The scar was thicker and longer than anything superficial. This had been something serious. A wound that had left a permanent mark.
Fox took my hand again. He brought it to his lips and left a warm kiss on my palm. Right on top of the scab were the glass from the mirror had sliced me. “It’s in the past,” he said softly. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
My gaze shifted from the scar on his ribs, back to his face. The peace from a moment ago was gone. He was hiding something.
If there was one thing I was good at, it was uncovering the truth when people were desperately trying to keep it hidden.
“Why don’t you want to tell me what happened?”
Fox shifted from kissing my palm, to placing quick kisses on each of my fingertips. “Because I would rather continue enjoying you.”
He was trying to distract me, but I was having none of it. “It looks like it was painful.” I stared at his ribs. I inspected some of the other tattoos with a new perspective, focusing less on the art, and more of the skin underneath. On what could be hiding underneath them.
“I’ve endured worse.” He leisurely pressed his lips to the inside of my wrist once he was out of fingers to kiss.
My eyes snapped back to his face. “Do you have more scars like that?”
He let out a long sigh, finally dropping my hand. It landed on his chest, and I felt around his tattoos again. This time I wasn’t tracing ink, but looking for masked injuries.
Fox shifted uncomfortably under my touch, trying to pull the sheet up to cover himself. “Stop, Skye.” His words were pointed, steady and sharp.
Instantly, I stopped and pulled my hand back, curling it tight against my own chest. I wasn’t sure why, but my heart raced.
A tense silence settled around us, punctured only by my heavy breathing.
“You can’t just—” I cut myself off, not knowing how to ask him for this. Fox always held his pain so close. Perhaps I didn’t deserve the truth. But something inside me knew I needed it. “Please,” I whispered. “Talk to me.”
I saw the break in his hard exterior when the words he usually asked of me spilled from my mouth. Something softened in his expression; his steadiness waned.
He tilted his head up toward the ceiling, staring at nothing as he spoke next. “The scar is from a broken rib a long time ago. It was a compound fracture and needed surgery.”
A pang of panic went through me. Compound rib fracture? I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard of such a thing. The thought alone had nausea rolling through me.
“What happened? Were you in some kind of accident?”
He swallowed hard. “No.”
Instead of asking again, I waited. The quiet was long and heavy, but I needed an explanation.
I barely breathed as the silence stretched between us, taut and trembling.
“It wasn’t an accident,” he finally said, his voice low and rough. Like the words hurt to speak.
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. Something in me already knew this was going to be bad.
“It was a fight.”
My stomach turned.
He didn’t look at me. He stared at the ceiling, as if he could pretend I wasn’t here at all.
“Not the kind with refs and gloves,” he went on, jaw clenching. “Underground. No rules. No medics waiting on the sidelines. Just you, the other guy, and a crowd chanting for blood.”
My lips parted, but no sound came out. Underground fighting?MyFox?
No. He wasn’t mine anymore.
“Since when do you…fight? How—” My voice broke. “How did you find something like that around here?”
