Page 66 of The Blood we Crave: Part Two

His smirk is wide. “Try to avoid prison for the rest of my life.”

I laugh, just as he spins me again, the world moving in only colors and blurs.

“And me?” I ask breathlessly when he catches me in his arms. “What will I do?”

“You’ll be just as you are right now,” he begins, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “Haunting me. Existing for me.”

Those three words dance on my tongue.

They are right there, begging to be said out loud. My heart jumps and skips in my chest, screaming over and over.

You love him! You love him! Say you love him!

This could’ve stayed only an obsession, but it had bloomed into something lovely and dark. A rosebush with twice as many thorns, but still breathtaking. I’d thought I loved him before, knew I could be the only one to do it, but this, this is love.

The kind I’d read about since I was a child. People wish on stars for this kind of love. The one where two people who were always meant to be clash and finally accept that the universe does put people in your life for a reason.

I want to say it, but I don’t.

Only because they aren’t enough right now.

They are not enough to capture this moment. Will never be enough to explain the way my heart beats with a different rhythm for him. They are simply just not enough, and he deserves more.

So I swallow it and replace them with something else.

“I have a gift for you too.”

MY BLOODY VALENTINE

SEVENTEEN

Thatcher

My mouth is watering.

The idea of devouring Lyra whole while she wears that pretty little dress becomes more and more tempting now that we are hidden away from prying eyes.

I wasn’t sure when I’d become such an addict, so uncharacteristically strung-out on the taste of cherries and the sound of her voice, but I’m here now. Wholly, utterly obsessed with my little stalker.

I’d known letting her into my world would cause irrevocable damage. When you live your life in black and white, it’s impossible to not be tainted by someone who exists in full color.

But I don’t think I could have predicted this.

This hunger, yearning for experiences I’d never thought of before. I’d always been content knowing Lyra was mine, this secret voyeur who belonged to me in the shadows of the night.

I never expected that I’d want to be hers though. That I wanted to belong to her just as much as she belonged to me. If this copycat killer wasn’t intent on ruining my life, I would’ve already made it more than clear that we were it for each other.

My hand is interlocked with hers as she pulls me through the cabin. I would’ve followed her just about anywhere in that dress. With her back to me, I admire the arch in the small of her back, the plump curve of her ass, and how that dress leaves little to the imagination of what she looks like naked.

If it makes me weak to crave her, then let me be weak.

Being strong means nothing if I can’t have her.

“Promise me you won’t freak out.” Her voice shakes as we wind down the hallway to the door at the end.

It’s the only one in the house that stays locked. The one room she forbade me from entering. Although I was curious and slightly annoyed with her keeping it from me, I hadn’t pushed the issue.

“I’ve seen a heart beating inside someone’s chest cavity.” I raise an eyebrow. “There isn’t much left to freak me out, darling.”