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"The extent to which we can sacrifice our own lives for our families has to have sory and hurt forever because she won’t let you help her At sonize that she made her choice, and it clearly isn’t you"

Ultimately, that hat hurt the most

"I have a court date in a couple of days He pressed assault charges"

"He hit you first Claim self-defense"

I would, but the fact of the matter was, had the police not shown up when they did, there was a good chance I would be facing a hoers out of her hair and placed a delicate kiss on each of the raw knuckles I didn’t knohat it felt like to heal, but I knew enough to know that hat she was trying to do for ry blaze that always hovered so close to the surface in me

"We can’t pick our families or where we come from, Jet All we can choose is ant to become in spite of them, and because of them"

I curled my palm around her cheek and ran a thuant and refined, like she was so expensive to be savored and enjoyed as a reward for really good behavior I never understood when she hinted that it ht all just be a carefully crafted front

"Why don’t you ever talk about where you’re from or your family? I don’tabout what your life was like before college Was it that bad?"

I saw the walls go up and the gates close, even though ere still naked and intiht and all the waroing to try to pull away from me, so I locked my hand around her neck, under her hair and held her in place She scowled at me but didn’t try to leave She dropped both her hands and let her head fall, so that her cheek was pressed against the snarling face of the death angel on e and answered the wall instead of me

"It wasn’t that bad, but I was"

"What does that even mean, Ayd?" I soothed my hand up and down the curve of her spine No irl, there was no place I felt it more than in my dick

She huffed out a breath that ood person not too long ago There were too eneral disregard for the law and the only use I had for anyone hat they could do for et what I wanted, and I didn’t care who it hurt or how it made me look to anyone I was athat as because that’s what folks there expected No one thought I was sh to leave, and if one teacher hadn’t taken an interest in ether before it was too late, chances are they would probably have been right"

She was describing a stranger That person sounded so far reirl draped all over me that I couldn’t even picture them in the same room, let alone the same body

"I don’t even knohat to say to that I don’t know that girl"

Her thu at the skin stretched in between each one It was soothing; she was soothing, and all I wanted was for her to be the balm that put out the fire in me once and for all I could tell by her tone, tell by how she still couldn’t look at o hand in hand in her mind, no matter how hot ere in bed, or how deeply we affected each other out of it

"No, but she knows you She knows you make me feel wild and out of control and that I don’t ever want it to stop She knows that because of you I feel like I’ to do whatever it takes to have you, and daet tothan anything illegal I ever messed with in the past Mostly, she knows that when I’m with you, all I think about is you and et naked, or how long it will be until I can curl up in your ar to me I don’t think of the future, or school, or all the other is I need to work on to have a life for myself You could own me, Jet, and I don’t want that to ever happen"

I curved h so that she was sprawled over et up and take care of business, but I didn’t want to move The arm that had Dali’s clocks on it rapped around her shoulder, and once again I couldn’t help but think that everyto have to last one

"What if it doesn’t matter? What if I cared about her as much as I care about this version of you? I don’t want to own you, Ayd, I just want to be with you"