Each cell of my body still vibrates. Burning her name into my body. As we lay there, I let her nestle into my side.
Her breathing slows against my chest, soft and unguarded in the dark. Sleep is already claiming her, but the adrenaline inside me is still humming. I shift, meaning only to hold her tighter, and that’s when my palm brushes across the back of her bare shoulder.
The skin is uneven…
And I freeze for a split second.
Because it’s a scar.
No—several scars.
Jagged, raised, and stretching across her back. They don’t feel like anything clean or surgical. These are torn, angry shapes, healed without kindness. The kind of scars that don’t come from a mere accident.
My jaw tightens. A thousand questions claw at me.Who did this to her? How much pain did she endure? And why has she never said a word?
But she stirs, making a soft sound, and I’m still in the silence. I can’t let her know I’ve noticed. Not tonight. Not when we’ve had such an amazing time together.
So, I exhale, not wanting to spoil the moment.
Because for the first time in my life, I’m not shying away from contact or intimacy. I want more of it.I fucking crave it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
AVELINA
My eyes blink open slowly, weighted with the haze of a delicious sleep. For a moment, I’m wrapped in warmth and softness, the memory of Viktor’s touch clinging to me.
I roll over, expecting the steady rise and fall of his chest beside me. Expecting the reach of his arm, heavy and grounding across my waist.
But there’snothing.
Just the cool stretch of sheets where he should be.
My stomach plummets.
I sit up too quickly, clutching the blanket around me as though it can shield me from the sudden, biting emptiness. My gaze sweeps the room. His clothes are gone from the chair and his boots from beside the bed. There’s no low murmur of the shower running in the bathroom. There’s nothing. And the silence is unbearable.
The truth crashes over me before I can fight it back. And I remember what happened last night just before I fell asleep…
He knows.
Last night, in the dark, I forgot myself. Forgot to keep my body angled, forgot to keep the blanket pulled high when we lay tangled together. I let him touch me,all of me. And in the haze of heat and closeness, I forgot to hide my body. The body Geliy told me was fat. The body Gennady told me was repulsive.
I didn’t hide my curves and wobbly bits.
And I didn’t hide…my scars.
The ruined skin on my back.
The jagged story carved into me.
He felt them. He must have.
And then this morning, he left.
My throat tightens. I press my hand to my mouth, but the sob still rips through me, sharp and raw. I curl forward, dragging the blanket tighter around myself as though I can hide inside it and erase what he must have seen. Erase the part of me that will always screambroken.
Of course, he left. Men don’t want the ugly parts, the ruined flesh, or the evidence of what someone else once did and left behind. They want slim, smooth perfection, not wobbly bits or scars that catch under their fingertips and force them to wonder.
