Free Unremarkable (Anything But) by Lindy Zart Page A

lied. His hands fisted. “Where have you been the last six months?”
    Honor stiffened, her eyes directed away from him, toward the spot she had been looking at when he stumbled upon her. “We have to go. They’re coming.” She looked at him, indecision taking over the determined expression on her face.
    “ You don’t trust me,” he concluded.
    “ Of course I don’t trust you. You shot me. But I can’t just leave you here. Come on.”
    Even now, after everything , Honor was unable to give up on him. Ryder’s chest tightened. She was moving away, back to the tunnel as she slid down the length of it, toward the way he’d come. He raced after her, stealth not high on his list. Water, and probably sewage, sloshed over his shoes as he hurried. He tried to concentrate on Honor instead of the smells around them.
    Glaring back at him, she hissed, “Don’t be so loud.”
    Her brows were lowered with a scowl on her face. Ryder grabbed the back of her head and pulled her to him against her objections, slamming his lips to hers. They were cool, unflavored, and unresponsive. It didn’t matter. He’d wanted to kiss her since the first time he’d seen her, and now it was like seeing her for the first time all over again; he wasn’t going to let the chance escape him this time. Life was too short, too full of mistakes and pain, to not kiss Honor Rochester. Her lips melded to his a second before her teeth clamped down on his lower lip. A sharp sting and the taste of blood registered in his head.
    They broke away, Ryder fingering his throbbing lip as Honor glowered at him. “Do that again…and I will shoot you.”
    He grinned, an unbelievable lightness to his step as they trudged through the dark, dank, stinky tunnels. They were being chased, they were lost, he didn’t know whether he would be alive or dead in hours to come. But he had just kissed Honor and for one finite moment, she kissed him back. He hadn’t been this happy since… ever .
    “ So what happened to you?” He ducked under a low ceiling, blinking as elongated rectangles of light shone down on them from the grate to the outside world above them. They were in a circular opening, doorways to three tunnels surrounding them.
    “ Shut up, Ryder.”
    The flecks of sunlight made Honor appear to glow. Dirt smudged her cheek and her dark hair was ratted around her face. Her clothes hung on her, masking her slender frame, but still, she was beautiful.
    “Honor.” She glanced at him, stilling as their eyes met. “I want you to know…I am so glad you’re okay.” Ryder’s voice was rough and his hands clenched at his sides to keep from drawing her into his arms again. She’d fight him; he knew that, maybe even actually shoot him.
    “ Why are you acting so weird?”
    “ Weird how?”
    “ Like you care.”
    “ I thought you were dead.”
    “ Yeah. You said that. So?”
    “ So the fact that you aren’t changes everything.”
    Honor glanced behind him, and then met his eyes. “Changes everything how?”
    Taking a deep breath, Ryder watched her eyes go to his bare chest, linger there, and move away. “I am not losing you.”
    Her brows knitted. “You never had me. I’m not yours and I never will be.”
    A smile captured his lips and he closed the distance between them. “You are. You just don’t know it yet. Or you won’t accept it. But you are mine. You’ve been mine since the first time I set eyes on you. I just haven’t claimed you yet.”
    “ You are unbelievable,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead with her free hand.
    “ I’m right.”
    “ Arrogant.”
    “ Confident.”
    “ Delusional.”
    “ Honor.” Her wary gaze met his. “I’ve never been so sure of anything before in my life, I’ve never seen with such clarity as I am now. Believe me.”
    Her dark head tilted as she studied him. The heat of her eyes on him was welcome, soothing. “You’re…different.”
    “I changed. I grew up.”
    “ Yeah, well, I changed too,” she