When Aaron finally spoke, it sounded like a promise. “I’ll earn my four-letter word.”

“I love you, Lina.” A crack sliced its way across my poor, beaten heart at how wrong those four words sounded. “How is it possible that it feels like you are breaking my heart, and I haven’t even had you yet?” My soul shattered. I broke in a hundred million pieces.

"My eyes took in our reflection in the mirror, not expecting how much I would love what I saw. Me, in his arms. Me, cheeks flushed and a dazed expression on my face because it was him holding me. Me, happy."

“You blow my goddamn mind, my rules, my world,” he breathed, those ocean-blue eyes capturing my gaze like they never had before. “When I least expect it, I find you ready to dynamite your way right into my heart. As if you hadn’t done that already.”

My hands trailed up his strong arms, passing across his rounded shoulders and finally clasping behind his neck. “You do,” I murmured. “I adore you too. Treasure you. Love you. Want you. Need you.” I pulled him closer.

“Maybe I can’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try. When someone mistreats you and I have the power to do something about it, I’m going to speak up. I’m not going to wait on the sidelines and watch you take the hit of it on your own.”

“Yours,” I repeated, my heart expanding in my chest. Lurching itself against my rib cage. Wanting out and into Aaron’s. “I’m yours too, Aaron. So completely yours. I have... fallen in love with you. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. I love you.”

"And if we don’t, I make sure we do. I try to catch her on her break, steal a glance or two in the hallways, pass by her office without having an excuse. Anything that will put me in her head for just a few moments a day."

“You have to say something, baby. You are very quiet, and that’s starting to freak me out.” Baby. That baby did things to me. I liked it. Far too much.

they were made for each other.

“She’ll always have me.” His thumb caressed the back of my hand. “She doesn’t know it yet, but she is stuck with me.”

"And when he smiled, that wide and furtive grin that I was beginning to think was only for me, I swore he could have blinded me if I hadn’t blinked. That smile—Aaron’s smile, his handsome face, him completely and entirely—made my knees weak and my chest tight."

“Take me home, Aaron Blackford.”

His gaze searched my face for a brief moment, and whatever he found made him smile. Again, that grin. Only for me. What a lucky bitch I was.