Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
KIERAN
Arken typically fell asleep much faster than I did.
I couldn’t say I minded that, though—I enjoyed this part of my new nightly routine a little too much.
Stroking her hair, tracing the constellations of every freckle on her arms and shoulders, eliciting pretty little sighs and hums of contentment.
Cradling Arken against my chest, breathing her in, committing the cadence of her heartbeat to memory and marveling at the way it seemed to mirror my own.
I savored every sound that spilled past those sleepy, kiss-swollen lips, but sometimes, I even got to hear her talk in her sleep.
It happened often enough that I found myself fighting my own exhaustion the past few nights, staying awake in hopes to hear more.
Her words were mostly nonsensical, but every now and again, her subconscious state would offer something absolutely brilliant or hilariously clever.
Her mouth had started to curve and twitch a little, and here I was, an ever-avid listener, waiting with bated breath.
“Amma, he’s everything,” Arken murmured, clutching the pillow against her chest and loosening a soft little sigh.
Meanwhile, I had stopped breathing. My heart seized. My pulse scattered.
He’s everything.
A few more incoherent whispers tumbled from her mouth, largely indecipherable, perhaps because I could hear my own heartbeat thrumming against my eardrums.
Everything.
I released a slow, albeit shaky exhale.
“You’re gonna fuck me up one day, Little Conduit,” I confessed to her quietly, knowing she wouldn’t stir. She wasn’t that much of a light sleeper. “You’re going to ruin me, and I don’t even care.”
Let her ruin me. I could think of no one more worthy of becoming the arbiter of my damnation than her—my most perfect sin.
This would always be my greatest crime—stealing a heart I’d never, ever deserve.
Knowing I didn’t deserve Arken, and laying claim to her anyway.
Knowing that I’d yet to offer her anything by way of commitment, and yet I still touched her so openly, brazenly, intentionally in public—in part because I wanted the whole godsdamned world to know she belonged to me.
It was criminal, letting her fall for me, knowing damn well that I could never, ever tell her who I truly was.
What I truly was. No matter how badly I was beginning to want to.
So yes, let Arken Asher be my reckoning. Let her be my ruin.
It might be worth it, just for this one, single night of being her everything.