“Zulu, we do this quick and easy,” Ray said. “No ripping his chest apart, taking out his heart, and painting his blood across the pavement.”“Come on. I did that once, and you still won’t leave it alone.” I shrugged my shoulders and leaned back in the van’s backseat.”

“Before I can respond, Nash continues. “Or was I there, too?” He brushes his lips over mine. “Did you think of my lips when he kissed you?” Light as a feather, he runs his hand down the outside of my thigh and back up again, squeezing my hip. “Did you wish it was me touching you? Like I did the night I came to your room?”I start to lean back and speak, but his lips take mine, quickly coaxing them apart. Sensation drowns out thought as I feel him breathe into my mouth. “Do you still want me? Because if you do, I’m all yours.”

“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him?"I…don't know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?"To shrug.”

“I loved you!" he yelled. He jumped up out of his chair so quickly I never saw it coming. "I loved you, and you destroyed me. You took my heart and ripped it up.”

“He advanced on her to steal a quick kiss, then took her by the shoulders and just stood there for a minute, rocking back and forth from his heels to the balls of his feet, smiling down at her, looking her over.“Like your shirt,” he said.She’d forgotten what she had on. She glanced down and watched his finger trace the words that scrolled across her chest. Just that light touch of his, even through her shirt, made her shiver with longing.The message was SAY I WON’T. Above that, in smaller letters, “Tell me that I won’t do it . . and I will.”“That inspires me,” he said, with his most wicked grin. “You know how I love a challenge.”

“With a quick check, he pulls out onto the road and we roar off in a trail of dust, leaving my stomach still somewhere on his driveway and my heart completely in his hands.”