Dust by Mandy Harbin

To kill is easy…
Killian knows the nickname fits. He’s a cursed man with a screwed up childhood and a hellacious hot temper. With school, work, anger management sessions, and taking care of his ailing granddad, he doesn’t have a social life. The demons from his past won’t let him get close to anyone even if he wants. His one respite is art. When he gets lost in a project, he can ignore the monster lurking within. A temporary cleanse that never lasts.

To live is torture…
Olivia never dreamed she would return to Louisiana, not after that fateful day ten years ago that changed her forever. But Liv didn’t argue with her mom when she’d encouraged her to transfer. Why bother? She has zero friends. Hell, she isn’t even daddy’s little angel anymore. She just exists, destined to live in a shell of her past’s crumbled embers. And even those pieces are too tiny, too many. She’s blanketed in them, her dust.

To try is hard…
When Liv sits next to Killian in art class, he realizes she could help him with the one major assignment standing between him and his degree, and she reluctantly accepts he can help her with more than an art class. The two embark on a relationship previously uncharted for either and quickly discover how hard it is just sifting through life’s ashes. Can two damaged souls find a way to heal old wounds, or will trying only ruin them forever?