“No. We’re not.” I yanked my arm free or tried to. His grip didn’t budge. “Let go, Teddy.”
“Not until you tell me who he is.”
“Who who is?” I knew exactly what he meant but making him spell it out felt like the only power I had left.
“The man you bought the underwear for.” His free hand gestured down the hall where he’d dropped the offending scraps of lace. “The one you’re?—”
“The one I’m what?” I lifted my chin, defiant even in a towel that barely covered the essentials. “Sleeping with? Touching? All the things you haven’t done in years?”
His nostrils flared, and something dangerous flashed in his hazel eyes. The kind of look that used to precede either spectacular fights or spectacular sex, sometimes both in the same night.
“Tell me his name.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“His name, Kels.”
“Do you hear yourself? You sound like a caveman.” I tried to step back, but he moved with me again, crowding me against the wall. “What’s next, tough guy? Gonna beat your chest and mark your territory?”
“Don’t tempt me.” Teddy’s hand dropped from my elbow to the towel, fingers curling over the knot before he tugged me closer. Until our bodies were flush, until I could feel every hard line of him against me.
His mouth dropped to my ear, his beard scraping against my cheek as he asked, “Wanna know what I’ll do if another man touches you, baby?”
My heart hammered against my ribs, every nerve ending suddenly, painfully alive. “Teddy?—”
“I’ll hunt him down,” he murmured, his voice low and dangerous. “I’ll break every goddamned bone in his body. Leave him breathing just long enough to regret ever looking at what’s mine.”
The words should have made me angrier. Should have sent me into a feminist rage about autonomy and toxic masculinity and all the things Sky was always speaking out against. Instead, they sent liquid heat pooling between my thighs, my body apparently having missed the memo that we were supposed to be over this man.
“You don’t get to do this,” I whispered, hating how my voice cracked. “You don’t get to act like?—”
“Like what? Like I give a damn who you’re planning to let see you naked?” His grip on the towel tightened, knuckles going white. I was one solid tug away from being naked. “Because I do, Kels. I give a very big damn.”
“Don’t.” I pressed my palm against his chest, intending to push him away, but my fingers curled into his shirt instead. “I saw the name tattooed on your chest last night. You don’t get to play the jealous ex when you’ve clearly moved on with your mountain girlfriend.”
Teddy pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “Mountain girlfriend?”
“H-something. Hannah? Heather? Doesn’t matter. I saw the stuff in your shower. I know it’s hers.”
“Yep,” he agreed, not looking the least bit remorseful. “It’s hers, just like the perfume in the cabinet.”
My stomach plummeted to somewhere around my ankles. Of course he’d admit it. Of course he’d moved on. What had I expected—that a man like Teddy would have stayed celibate since we divorced?
“Every damn thing in that shower is what you used when we were married.” He pressed closer. “Same brands, same scents. Bought it all because it reminded me of you. Pathetic, right? Grown man washinghis hair with forty-dollar shampoo because it reminds him of his ex-wife.”
My mind swam in confusion, struggling to process the idea of Teddy—gruff, practical Teddy—buying lavender shampoo because it reminded him of me.
“But the tattoo?—”
“Jesus Christ, woman.” Keeping one hand locked around my towel, he tugged his shirt up, baring his chest to the morning sunlight. “Can you read it now, baby? Whose fucking name is that?”
Not Hannah. not Heather. Not an H at all.
Kelsey.
My name. Scarred into his skin in elegant black script, right over his heart. Six letters, a claim, a declaration of something that shouldn’t exist anymore but apparently did.
“You…” I couldn’t form words. My brain had short-circuited somewhere between seeing my name permanently etched on his body and the realization that he’d marked himself as mine after the divorce. Even after I’d broken us beyond repair.
