Behind me, I hear a shirt hit the ground. Then the weight of his jeans joins it. Unprompted, a curious image flickers through my mind.
There’s a tiny, impossibly small curiosity that burns in the corners of my brain.
Once more, the same questions from earlier start popping up. What is so good about the guy? Why do the women flock to him? He might have a punchable face, but what about the rest of him? Is it his cock? I’ve heard the big ones feel good, but apparently, if they know how to use it, that’s where it really matters.
He probably knows how to use it.
Sometimes, I wish I could wear earplugs when some of these people start gossiping.
Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I hesitate. Soon, my curiosity wins over.
I turn, and my gaze catches on his legs. The ink on his calves—courtesy of Diesel, giving his prospects a decent discount—stands out against his skin. His calves are strong like the rest of him.
My eyes drag upward, over the curve of his ass, but I don’t let them linger since I don’t get my answer on his cock. Higher. Over the dip of his lower back, before my eyes freeze, my body follows soon after.
Oh.
His back catches my full attention. The fresh, pink scratches are predictable, souvenirs from a sweetbutt’s enthusiasm. But my breath hitches, lodges somewhere behind my ribs, as I see the rest.
It’s the old scars. At least a dozen of them. Thick, discolored lashes embedded in his skin, a topography of past brutality carved across his shoulders and down the dip of his spine. Each raised line promises a story of pain, and my own stomach clenches in a sick, sympathetic echo.
The gasp escapes before I can cage it.
He glances over his shoulder, and the usual mocking amusement is absent. In its place is a flat, chilling blankness that sends a winter shiver straight up my spine. His eyes, sharp and assessing, dart over my face before they drop. He doesn’t look at me the way he looks at them—with that lazy, consuming hunger that makes a person feel seen, for better or worse. He doesn’t make me feel pretty. He just… looks. It’s not a glance that’s meant to make me feel pretty. Justseen.
Then I realize where his gaze has landed. Right on my thighs.
My body goes rigid, every muscle locking.
Fuck.Fuck.
He sees them. The silvery, fine lines, my own secret history of escape, lay bare against my skin. His throat works, a hard swallow, before he turns fully away, presenting his scarred back to me once more. He snatches his shirt from the bag and yanks it down, a curtain falling on a brutal act. The fabric hides the marks, but the image is already branded behind my eyes.
Moving on autopilot, I stumble into my pajama bottoms. The soft cotton feels like a lie against my burning, itching skin.
“Keep giving me bedroom eyes, little bird, and I may pounce.” His laugh is a forced, rusty sound. He only turns back when he’s certain I’m covered, but his gaze skirts mine, fixing somewhere on the wall past my shoulder.
He’s disgusted. He has to be.
Panic, cold and liquid, rises in my chest, distorting my breath into something deeper, ragged. “Jinx.”
He plucks at his own shirt, his jaw tight. “We should figure out sleeping arrangements.”
He can’t tell. He can’t tell anyone. This secret, this weakness—if he breathes a word of it, I’ll have to carve the memory from his skull. Yes. If he speaks, I’ll kill him.
“Jinx.” I step forward, my voice panicking. Is he thinking about sleeping? I won’t even be able to close my eyes at this rate. “This is bad.”
He nods, finally meeting my eyes. His eyes are unreadable pools of brown. “Fucking terrible, actually.”
The blunt agreement snuffs the panic and sparks a familiar, easier anger. Good. Anger I can use. He can insult me, and I can return the favor. This back-and-forth is good for us.
He doesn’t flinch when I close the distance, when my hand fists in the front of his shirt. I yank him forward, and he steps into the space willingly, his body a line of tense heat. I open my mouth to issue my threat, to promise him a slow death if he ever whispers a syllable.
The words die before they even get the chance to form.
Something firm and hot nudges against my lower stomach. I glance down, mind blanking for a second before it registers. The hard, swollen length of him, confined beneath his underwear, is pressed unmistakably against me.
My eyes snap back to his face. His expression isn’t one of lust, not like I’ve seen on him before. It’s strained, almost pained, a mask of control stretched dangerously thin. There’s a hunger there, but it’s edged with something like fear—not of me, but of this.
