“Are you okay?” Finn’s voice was thin.
“I’m fine,” I responded automatically. “Medication?” I turned back to find him sitting with his elbows on his knees, head cradled in his hands.
“Ibuprofen,” he answered without looking up.
I found the bottle and shook out two soft gels into my palm. Finn’s breathing hitched as another crash of thunder shook the windows, causing me to jump. Rain drummed against the glass in sheets, the storm throwing everything it had at us.
“Here,” I pressed them into his palm, then moved to the bathroom for water. The overhead lights were too harsh, so I flicked them off and felt my way back to him in the dim glow from the bedside lamp.
He took the medication, drinking half the water before setting the glass aside. When lightning lit up the room despite the closedcurtains, we both winced.
The thunder that followed was immediate and bone-deep, rattling the entire building. I couldn’t stop the small sound that escaped my throat.
“You okay?” Finn squinted up at me. I realized he was shivering, his shirt clinging to him, water dripping from his hair onto the bedspread.
“Sweetheart, you’re freezing,” I rubbed my hands over his arms instead of answering. “You’re going to get hypothermia on top of everything else.”
Another crash of thunder made me jump, my hands clenching against his arms.
Alex…”
“I’m fine.”
“Alexandra.”
“I’m fine,” I repeated, then immediately jumped again when thunder cracked overhead, closer than before. “Okay, I’m not fine.”
“Go start the shower,” he whispered, smoothing his hand over mine. “Make it hot. We’ll get warm and ignore the storm in there.”
“Together?” Heat flooded my cheeks. Even as we grew closer, Finn had been careful about how much of his body he let me see at once, including the day before when he’d stepped out of the shower in a towel. Now he was offering everything.
Finn’s eyes met mine, something shifting in his expression. “If you want.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and padded to the bathroom to do what he said, steam beginning to fill the space as the sounds of running water drowned out the sound of the storm outside.
Finn came up behind me, his hands on the doorframe as I turned. I moved closer, my fingers finding the buttons of his shirt. The fabric was cold and clinging, but underneath I could feel the warmth of his skin. When I reached the third button, my knuckles brushed against a raised ridge of scar tissue.
“These must have hurt,” my fingertips traced the pale surgical line.
“Not anymore,” he replied, but his breathing had changed, becoming deeper as I continued working the buttons free. “The tattoo hurt like a son of a bitch, though. But I needed to cover what I could. Needed…”
“You needed some control over what felt uncontrollable.”
“Yeah,” he sounded relieved. “And I figured if someone was going to see evidence that I fell, at least it could be on my terms.”
Steam wrapped around us as I pushed the wet shirt off his shoulders, and I found myself taking in the full scope of what he’d been through. Burn scarring wrapped around his left shoulder and side, onto his back, surgical marks crossed his chest.
He stood still, nearly at attention, as I moved around him, my hands tracing gently over the landscape of his recovery. His skin was a complex terrain of healed trauma that took my breath away. Thick, ropey ridges branched across his shoulders, some areas smooth and glossy as melted wax, others raised and textured like twisted rope. Some scars were linear and looked like they might be more surgical marks, but others branched and spread like frozen lightning across his shoulder blade and down his side. The scarring varied in texture and color. Hypertrophic tissue that changed from deep pink to silvery white, some patches tight and shiny, others rough and mountainous.
Understanding choked me as I realized with crushing clarity why he’d chosen Icarus for his tattoo. It wasn’t just mythology. Finn had fallen from the sky while fire consumed him, melting his skin like wax from wings that had flown too close to the sun.
I’d traced that tattoo with my fingers, never knowing I was touching the edge of a map written in flame across his skin.
“I know it’s a lot to look at,” he swallowed as I came back around to face him. I pressed my lips to the thick ridge of scar tissue near his collarbone.
“Finn, you’re perfect as you are,” I said against his skin. “My beautiful flyboy.”
His hands found my waist, and he pulled my wet sweater up as I raised my arms so he could take it off completely. His calloused palms skimmed up my sides as the sweater came away, rough texture catching slightly on my damp skin. He leaned down, his mouth capturing mine as he unhooked my bra next. I unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them down his hips with his underwear before stripping off my own leggings and panties. Once the wet fabric was peeled away, we both stepped under the hot spray, the water finally washing away the chill and tension of the storm outside.
