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He didn’t ever want to leave her He wanted this o on and on, his soul cradled in the warmth of her touch, her smile

But how did a ic words that would make her believe that what they’d just done was special and that he’d finally grown up enough to realize it?

There were no words that he could think of, and so he used his body to tell her that he loved her, that he couldn’t get enough of her His hands, his lips, his tongue—he used theain, until she cried out with pleasure and then sluainst him

They lay entwined forever Then, with a tre…”

“No way” He drew her closer, until their bodies were a sweaty, seaht”

She rolled over and smiled down at him Her hair spilled in a ht, and her lips were puffy and swollen from his kisses Her nipples caressed his bare chest “Welcole parent”

The words were like the tiny flick of a knife He winced “Is that what I’ you?”

A frown darted across her face Nervously she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear “Well… ould you call it?”

He lifted a hand to her face, touched her cheek, traced the pink outline of her upper lip He wondered suddenly how aa woman this much; if she wanted to, she could rip his soul out and smash it beneath her foot Just like he’d done to her

For the first time, he understood—really understood—what he’d done to that beautiful, trusting sixteen-year-old girl, and the sharet, deep and aching and unquenchable

He gazed up at her, loving her soin love”

Chapter Twenty-six

I’d call it falling in love

For a second Madelaine couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe She lay beside hi damp beneath her body She bit her lip, afraid suddenly that she would say the words she shouldn’t say, the words that, once spoken, couldn’t be taken back, could never be unsaid

She didn’t want to think about the past now, but it ca feet All the things they’d ever said to each other billowed up between the in the air above theled up with this man, and she was afraid—so afraid—to let hiain And yet he did, already he did