Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“You’re right. 20k,” James says. “Still probably undervalued. I think you’ll be a very successful artist very soon, Knox.”
I practically feel like I could fall over hearing a number that high.
“It’s yours. No cost,” Hunter offers.
Oh. Right.
Hunter has millions now, too.
“Going to fight you for that piece, J,” Ezra says, coming over.
I feel like I’m among living legends.
And in a way, I know it’s true.
But the only thing I can focus on is Hunter’s slight smile. A smile that has an ocean of meaning behind it.
A smile that never used to be possible for him.
You’re not broken, I think, trying to hold myself back from tackling him with a kiss right then.
You’ve been fucking perfect all along.
The next two hours of the gallery show go by in a flash. More and more people come up to talk to Hunter about his work.
By the end, it’s like we’ve been through the best kind of whirlwind, and after the gallery closes for the evening, I’m the last one to walk out with Hunter.
He feels for my hand.
That’s another thing he does all the time now, without hesitation. He holds my hand, because Hunter Knox isn’t afraid of romance anymore, either.
“How are you feeling?” I ask him, giving his hand a squeeze.
“Overwhelmed. Exhausted. And also feeling like I just had one of the best nights of my life.”
I pull him into a side hug, pressing kisses to his hair. “You’re an ahh-tist, babe. The whole world knows it now, too.”
“It’s only possible because of you,” he says softly.
We’re walking beneath the canopy of trees on the Crimson quad now.
The same place that I was running at the start of last semester, dreading the fact that Hunter was coming to campus.
And now I can’t imagine living without him.
“I think we both know you’ve been talented for a lifetime.”
“But I’d never be able to get back into it without you. Rayne, you’ve made me feel like I can be a person again.”
“Oh, stop.”
He comes to a standstill, and I turn and look in his eyes.
He looks thankful, yes. Loving.
But he also has that possessive glint in his eyes that I’ve come to love more than anything.
“You are mine, Rayne,” he tells me. “I don’t have to touch you. I don’t even have to look. And you know it, too.”
“Did you ever think it would be any other way?”
There’s nowhere else for us to be than here, out on the quad, surrounded by the song of the crickets in the night air.
“Yes,” he tells me with a grin. “Thought you’d act all defiant forever.”
I bite my lower lip. “Maybe I will.”
“Get over here,” he says, yanking me toward him and crushing a kiss to my lips.
And my world explodes into radiant color. Artwork of his making that I melt into in his arms.
“Hey,” I say against his lips, pulling back a little. “If I were a color, what would I be?”
He runs his hand along the edge of my jaw.
“Gold,” he tells me softly. “Radiant gold.”
“Fuck, I love you.”
“Love you too. Now take me home and fuck me so I can feel normal again?”
“That’s the plan.”
As we walk home together, I’m thinking of another plan I have, too.
And he doesn’t know that I have a ring picked out for him that’s also a radiant shade of gold.
I might wait until we graduate to pop that question.
Or I might get too impatient and do it this summer.
But both of us know it’s happening, sooner or later.
I’m certain that I’m woven together with Hunter by fate. That his flame will burn inside me forever, and mine inside him.
Wild, hot as fire, and always a little broken. That’s the way we love.
And exactly what we’re made for.