth to hers, rushed, heated, and with the kind of hunger I’ve never felt for anyone else.
She moans into my open mouth, melting into me. For a long moment, we lose ourselves to the kiss, so deep, so consuming, it could thaw the last remnants of ice that once encased my heart.
When I finally pull back an inch, her lashes flutter, lips parted into a heavy, needy gasp she tries to stifle by biting them again.
“You drive me so wild,” I murmur, brushing a thumb along her chin.
I trace every curve and dimple, watching the flick of her tongue as it slips out to wet her lips, and I fight the urge to pushher back and claim her on this very hospital bed. But I hold myself back, just barely.
A rush of something unspoken kindles beneath my ribs, burning away the shadows that once settled there for far too long. Suddenly, the future feels limitless.
The barricades that once held me back seem to vanish, slipping into the distance like a partially formed memory, as the space between us disappears.
Our breaths tangle in the air between us, hot and heavy. “Please, tell me you’ll stay with me. Tell me you won’t leave when this is all over.”
“I’ll never leave your side again,” I say, the words catching low in my throat. Then, softer, almost afraid of the weight they carry, I whisper, “Because I love you, too, Aria.”
Her eyes widen as she draws in a sharp breath, her chest rising fast, and then she leans in and kisses me, pulling whatever air I have left straight from my lungs. It’s exactly in this moment that I feel a monumental shift in myself. In us.
It’s a quiet revelation, like something clicking into place so naturally, so certain, it feels like we were always meant to find each other this way. Like a key meeting its lock. And for the first time, life doesn’t feel like something I’m just being dragged through anymore. It feels luminous and irrevocable, alive in a way nothing else ever has, because we are at each other’s side.
35
ARIA
SIX MONTHS LATER
“It’s perfect!” I clap, spinning around a bare king-sized mattress that’s been dropped in the middle of an empty living room. Moving boxes crowd the space in lopsided towers, messy, unbalanced, and full of hope. It’s not much to look at yet, but it will be, and more importantly, it’s mine. My first real fixer upper.
The walls are a monolithic stretch of muddled off-white, scuffed and in desperate need of repainting. Cherry-brown paneling rims the room, worn down and completely outdated. Neglected. Much like how I felt most of my life: undone and overlooked, but full of potential. Which makes this place absolutely perfect.
