His hands gently cupped my face, but the vehemence in his voice was a stark contrast to his gentle touch.“I need you to know that I would fight the fucking world for you. I would destroy every last person who ever hurt you, if I could. I’d do that and I wouldn’t blink a fucking eye. Because you are worth everything to me. I would do anything for you. I fucking love you, Dakota. You aremydarling. You are my entire universe.”
Oh, fuck, all these words he was giving me were so fucking precious. I wanted to capture them all in a bottle, keep them forever. But they’d made their way inside my heart instead, and I was never letting them go.
“I’m so sorry for bringing you there. You could’ve—” I choked on the words that I didn’t want to think let alone say.
“But I didn’t. I’m okay, baby.” He leaned down and rubbed his cheek against mine.
Ah, fuck.
“I love you,” I whispered, squeezing his waist. “I think since the moment you told me that your birthmark was a contagious disease back at the cemetery, I’ve loved you. You are so fucking strong.”
I curved my hands over his ass and tilted my head as I leaned in, biting into his throat gently, then pressing a kiss into his tender skin. I rubbed my cheek against his and said softly, “I love every part of you, even if you can’t. They’re all beautiful to me.”
And they were all mine.Hewas mine.
My protector.
My scrappy fighter.
My vicious tiger.
My beautiful darling.
He was everything.
And to know that I was everything to him, too, was all I needed.
31
THAT STUPID SLUTTY JOCKSTRAP
DAKOTA
SIX WEEKS LATER
Damn, it was muggy in here.
I didn’t know anything about plants, or why they’d need such a humid environment. All I knew was that there were lots of tiger lilies in here, and they wouldn’t miss a few.
It was nice that they left the greenhouse unlocked this early in the morning; had there really never been any issues with tampering or stealing? I guessed not, because as long as I’d been coming to this campus—which was a long time—the greenhouse had always been unlocked.
I made my way past some pretty, colorful flowers whose names I didn’t know and would never know, past some really tall plants with huge leaves, past some things I knew were ferns—I wasn’t completely unknowledgeable—to the very back of the greenhouse, where all the lilies thrived.
I only knew they were called tiger lilies because when Val and I would come here sometimes, he would always tell me in a very annoyed tone that he didn’t know why someone had named them that. He said they should’ve been calledleopardlilies because they had spots, not stripes. And because of the alliteration.
Val liked words, and a hell of a lot more than me.
Although, he hadn’t been doing his word of the day since the party.
I was worried, but I knew he just needed time. Albert had basically forgotten about him since the party; he was too busy trying to grab all the pieces of his fractured life and put them back together. It wasn’t looking good for him, though.
Everett was still in jail. Albert refused to acknowledge his existence, too.
It kind of went without saying that he’d most likely never talk to me again. I was fine with that.
“Hello, lovely,” I murmured, fingering the soft petal of one. Should I get the whole stem or just the flower this time? Last time I’d gotten some of the stem, but if I got the entire stem this time, there would be a nice little leaf at the bottom.
I was overthinking it, I knew that, but Reese made me overthink everything.
