41
" If I tear the sun from the sky and bring all the stars cascading down, would that line of your lips curve to a smile or a frown? With my hands burnt to a crisp and prosthetics in their place, would you hold me close and allow comfort in your embrace? If I fashioned a band from that sun and those stars, would you kiss these lines on my flesh? These irrevocable scars? I've fashioned for you this band of infinite light! Yet upon your finger it is not nearly so bright... You are my stars, sun and light. You are blazing fire in hopeless night. You are a reflection of perfection if my soul stood a mirror. Your affection is my infection, if only you could be nearer. You stand as a darling of your race, while I lay as an emotion with a face. What I sought and seek is not easily found, Yet from your lips escapes the perfect sound. My name and yours, yours and mine, Not even softest silk could be so fine. And yet, I see you standing there, Indecisive and fiddling with your hair. Your eyes are downward cast and your tears and my tears flow, What I would do to see them glow…and for you to know. "
46
" When I started off, I believed that the true determinant of how great I was was through my lifestyle, wardrobe, the type of car I drove, being seen with the right people; and if I made it unscathed, the estates I would own, and how the media would be singing my name like Urbanas’s. I saw my father apologizing for not supporting me.
But life is a twisty bastard.
When I called it quits on robbery, drugs, hedonism, and paedophilia and most probably necromancy—the ‘scarletest’ of sins according to me—I made a vow never to live a profane life again, not even the most subtle of snares would entrap me. I had seen them all, even in their disguises, and I knew them when I saw them. "
― Vincent de Paul , TWISTED TIMES: Son of Man
47
" This night is going well." Hello there." I speak too soon.Dunstan enters, his two cronies behind him. Everyone standing around goes quiet. I flinch, but not for me; he's gazing at Ivy like a lion at a piece of meat. Ivy just keeps grinning." And may I say you are the prettiest girl I've seen all night," Dunstan says, not noticing the fact Ivy's already taken.Ivy stares down at her feet, a pale blush the color of pink roses brushed across her cheeks. " You don't mean that," she whispers, not knowing she's accidentally flirting." I really do," Dunstan continues in his oily, supposedly charming voice, and I roll my eyes. I want to pull Ivy away, but if I do, Dunstan will notice me. And without Melanie breathing down his neck, who knows what he'll try to pull?" So what's your name, beautiful?" Ivy blush deepens and i feel my nails dig into my skin. I'm the one whose supposed to tell her she's pretty, not this jerk." My name is Ivy," Ivy replies." Ivy. I like it. It suits you." I feel an arm on my shoulder and turning around, I see Aidan holding me back. Unconsciously, I've stepped forward, ready to challenge him." So what is your name?" Ivy asks, still shyly peering down at her shoeless feet.Acting all surprised he got asked this, Dunstan runs a hand through his hair. " My name is Dunstan." Ivy's flush instantly vanishes, the corners of her mouth turns down, and her eyebrows knit together." Dunstan? This is your name?" Quiet as she's being, I know there's anger there. I'd hate to be the recipient of this tone.But Dunstan the egotistical baboon butt isn't aware of the change. " Yep, that's me." " What is your last name?" I feel someone shaking. Aidan's still hanging on to me, and he's nervous, too.Dunstan still doesn't detect her malice. " Why, my last name's Lebelle. Dunstan Lebelle." He chuckles. " Perhaps you've heard of me?" " Oh yes," Ivy hisses, suddenly radiating ferocious fury. " I've heard much about the boy who nearly got Rylan Forester killed." Even with blaring music in the next room, you can hear a pin drop throughout the kitchen as everyone goes quiet, having lost all ability to talk due to flapping jaws. Someone whistles." Excuse me?" Dunstan sounds like he can't believe what he's hearing." You heard me." Ivy glares, knowing she has him caught. " You pushed Rylan into the swamp where the alligator attacked him. Sure, you can blame the alligator, but when you really think about, if you had not pushed him in, Rylan wouldn't have nearly died. Who, by the way," Ivy steps back, clasping my free hand in hers, " happens to be my friend and my date." Everyone bursts into titters—no one has ever spoken to Dustan Lebelle like that—as Dunstan stares at me wide-eyed, finally taking in my existence. But before he can do anything, Ivy pulls my hand." We're leaving," she declares, giving Dunstan one last stink eye. And with her nose in the air and me following, Ivy boldly walks right out the back door. "
60
" I couldn’t talk about it, about them—not yet. So I breathed “Later” and hooked my feet around his legs, drawing him closer. I placed my hands on his chest, feeling the heart beating beneath. This—I needed this right now. It wouldn’t wash away what I’d done, but … I needed him near, needed to smell and taste him, remind myself that he was real—this was real.
“Later,” he echoed, and leaned down to kiss me.
It was soft, tentative—nothing like the wild, hard kisses we’d shared in the hall of throne room. He brushed his lips against mine again. I didn’t want apologies, didn’t want sympathy or coddling. I gripped the front of his tunic, tugging him closer as I opened my mouth to him.
He let out a low growl, and the sound of it sent a wildfire blazing through me, pooling and burning in my core. I let it burn through that hole in my chest, my soul. Let it raze through the wave of black that was starting to press around me, let it consume the phantom blood I could still feel on my hands. I gave myself to that fire, to him, as his hands roved across me, unbuttoning as he went.
I pulled back, breaking the kiss to look into his face. His eyes were bright—hungry—but his hands had stopped their exploring and rested firmly on my hips. With a predator’s stillness, he waited and watched as I traced the contours of his face, as I kissed every place I touched.
His ragged breathing was the only sound—and his hands soon began roaming across my back and sides, caressing and teasing and baring me to him. When my traveling fingers reached his mouth, he bit down on one, sucking it into his mouth. It didn’t hurt, but the bite was hard enough for me to meet his eyes again. To realize that he was done waiting—and so was I.
He eased me onto the bed, murmuring my name against my neck, the shell of my ear, the tips of my fingers. I urged him—faster, harder. His mouth explored the curve of my breast, the inside of my thigh.
A kiss for each day we’d spent apart, a kiss for every wound and terror, a kiss for the ink etched into my flesh, and for all the days we would be together after this. Days, perhaps, that I no longer deserved. But I gave myself again to that fire, threw myself into it, into him, and let myself burn. "
― Sarah J. Maas , A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)
