Page 122 of Kill for a Kiss

She pulls back slightly. Her eyes find mine, wide and glassy, and the fear there cuts right through me.

“I don’t remember it all,” she says, voice shaking around the words. “Only flashes. The flames. The burns.”

She lifts her hand slowly, fingers hovering over my face.

“And your old mask,” she adds.

Then she swallows hard, the pain twisting her mouth before she forces herself to speak again.

“When I’m tired and can’t fight my mind, I relive that memory, as if it’s still happening and I’m in it.”

My throat tightens. I can’t breathe right.

“I want to remember someday,” she whispers. “But not today, Sterling. It still feels like I’m only borrowing pieces of someone else’s nightmare. It hurts to force myself to remember everything.”

She blinks rapidly, lashes wet, but the tears don’t fall.

“I’m scared, Sterling,” she says, her voice so small it almost disappears. “I’m scared because I don’t know if I’ll ever get my past, my memories, or myself back.”

I want to say something—anything—to fix the moment we had that I just had to ruin. But the only thing out of my grimacing mouth that comes out is her name, broken against the mist between us. “Elle…”

She leans in. Her breath shakes between us. “If we keep looking back…” she says, barely louder than the whisper of mist. “If we keep letting the past haunt us, we’ll lose everything in front of us.”

I close my eyes, fighting the ache that rises so fast it blinds me.

Fuck, she doesn’t even see it. How she finds the light, even when it’s buried under so much ash. How she finds beauty in jagged, jutting rocks promising to cut her open. She still walks through it all, not afraid to hold on to what could hurt. She’s shaking in myarms, broken and terrified. But she’s the bravest person in the entire world. Because despite the fear, she doesn’t cower or waver. She walks toward danger, hoping she can at least save someone from it, forgetting all about herself. That’s why I’ll always be right here with her, to save her, even if it’s from herself. Even if it’s from me.

But before I can say anything—before I can give her the confession scraping up my throat—Elle kisses me, slow and deep, like she knows it’s the only way to stop me.

I moan into her mouth, my hands sliding beneath the water to cup the back of her thighs, steadying her on my lap. But she’s already moving, sinking down again, and my breath punches out of me. Elle’s not running away from me. She remembers bits and pieces, but she’s staying.

Her body rolls against mine. Her quiet gasps and occasional sigh land against my throat. I know she’s distracting me. I can feel it in the way she moves. She’s desperate to stop me from bringing up the past. Butfuck, it’s working.

“Sterling.” Her voice wrecks me. “I’m in front of you. I’m staying by your side too.”

I close my eyes, trying to let go of the guilt.

She guides my hands to her heart, whispering, “Don’t hold back.”

So I don’t. The spring water laps around us. Her moans get louder. The heat rises. The sun glows around her.

If this is how we move forward, one breath-stealing kiss at a time, one broken piece mended by her hands, then I’ll follow her into the heat. Every single time.

29

Sterling

The hot spring’s long gone now. We left it hours ago. But her warmth hasn’t. It clings to me like a second skin. But my desire isn’t just for her body. I want the way her mind works when she wonders, and the storm behind her eyes when she remembers. I want her scars and her burns. Her shivers, her silence. I want all of it. Because she’s not just the girl I lost. She’s the woman I’d kneel for,I’d kill for.

I’d lay everything I am—every ruined, bloodstained part of me—at her feet if she’d take it. Even if she never says she wants it. Even if she ends up walking away. Though, that thought makes my throat sour with boiling hot bile. But if that’s what I deserve after everything I’ve done, then I’ll take it with my head down.

But right now, the boat we’re in creaks gently beneath us as it drifts along the quiet waves. Elle’s stretched out across the bench, skin kissed by the sun, my shirt hanging off her shoulder. I watch the wind play with her hair while she drowses, one hand resting on my thigh. It’s only a light touch, but it distracts me like crazy. It’s a miracle I’ve caught any fish.

I catch her blinking awake with that glint in her eye. Now, I’mcompletelydistracted. Because even with just her knowing glance, mybody remembers everything. The spring. The shack. The cabin. The curve of her back when I pressed her into the cot, whispering her name like a promise of how badly I’d do anything she asked me to.

I can’t stop thinking about it. About her. How she felt in the water when she was riding me for rounds. How she arched into my hands. How her voice broke when she cried out my name into the open air.

Chuckling, I focus on the fish swimming nearby and throw my spear in. Elle hums happily, watching me spear through another.