A small smile curved her mouth. “Smart.” She glanced past his shoulder. “It’s still snowing.”
Was it nerves that had her shifting topics again? Was she uncomfortable standing nearly nude in a shower with him? The idea sat uneasily in his gut.
“Yeah,” he said, keeping his gaze fixed on hers. “It should taper off before morning.”
Time to give her privacy. He reached for the inside shower door, trying to move past her. “I’ll go?—”
She caught his hand, stilling him. Her attention drifted from their joined hands to his bare torso. He became acutely aware of exactly how exposed he was.
Even at the gym, he kept his chest covered. It wasn’t just skin anymore. It was a roadmap of his past, and he’d learned to be selective about who saw it. Which, since he’d gotten out of jail, had been no one. But now, she’d stepped back and was taking in every detail.
Desire lit her gaze as she tracked over his abdomen, but he knew the exact moment she landed on the finer details etched on his physique. His heart raced. His breath lodged in his lungs.
Vanessa’s expression wavered as she registered the scars, but he forced himself to hold still and let her look, even as instinct screamed for him to turn away. It had been a long time since he’d let himself be this vulnerable. It was scary as fuck.
If she ran from what she saw, she’d have every right. The question was, would he have the will to let her go?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Dear God, he was ripped. Muscles molded over his wide shoulders and defined pecs. His perfectly cut abdominals tapered to a tantalizing V that disappeared along a happy trail, beneath his briefs. His wet, clinging briefs.
How was it she was only now seeing him without a shirt on?
She hadn’t noticed in the ocean. It had been dark, and she’d been too busy trying to breathe, but now…now, standing under the hot stream of the shower, she looked her fill.
She studied him like she would an exquisitely chiseled statue in an art museum, letting her attention drift slowly over every part of his sculpted, toned body. Tattoos covered his arms and torso entirely.
She sensed his gaze on her as she took in the elaborate designs. Some were beautiful. Detailed roses with long stems and thorns, petals drifting like they were floating down his rib cage. Others were sinister and terrifying. Skulls with dark hollowed sockets, and horrifying grimaces.Throughout, unfamiliar symbols wove through the tapestry. But the most intricate design was a large cross on the center of his chest, tangled in the thorny vines that grew from the roses. Detailed, intertwined, and...haunting.
When her attention landed on his left pec, her breath caught at the words hidden in the weave.
“Your sins are like scarlet,” she whispered over the rush of the shower. Glancing up, she caught the tight clench of his jaw, the way his eyes darkened, but he said nothing.
Her focus returned to the beautifully handwritten scripture etched onto his pec, right above his heart. Absent-mindedly, she let her finger trace the first letters, but when he flinched under her touch, she froze, her gaze flying back to his. When was the last time someone touched him there? Had anyone ever?
“Is this okay?”
Whatever the reason he had the partial verse etched onto his skin, it was obviously deeply personal. As stunning as he was standing there with his strong body exposed and vulnerable, she didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable. She knew how quickly admiration could blur into entitlement.
His expression was tight, lips pinched, nostrils flaring as he breathed. The muscle in his jaw ticked steadily, like he was clenching his teeth so hard he might crack a molar.
She held her breath until he said, “Yeah. It’s okay.”
The way the words ground out of him, she was pretty sure it was the farthest thing from okay he’d been in years. But when she pulled her hand away, he caught it gently and guided it back to his chest.
“Please.” He sounded tortured. “I need you to.”
Trusting him as much as she was trusting herself, she refocused on the tattoo and the scars around it. Gently, shetraced the inked words, then let her fingers glide around the six round, indented scars beneath them.
A dozen suspicions flew through her mind as her fingertips dipped into the shallow grooves, but in the end, all she said was, “Isaiah.”
“1:18,” he confirmed, his words a low, gravelly rumble beneath the hiss of the shower spray.
There was so much to say. So many questions raced through her mind.
Why did he have the biblical verse permanently etched across his heart? And why was half of it missing? What were the scars from?
There were others too. A silvery jagged line that slashed diagonally across his left ribs, distorting the tattoos there. An angry, puckered, circular scar that sat in the dip of his shoulder. Her gaze traveled back up to the scar that bisected his eyebrow, then to his eyes.
