Page 15 of Unholy Masks

“You’re everything I never knew I wanted,” I said when he pulled back. “It’s scary, but it is what it is.”

He stilled, his eyes darkening as they searched mine, as if trying to read every thought, every hidden part of me. But he already knew me better than anyone else. Sometimes, he knew me more than I knew myself.

“You want me,” he said. “You want me.”

“I do.”

His hands moved up, pushing his fingers through my hair as he pulled me closer, his forehead resting against mine.

“Say that again,” he murmured, his voice barely more than a breath. His eyes burned with feelings that made a tempest in my stomach.

Tell him before it’s too late.

My body trembled. For a breath, I could see Sister Serena, dead and cold, her smile frozen and then the image was replaced with my own.

What if I died before I ever found the courage to tell him?

Death was like that. It had a way of putting everything into perspective. The only thing that mattered now was telling him what I had been hiding even from myself.

I knew it all along, though. I was only burying it because I knew how saying it out loud would change everything, every part of me, every belief I held dear.

With a wrong person, love would be a burden. It would make you weak, vulnerable, malleable.

But Ryden? Ryden was right for me. He made me stronger. Braver.

This was the moment, maybe the only one I’d have left, and I couldn’t let it go on without telling him what he meant to me.

“I love you, Ryden,” I said. Wide, unblinking eyes met mine. “I love you with every broken part of me. I love you with all my scars, and my demons. Sometimes, I worry—no, I know that I don’t deserve you, but I want you just the same. I’ve always been selfish, and I don’t plan on changing anytime soon. Stay, Ryden.”

His grip on my throat tightened, his hands steadying me as he drew me in, his lips hovering just a heartbeat away.

And the world, the faded, hazy part of the world, suddenly came into perspective.

“Yes, Little Killer.” His voice shook, and his lips trembled. “You… fuck.”

I fixed myself after that night, that first kill, but when I did, there were cracks I always knew could never be completely sealed. Ryden stepped into those broken spaces, softly filling it, like light, like air.

His mouth found mine again. He started slow, but I felt it, I felt the need that pulsed beneath the softness. The desire to rip me into pieces and make me his.

I want to be his. I want to rip myself apart and offer the pieces to him.

It had always been like that. The desire. The passion. Everything was a hundred fold with Ryden.

He pulled me closer, his kiss turning urgent and consuming. His hands clawed against my skin, desperate for more. He pulled me under as his body twisted around mine. His hands slipped to my waist, pulling me tighter against him as though he couldn’t bear to let go.

“You have no idea what you mean to me,” he whispered.

My stomach clenched when he found my heated skin.

It felt like he was touching me for the first time, like this was the beginning when the universe was birthed.

“Show me. Show me until I believe it.”

He hovered over me, his midnight gray eyes tracing every inch of my face. His fingers traveled down my skin, lingering, learning, memorizing me all over again. The way he touched me was reverent. He touched me as if I was something fragile and dangerous all at once, like he was praying and not having sex.

I felt his breath, warm and uneven, as he drew even closer.

“What?” I asked.