Page 168 of Burning Daylight

Her breath catches on a strangled noise and then she’s moving too, her fingers clutching at the front of my shirt as though she might fall if she lets go.

My mouth crashes against hers and I moan.

She tastes like something I’ve spent my whole life chasing.

She tastes like coming home.

“Don’t youeverthink you’re alone in this,” I grit out against her lips. “Don’t you get it? Don’t you know by now that youconsumeme?”

She whimpers, and I grip her cheeks in my hands like I’m afraid she’ll disappear.

“I’m so in love with you, I’ve forgotten how to exist without you,” I say. “I love you like I wasmadeto love you. Like I came into this world just so you could carve out my heart and leave yourself inside it.”

Her mouth parts, eyes glassy, but nothing comes out.

My hands slide to her jaw, thumbs tracing over her skin, like maybe if I hold her tight enough, the universe won’t find a way to tear us apart.

“You’reitfor me, Juliette,” I whisper. “You’ve always been it.”

Neither of us move. Her fingers are still curled in the fabric of my shirt, but she’s not pulling me closer anymore. She’s just holding on, like letting go will break the moment. Like she knows we’re at the precipice of something too big for us to keep.

I press my forehead to hers.

Her breath trembles against my lips.

And in the silence, I feel it. The shift. That invisible moment between where we’ve been pretending we are and where wereallyare.

The truth is simple: I love her. Desperately. Endlessly. Irrevocably.

But love doesn’t erase blood, and the lines between our names are still drawn with a deep-red ink too dark to wash away.

As long as we both exist in Rosebrook Falls, it doesn’t matter how much we want each other.

Our love burns so bright it’s blinding.

But hate knows how to swallow up light.

43

JULIETTE

“Do you hate me for being part of them?” I ask.

My voice is quiet, but it might as well be a scream in the stillness of the woods.

“Do you hate me for whoIam?” he replies.

Somewhere between our confessions of love and the moments after, we sunk to the ground. I’m curled up in his lap and he’s holding me tight, his fingers dancing along my spine like the boulder of truth isn’t about to come crashing through our bodies and rip us both apart.

I press my face to the crook of his neck, my breath shaky as I bite back the feeling of dread that’s curling through me with every second we stay out here, staring at the stars.

Eventually the night will end, and our weighted confessions will disappear along with it.

“Never.”

“It’s okay to care about people,” he says after a long pause. “Even when they hurt us. Even when they turn into strangers.”

His voice is love and threaded with a type of understanding that I’m not even sureIhave when it comes to the way I’m feeling.