My vision blurs. Maybe this whole thing never really happened. Maybe I tumbled down a rabbit hole into a world so shattering in its beauty and anguish that it can’t possibly be real. A world where staying is unfathomable and leaving is unbearable. Maybe it was all a desperate wish, a frantic, frenzied dream—
He opens his arms.
I’m running before I realize I’ve even moved.
No.
I’m flying. My feet barely touch the ground. Wings propel me across the parking lot and straight into his arms.
He lifts me up and locks me against him. Tears flood my eyes. His ironclad body and the strength of his grip are both a fortress and a sanctuary. I fold my arms and legs around him and press my face into his shoulder.
“Why did…” My throat closes over.
“I changed my flight. I couldn’t miss this.” He tightens his hold on me. “You’re amazing. It’s one of the bravest pieces of art I’ve ever seen. I’m so damned proud of you.”
He brushes his lips across my temple. I ease back to look at his strong, familiar features. With him still holding me, we’re at eye level, and his expression fills with such tenderness that everything inside me softens.
My heart can no longer contain the feelings that have been growing and bursting inside me like a wild, dangerous garden.
“I love you.” The words slip easily from me, this confession whose origin has lived in my soul forever. “I have always loved you. I’ll never stop.”
He stares at me for both a second and an eternity. Before he can speak, I lean forward and kiss him.
He goes still. His arms flex around my waist. For a torturous instant, I’m afraid he’s going to break the contact, lower me to my feet, let me go.
Then he kisses me back.
Shock ricochets into my bones at the first movement of his mouth on mine. For all the hot things I’ve imagined doing with him, and even after our one encounter, I haven’t actually pictured a simple, lovely kiss. I don’t know why. Maybe because Darius’s dark masculinity is so intense, as if the simple act of kissing would be a waste of his time.
But…oh. Clearly I was mistaken because his response is purposeful, compelling, as if he’s directing every ounce of his energy and focus into caressing my mouth with his. And it’s incredible—the expert movement of his lips, the slight rasp of his stubble, the peppermint taste of his breath.
My heart rockets upward at a dizzying pace, my pulse firing heat through my veins. He grasps my rear, holding me effortlessly. I tighten my legs around his waist and fist the back of his shirt, hoping that what I lack in kissing expertise I’m making up for in outright enthusiasm.
But he has more than enough expertise for both of us. He eases our lips together with an alternating light and strong pressure that makes my whole body quiver. He grazes his teeth along my lower lip and soothes the mild twinge with a sweep of his tongue. He brings one hand to the back of my neck, angling my head to slant his mouth seamlessly against mine, spinning me into a whirlwind of pleasure.
Thought falls away. There’s only us, our hearts pounding and blood heating. I close my eyes, losing myself in this intoxicating, powerful joining.
He parts my lips with his, easing his tongue into my mouth. Swirls of heat unwind in my belly. Strangely, the sensation of his tongue sweeping over mine, licking my lips, stroking my teeth, is even more intimate than his fingers inside my body. That was all about him pleasuring me.
This is a promise, a confession, a claiming. I feel our kiss all the way to the pit of my soul, where it burrows deep and waits to flourish into the knowledge that in the whole of my life, I will never feel this way for another man. Darius Hawke is part of my blood, my heart, the very center of all my secret places where longings, wishes, and dreams take root.
He lifts his head slowly and lowers me to my feet, his hands on my hips, our bodies still touching like the pages of a sealed book. He rests his forehead against mine and strokes his thumb over the side of my neck.
“You are…” He pauses, as if searching for the right words. “Incredibly beautiful and special. You don’t belong in this shitty world. With everything I am…every cell in my body, every fiber of my being, I wish I could protect you from it.”
Tears fill my eyes again. I put my hand on his whiskery jaw.
“You need to shave,” I murmur.
He smiles faintly. I bury my face in his chest, his heartbeat a powerful, eternal drum. He surrounds me with himself, folding me in for a moment before unlocking his arms and stepping away. Cool evening air fills the space between us.
I don’t want to say goodbye. I don’t want to watch him leave again. This time, I know he’s not coming back.
I put my hand on his chest and rise to my tiptoes to kiss him one last time. He runs his hand over my hair. The weight of his palm is like a vow.
“Keep yourself safe,” I whisper against his mouth.
For me.
Easing away from him, I turn and walk back into the light-filled gym. The door closes behind me with a sharp click.
Later, after Fern and Clover give me a ride home, I climb out my bedroom window onto the branch of the oak tree, then make my way to the roof. I settle into the valley created by the sloping sides. The sky is dusted with stars, like sugar spilled across velvet.
Until this moment, I didn’t know it was possible for my heart to be both whole and shattered at the same time. I didn’t know I could feel both strong and unbearably fragile. I didn’t understand that pain is the opposite side of a love so intense and brilliant that it’s like swallowing a sunrise.
I know all that now.
With my whole heart, I want him to remember the good in people. I want him to finally see the good in himself. I want him to be able to take a deep breath anywhere. I want him to feel peace down to his soul.
I close my eyes and imagine him in a desert, on a rooftop, next to a river. He’s leaning back, his camera at his side, the strap wrapped loosely around his fingers. The universe of dark, glittering beauty opens endlessly above him. Constellations and comets. Nocturnes and turbulent skies.
In this, at least, I can find comfort. Wherever he is in the world, whatever danger or horrors he’s facing…on a clear night, Darius Hawke will always look up at the stars.
CHAPTER 35
The sun burns a hole in the eggshell-blue sky. Sweat rolls down his temples. Artillery fire echoes from the outskirts of the city. Everything is searingly bright and sharp.
He navigates the rubble of a destroyed building, piles of rough stones blackened from a bomb detonation. Once upon a time, this was a bookstore or a library. The books now lie scattered in haphazard chaos, spines broken under heavy beams, charred pages fluttering like feeble butterfly wings in the acrid breeze.
Gunfire, closer now, fractures the air. A thin, ragged dog paws at scraps in the street. A wave rises, the growing noise of hundreds, maybe thousands, of angry voices.
This is what he came for. He reaches into his pocket and closes his hand around a smooth piece of gray sea glass the exact color of one girl’s eyes. Like a cloud in his palm.
The voices—chanting, yelling, shouting—surge into a deafening roar. A massive crowd waving flags, banners, and guns swarms toward the city center. Rifle shots burst upward, as if the shooters are aiming for the sun.