Page 58 of Desperate Games

My mouth moves before I can stop it.

“I do.”

Two simple words. And just like that, everything changes.

A beat passes. Maybe it’s a second, maybe a century.

Then Remy’s hands are on me. His mouth crushes mine.

The kiss is hard, hot, possessive—like the whole fucking world belongs to him now.

Maybe it does.

Maybe I do.

I feel dizzy with it. Branded by it.

There’s no room for breath, no time to think.

Only heat and tongue and this terrible, intoxicating ache that slams into me like a freight train.

When he finally pulls back, his brow is drawn like he’s shouldering a burden too heavy to speak aloud.

He cups my cheek with one of those big, battle-scarred hands, eyes scanning mine like he’s trying to memorize me—just in case.

“I’ll take care of you, Andy,” he says quietly.

It sounds like a vow.

It is a vow.

And yet, somehow, it feels like a goodbye.

He says it like he’s not happy about this either.

Like he’s just made a deal with the devil and I’m the prize and the penance all at once.

I nod, because what else is there to do?

He’s a good man. I know he thinks he means it.

And maybe that’s the cruelest part.

Because right here, right now—with a marriage license drying on the table and a stranger still packing up his notary book—I feel a sorrow so deep it lodges in my chest like a splintered bone.

This wasn’t supposed to hurt.

It was supposed to be a plan.

A solution.

A way to take control of my future, not hand my heart over like an idiot.

But looking at Remy—strong and conflicted and trying so fucking hard to be noble—I feel it.

The mistake.

The loss of what could’ve been.