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391 pages, Paperback
First published March 4, 2014
"You need to be careful with her. She's broken."
"Worse than me?"
"I don't know. Maybe… She has a lot of scars."
"The darkness in it told me there was a story I should know."
"I wanted my mouth on her skin. I wanted to kiss, lick, suck, bite. And not necessarily in that order. It was like my body knew what it needed and my brain was working to catch up."
"She wants a tattoo, you know."
"Have you seen the design?" I asked.
"No. But I almost convinced her to bring it by so you could have a look. Then you ruined it when you got all up in her space and tried to dry hump her."
"I didn't try to dry hump her."
"You would have if there hadn't been witnesses present… I don't even know why I bother with you. It's like herding a cat."
"I thought you said just one time." Her hands slid under my shirt…
"I meant one night."
"You're changing the rule?"
"Didn't I tell you about the fine print?" I asked, working a knew between her thighs.
"Fine print?"
"Mm-hmm." My lips moved over her cheek to her ear. "Rules are subject to change."
"His armor of ink and steel protected him; it kept most [emotions] at a distance. Getting to know the man underneath would never be easy. And yet here he was, letting me in, hoping I would do the same... Under all the armour he wore, Hayden was in pieces like me. It made him safe. He understood what I'd been through."
"Do you really think you can order me around?" He crossed his arms over his chest in a show of dominance."
"I have more cupcakes in my apartment..."
"Are you trying to bribe me?"
"Is it working?"
"Yes."
Maybe that’s where the connection came from: we were linked through the pain of loss.
“Everyone has scars. If we're lucky, they're only on the outside."
“I was starting to think of her as mine. For the first time in my life, I wanted someone for myself. And I would take her any way she came.”
“What I want to know is why the fuck I can’t get you out of my head.”
“What I want…is to figure out why I have no control when it comes to you.”
It was my attempt at finding closure, at putting everything behind me by accepting it, owning it, wearing it on my skin.
"Why didn't she just tell me the truth in the first place?"Well I certainly don't get it.
"Maybe she wanted to protect herself."
"From what? Me?"
"She's petrified of losing you, Hayden. Don't you get it?"
'It had been difficult. Painful. But I couldn't tell Hayden. There was already so much on the table that if I added anything else, the legs would collapse. I wasn't in any frame of mind to deal with something like this. Not now.'
An interesting storyline; broken, tortured characters who understand each others pain and and try to help each other overcome their past...this was a very unique, heartfelt NA romance story that I very much enjoyed reading! Can't wait to start the next book in this series!
**ARC courtesy of Gallery, Treshold, Pocket Books, via Netgalley, in exchange for an honesty eview**
Love consumes you. Secrets tear you apart.
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“I’m sorry I can’t make the hurt go away.”
“You do, every time you touch me.”
“Everyone has scars, Tenley. If we’re lucky, they’re only on the outside.”
“Maybe that was where the connection came from: we were linked through the pain of loss.”
“I hadn’t considered the possibility that I might find someone who would understand what I had endured and want me anyway, even though I wasn’t whole.”
“Hayden embodied everything I wasn’t but wanted to be. I spent my entire life trying to color inside the lines, only to wind up restrained by them.”
“Everything about the life I had been living before her seemed like a wash of grays.”
“My remorse over things that couldn’t be changed was like acid, burning through skin and bone, seeping into the heart of me.”
“All I know is that I want you, all the f*cking time, every day, endlessly.”