Page 33 of Unwritten Rules

The way she surprises me like no other. She’s sheer perfection.

Even her mention of fucking sex toys earlier – Christ on the cross, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry – though my dick surely wept at the visual her words elicited in my head.

And when she’d manipulated the sleeping situation so perfectly earlier, I couldn’t help the shit-eating grin from plastering itself on my face.

I’d thought that perhaps time would have diminished the way I felt just being in her mere presence, but nope. Wrong, wrong, wrong. When we’re together, I feel complete. Fulfilled. Happy.

Something I’ve never experienced with another person before, yet it’s a feeling I’m intimately familiar with.

Writing. The one grand passion I’ve had in my world. For most of my life, it was my steadfast companion. Grounding me. Inspiring me. Shaping me and moulding the direction my life would take.

To my utmost joy, my love of the written word took my life in a vastly different direction than any Hawthorne before. No one should have to live in such an archaic manner as the one laid out by my long-deceased ancestors.

The abounding love I’d once had for putting pen to paper and allowing my imagination to take flight, crafting worlds with my words and nothing else, had taken me on an exhilarating journey.

I’d lived the best version of my life that I could have hoped for by age twenty-three.

Until Zara and my father. They’d taken my love for the craft and tainted it.

I’ll never write again. And I’m okay with that. I’ve come to terms with the deprivation.

So, I know that despite feeling that same exhilaration and passion in Mila’s general periphery as I’ve always felt for writing, it’s possible to get over the loss of such a love. To move past it.

Because I’ve done it before. I can do it again.

Except now, I’m wondering if I could be wrong because, if anything, my desire for her has grown.

The longing to be near her, to surround and worship her, has multiplied exponentially in our months apart. The urge to take her and make her mine, regardless of the cost, devastates me.

I’m overwhelmed by the need to consume every little morsel of time she gifts me with.

All the time in the world would never be enough with her. I want to live and breathe Mila DeMarco. I want her so deeply embedded in my very soul that we could exist as one being. One entity.

With each minute in her presence, I edge closer to saying fuck it and burning our worlds to ash so that I don’t have to burn with this yearning any longer.

And I know she feels it too. That same longing in my soul is mirrored in the depths of her golden-green eyes.

This trip was a poor decision. I know that.

I knew that when I agreed to it, but as with everything Hellcat-related, I can’t quite seem to let her down. I want to give her the world.

After all, it’s nothing less than she deserves.

I’m tied so irrevocably around her pretty little finger that she owns me.

Lock, stock, and barrel. To pretend otherwise is the very definition of insanity.

Having reached my destination, I realise I’ve run harder than anticipated. My chest burns as I manically suck oxygen into my abused lungs, desperately trying to fill them with the sweet country air surrounding me.

Each breath burns, but eventually, I regain control of both my tortured body and my tormented heart. Having allowed myself to mentally vent all of my pent-up emotions, I place everything I’m feeling in that Pandora’s box in the deep recesses of my mind.

Shutting it and locking it tight.

I can’t allow her to own me. Because I know that I must stay the course, no matter what. For both our sakes.

Maybe I should just sleep in the Lake House. Wetherby has always kept it fully stocked and clean. Perhaps I should just sleep here and avoid her altogether. It’s the safe option.

Coward.