I want to remember, forever, this look on Aaron’s face, as he’s bullied into blowing out his birthday candles for the very first time.

“I loved making you mad,” he says to me, his eyes wicked. “I love making you mad.”

“You’re so lovely when you’re blushing,” Warner says to me. “But I really wish you wouldn’t waste your affections on someone who has to beg for your love.” He cocks his head at Adam. “How sad for you,” he says. “This must be terribly embarrassing.”

“Come back to me, love. Come back.”
“Where?”
“Here,” he whispers, pressing my hands to his heart. “Home.”

“I want so many things,” he whispers. “I want your mind. Your strength. I want to be worth your time.” His fingers graze the hem of my top and he says “I want this up.” He tugs on the waist of my pants and says “I want these down.”

“You can go to hell,” Adam shouts at Warner.
“Just because I’m going to hell,” Warner says, “doesn’t mean you’ll ever deserve her.”

Aaron Warner Anderson, chief commander and regent of Sector 45, son of the supreme commander of The Reestablishment.
He has a soft spot for fashion.

“God, I love that.”
“Your name?”
“Only when you say it.”
“Aaron? Or Warner?”
His eyes close. He tilts his head back against the wall. Dimples.

“Please don’t shoot me for this.”

“You want me,” he says softly, his hands moving up my back, “and it’s killing you.”

“Go to sleep.”
“Go to hell.”
He works his jaw. Walks to the door. “I’m working on it.”

This girl is destroying me.
A girl who has spent the last year in an insane asylum. A girl who would try to shoot me dead for kissing her. A girl who ran off with another man just to get away from me.
Of course this is the girl I would fall for.

“Liar.”
He seems to consider that. Nods, just once. “Yes. Most of the time, yes.”

“I love you, Ella,” I whisper. “I will love you for the rest of my life. My heart is yours. Please don’t ever give it back to me.”

I tug off my glove and reach into my pocket for the Danish I grabbed at breakfast this morning; I hadn’t had a chance to eat anything before our early start today. And though I haven’t the faintest idea what dogs eat, exactly, I offer the Danish anyway.

“I think,” he says, “my heart is going to explode.”

“I’m going to marry you today. And then I’m going to make love to you until you can’t remember your name.”

“It’s not charity,” I snap. “He cares about me—and I care about him!”
Warner nods, unimpressed. “You should get a dog, love. I hear they share much the same qualities.”

“You think Aaron fell in love with your friend of several months, a rebel girl named Juliette. You don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know that Aaron has been in love with Ella for the better part of his entire life. They’ve known each other since childhood.”

“You don’t know it yet, Juliette, but you are a very bad girl,” he says, clutching his heart. “Just my type.”