Her swallow slips along her throat. “How?”
A harsh, incredulous breath escapes me. She wants to know how I knew she’d nearly drown in the rip current. How I knew her body would wash ashore, that her heart would stop beneath the shadow of the solar eclipse.
How I knew the exact moment to pull her from the sea, breathe life back into her lungs, restart the faltering rhythm of her heart—defying the goddamn universe itself to bring her back.
Yet thehowsare all too impossible to unravel in this singular thread of time, and such a confession would demand an equal measure of truth from her in return—a demand that reflects so vehemently in my fierce stare it forces her lashes to lower, dropping her gaze.
That fleeting glimpse of shame washing over her face with the trailing beads of water scores the length of me. My chest ignites as I take one determined step toward her.
Her fingers cling tighter to her soaked blouse. “I don’t know what to say?—”
Her words have barely left her lips before I’m inside the shower and towering over her, leaving only a sliver of charged space between our bodies. The violent fury I’ve struggled to restrain erupts before I can cage it.
“Collins.Fuck.” My hand slams against the humid tiles above her head, the harsh sound of my breath filling the tight confines.
She doesn’t recoil, eyes fixed on the droplets of water cascading down my bare chest, refusing to meet the anguish burning through my gaze.
My hand curls into a fist along the wall, knuckles splitting chafed skin. My breath comes hard and shallow. I close my eyes, voice ravaged by the fear still tearing me apart. “What I knew or even how is irrelevant at this point. What I thought I could control…” I trail off with a bitter, gruff laugh as I fight back the loathing. “You knew.”
The accusation breaks between us. Anger and agony clash within me, shredding my hard-fought composure. “You knew what you’d risk. Why the fuck would you do that, angel?”
She swallows, reflexively bringing her hand to the center of her chest as she buries a wince. The same guarded action I’ve watched her do countless times, and it carves through me like a rusted blade.
“Right. Because you handled that so well.Notterrifying me at all with your cryptic, insane ramble.” Her voice shakes, rising. “Jesus, Orion. What did you expect me to do? Just wait there—cuffed to your telescope—for you to come back, and then…what?”
I drag a hand down my face, wiping away water and regret in one stroke. Furious at all the ways I’ve failed her. “You’re right,” I say roughly, feeling just as desperate as I did in that moment. “I handled that poorly.”
Her breathless laugh is brittle. “You think?” A beat of tense silence follows before she looks up, searching my face. “What the hell even happened? Was it some residual setback from the other night on the beach?—?”
“No.” I shake my head, dropping my hand.
“But you were afraid you’d harm me.”
The way she whispers it, the fearful tremble she’s trying to conceal, is another brutal punch to my gut. “I never wanted to?—”
“But you were scared you might.” There’s a hitch to her voice, just audible above the raining water. “Are you still afraid you will now?”
A groan tears loose from my throat. “No. You do not get to steal my anger right now.” My eyes descend to her chest, the air in my lungs leaden as I take hold of the wet fabric and wrench it apart, revealing the surgical scar.
My gaze catalogues other, fainter scars along her ribs. The one brutal mark above her left breast. And I’m a fucking sick bastard, I know, unashamed as I hungrily rake my gaze over her breasts, her body, a torturous mix of turmoil and arousal flooding my bloodstream.
I swallow hard, forcing my gaze to meet hers. “You should’ve told me about this, Collins.”
Every ragged breath she takes carves deeper into my chest wall. Even in the dim light, the shiny scars winding her body are visible. Some surgical, some not. Evidence she’s been hurt—sadistically.
And the knowledge that I ever allowed this void within me to harbor even a shadow of desire to cause her harm twists my gut.
Yet I know, standing before her now—furious, helpless—I would’ve flung myself from the highest fucking cliff to my death first.
“If I had told you, would that have changed anything?” She pulls in a taut breath, preparing to lash back further, but her ire fades just as quickly when she reads my eyes. “Orion, I couldn’t?—”
“Tell me now,” I demand.
She glances away, pressing her back against the tiles. “It doesn’t matter. It’s in the past,” she says, the edge draining from her tone. “I can’t live in fear. Isn’t that what you once told me? Oh, and that I want the fight.” She shakes her head slowly, a cold laugh slipping free. “You have no idea how much fight I donothave left.”
Her words hit like a blow to my abdomen, winding me. I see it now, veiled beneath the suffused gold, within those deep, dark lanes—the darkness behind the stars in her eyes. All she’s hidden in that void. The truth of her pain shatters through me, decimating.
“Nothing matters anymore,” she says on a broken whisper, gathering her soaked blouse closed as though she can shield herself from me, and a rising wave of fury licks my bones. “Not after what I’ve done.”
