Belle Whittington

Today,
Assortments brings to you a Book Excerpt from




“Living, existing, and dying are all relative,” he pressed the soil over the box with his foot, tamping it down.
“What does that even mean?” I stood at the edge of the cement‐covered grave.
“It means that things are not always what they seem,” Everett pulled me into an embrace.  “But there is something that is what it seems.”
“What is that?” I was stunned by how strong his arms felt around my waist.
“How much I love you, and how far I’d go to protect you,” he removed his sunglasses to reveal the blue eyes that I was accustomed to seeing.
“Protect me from what? We took care of those monsters … remember?” The last word soundedineffectual as it found its way off the tip of my tongue.  He pulled me tighter against his chest, and a surge of electricity grew between us, distracting me from what I was saying.
“That’s for me to worry about,” his lips pressed against my forehead.  He moaned softly and kissed the tip of my nose.  “My lovely firefly,” his lips hovered above mine.  “ I’ve thought about doing this for along time,” he whispered, his breath brushing against my lips.
I’d never been kissed … not on the lips, anyway.  In my usual manner of thinking through things, I quickly created a checklist of what I should do next.  The checklist went up in flames as his lips met mine, and, as if I’d always known what to do, I kissed back.
Lifting myself on my tiptoes, I moved my hands up the lines of the smooth newly‐formed muscles on his back and over his broadened shoulders.  His lips covered mine, and I twined my arms around his neck.  As if the sheer, tangible electricity growing between us wasn’t enough, a brisk gust of wind blew across the floor of the darkening forest and encompassed us in a whirlwind, creating a wall of leaves that whirled around us. His kisses gentle yet longing, comforting yet voracious, spoke more than I love you.  My kisses followed his lead as my lips parted and beckoned for more, ignoring that my heart was warning me that his kisses were saying goodbye.
Goodbye? my mind asked my heart.  I opened my eyes to look into his, hoping I would find a different answer.  His eyes were still closed, his lips still covering mine with kisses.
The whirlwind, still encircling us, was twinkling with the light of hundreds of fireflies.  I gasped, and when Everett removed his lips from mine, I could see a sky full of stars.  He pulled me closer against his chest as I looked from side to side, realizing we were no longer standing on the forest floor, but hovering among the treetops, surrounded by millions of twinkles in the darkness.”