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Shadows crept under our blanket with us. The familiar depression I’d seen him suffocate beneath settled in his eyes.
“Listen to me.” I grabbed his chin. “You are not your thoughts or your past. You are your actions and your present, okay? You cut me…yes. It hurt, I won’t lie. But…you’re not the only one turned on by the thought that you’ve branded me.”
“I’m not?”
“I love you,” I said simply. “The marks you’ve left on me will always remind me of that. When we’re out of here and living a normal life far, far away, I’ll look at that glittery H on my thigh and remember how much we overcame together, how much we fought side by side. It will be a talisman of everything we did and every game we played to win.”
His eyes snapped closed; he hugged me so, so hard. “I really don’t fucking deserve you.”
“Yet I’m yours, so doesn’t that tell you that you’re worthy? Regardless if you believe it or not?”
He shuddered. “Ily, I—”
“I know.” I yawned, the intensity of the day catching up with me.
“If anything ever happens to you…” He suffocated me in another hug. “My heart would stop alongside yours. If this twin flame thing is real and you are my missing piece…then I don’t want to exist without you.”
I stroked his chest and did my best to lighten the heavy darkness. “You know…most girls would go running if a man said such things so early in their relationship.”
“You run, and I’ll chase you.”
“Tempting.” I giggled.
“Fuck, isn’t it,” he groaned. “I’d pin you down. Take you on all fours. Christ…”
My insides clenched. I waited for him to shove off the blankets and put on a show for the cameras, but…his melancholy returned, and he hugged me right against his heart. “I’ve always known you were the one.” Fractures of grey appeared in his gaze, fighting back the black. “Also…say that again.”
“Say what again?”
“The part where we’re in a relationship.”
“Oh.” I grinned. “Well…I don’t know if we are. You haven’t exactly asked me.”
“You’re right.” Pinning me onto my back, he settled his legs between mine. His lips quirked with a boyish, blinding smile. “Ilyana Sharma…I saw you, and I knew you. You’re brave enough to face up to me. Kind enough to forgive me. And wise enough to see things in me that even I don’t see. If you run, I will chase. I will always chase you even if you don’t want me because I need to protect you. I’m loyal to you and only you, and I’ll do whatever it takes to deserve you, all while knowing I never will. And so…I need to ask you…beg you really. Please put me out of my misery and say you’ll go steady with me.”
Tears pressed against the back of my eyes as my body cradled his and our pulse thudded to the same beat. Somehow, I’d found a monster with the most devoted heart. A heart riddled with darkness but also aglow with light.
I had no idea if we would ever get out of here or for how long we would belong to one another, but right there, in that moment, I felt the world shift and realign, snapping us together. “Jeez, okay then.” I grinned. “I’ll go steady with you.”
“Thank God.” He kissed me.
Deeply.
Madly.
Our tongues stroked, our breath caught, and when he finally pulled away, drowsiness pounced, and he rearranged me on my side. Settling closer, he spooned me again. “Get some sleep…wife.”
My eyes flew open, my heart skipped. “Eh, Henri?”
“Hmm?”
“I agreed to be your girlfriend, not your wife.”
“Same thing.”
“Eh, not quite.”
“In my eyes?” He squeezed me. “The moment I met you, I put an invisible ring on your finger. It’s there, Ily. It’s always been there.”
