Page 227 of The Devil We Crave
…Little prey.
46
YELENA
The world is utterly stillby the time he finishes telling me the story of watching me break. For a moment, I don’t know what to say.
The night he saw me on this very roof was right after what happened with Kyle. I thought I was broken beyond repair and that the only way out of the absolute misery I felt was to jump and make it all go away.
But on that ledge I realized I wasn’t ready to leave all thegoodin my life to get away from the bad. A strength I’d never known before surged inside me, and instead of jumping Iscreamedout my rage and my fury at the city below.
And that’s the moment he first saw me and never stopped.
When he’s done telling me the whole story, I start to cry.
“Baby.” His voice is low. His thumb catches a tear before it reaches my jaw.
“I’m not sad,” I whisper. “I just?—”
“I know.”
Hedoesknow, on a cellular level. That's the thing about him that I've slowly, at times reluctantly, admitted to myself.
He always knows.
He’s always there.
And as much as I want to feel betrayed by that, I'm not. It’s the opposite.
“I crossed every line,” he murmurs.
His eyes are locked on mine with an intensity that would have terrified me once but now just anchors me.
"I took apart your life piece by piece and rebuilt the whole thing so that every path led back to me.”
There’s no regret in his tone at all.
I love that.
“I would doevery single thingagain, baby. Every ruthless, calculating, unforgivable thing. Because the alternative is a world where you're not mine, and I don't even know how to want that world.”
The wind whips around us as our eyes lock.
“But now…” His hands come up to cradle my face with a gentleness that will always undo me when it comes from him. “No more games. No more game-plays I've already mapped out.”
His brows knit.
“…Well, mostly not.”
I bite back a laugh.
“The simple truth is, I’m in love with you.”
I inhale sharply as his words swirl around me.
“And I have been every fucking minute of every fucking day since the moment I saw you standing on that roof, defying the whole goddamn world.” His throat works. “But again, I’m going to give you the choice now I never gave you before.”
He steps back slightly, just enough to make my heart twist at the distance.
