Page 154 of The Fire We Make

The blood.

The sadness.

The violence.

The pain.

The anger.

She’d laid her truth bare at his feet and yet⁠—

“I do.”

He placed a kiss on her lips. Then another.

“Look at me, Rose,” he murmured.

Joy hesitated a moment, then opened her eyes.

Ace held her gaze. He didn’t soften it, letting her see everything in his eyes. Letting her see the menace he kept restrained. The menace he’d let off the leash behind her.

“I see you, Joy,” he said. “All of you.”

His thumb brushed along her cheek.

Ace leaned closer, his forehead resting against hers.

“Monster or not, you don’t scare me, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Something in Joy broke and her lip trembled as tears threatened to escape her ducts again.

Joy stared at him, searching his face for hesitation. Fear. Disgust. Anything that proved his words were only an attempt to comfort her.

There was none.

Ace looked at her the same way he had when she came down the stairs in the red dress.

Like she was the prettiest woman in the world.

Only now, there were no secrets between them.

He knew what lived beneath the dress. Beneath the practiced smiles and sharp tongue. He knew about the blood on her hands and the rage she couldn’t always control.

And he was still there.

Joy hadn’t realized a tear was sliding down her face until Ace kissed it away.

He continued his path of kisses across her face

Slow and intentional like he was learning her all over again.

Joy supposed he was.

“Adonis,” she whispered.

His name on her lips made something in Ace’s chest snap.

His mouth found hers again, deeper this time. Hungrier.