Chapter 25

• Brian held Cassie close as her breathing lengthened and deepened and her body relaxed into sleep. He loved the way she fit into him, how their bodies clicked together. He levered up onto one elbow so he could look down at her in the ambient light coming from outside. It was enough to see the curve of her cheek, the dip where her neck met her collarbone, and the rise of her shoulder. Her skin was pale in the moonlight, but he knew it was decorated with the dusting of darker freckles and he wanted to chart every one of them.
• Her hair spread out against the stark white of the pillowcase, and while the pale illumination from the world outside leeched it of color, he knew that it glowed with vibrancy. Everything about Cassie screamed life and fun and…home.
• Brian lived in apartments and hotel rooms. He didn’t have a home if he was honest with himself. He had a house, but he was very rarely there and even though he had grown up there, without his mother and father in it, it no longer felt like home. That house, like all the other places he stayed, was merely a place where he slept; none of them was really home.