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I reach for the door and he pushes et out ofwith all the horrible things I want to shout at him, but I can’t let myself lose control His face is twisted with pity, but he doesn’tuntil you talk to et out of rabsway!" I try to wrench et any leverage "Let go"

"Is that what you want? You want o? You want me to watch you suffer like this? Because I can’t do it anyo ofhe wants is the one thing I can’t give

"You think I can’t see it? You think I can’t see that I’ like a stone and no one, not even you, can rescue me," I whisper as I clutch my fists to my chest "This was inevitable You don’t want to knohat I did Trust me when I say that If I tell you what I did you will never trust uess it’s best if we just stop before we’re in too deep"

"It’s too late for that," he says, his voice sounding too thick "I can’t believe you’re willing to throw this all away because you think I’ you--especially after everything you’ve learned about me" He reaches for my face and I s hard as I try to hold back my tears "Look at this face" He strokes my cheekbones with his thumbs and the first tear falls over the rim of my eyelid and races down my cheek "How could I ever not trust this face? Or these eyes" He kisses both my eyelids and my throat aches with all the words I wish I could say "And these lips… How could I ever curse a single word that comes out of these lips?"

He kisses me so tenderly I sob softly into his mouth He pulls away and I know I probably look like a mess

"I just need to be alone for a little while," I say in a strangled whisper

He nods and kisses my forehead "I’ll come by later to check on you"

I nod as I reach for the doorknob again and he places his hand over h tomorrow Maybe your heart will be a little less broken once we leave there"

I don’t have it into do with my broken heart so I just nod He kisses my temple once more before I leave As I descend the steps to ht occupies ht

Chapter Sixteen

Relentless Signs

I WAKE UP TO TOTAL darkness withandtootropical stor any I peel my face off his belly and he reaches down to take ently on my bottom lip

"Mmm…" He moans as I lay on top of him "Happy birthday, babydoll"

He kissesbeneath me He flips me onto my back and I come down so hard on the ether in h as we scoot over so we’re not on the crack He leans in to kiss rab his hard length

He moves my hand away as he slithers down and takes ue and giving it a soft tug He rab a fistfuls of his hair to pull his around his waist

"It’s your birthday," he says between kisses "I’ll do whatever you want" His tongue slides into my mouth and I suck on it for a bit before he pulls back "Let me eat you up You’ll be my slice of birthday cake"

"We don’t have o to the bank Let’s rins at me as he kisses the tip of my nose "So efficient But we have plenty of time The sun hasn’t even come up yet"

I turn toward thethen back to him "Why are we up so early?"

"I wanted to wake you up in time for your favorite time of day"

He slides down s before he rises fros together to stop o outside and sit on the bottom of the steps that lead to his apartolden moment just before the sun comes up

That’s when he turns to me and whispers in my ear, "I promise today will be the best birthday you’ve ever had"

When the water in the shower begins to run cold, we drag ourselves out of the shower and take our ti each other off