Nina didn’t answer, still caught in the struggle of steadying her breath. Her body felt emptied of strength, as if even rising from where she lay was beyond her. Yet she wasn’t alone. Loyd watched every small movement she made, as though afraid to miss a single flicker of her.
Her world had slipped into madness long ago. Or perhaps she had begun unraveling from the very first moment she met him.
Silence wrapped around them for a heartbeat or two. Loyd leaned in again, brushing soft, lingering kisses across her face while shrugging off the rest of his clothes. He adored her face more than anything. Nina carried a kind of beauty that didn’t match anyone else on campus, a beauty that tugged at something raw inside him. No one had ever driven him into reckless choices the way she did. Only h
