What type of secret?
My blood boils at the thought of the first guy who made him realize he was also attracted to men.
He’s the first for me, so the fact that I’m not makes my skin crawl.
And why the fuck does he have that nostalgic look in his eyes? Is he thinking about that first guy?
“How about you?” He releases his lip. “Think you’re bi?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t think I care about the gender in my sexual attraction.”
“You can just remain unlabeled. Your sexual orientation is none of anyone else’s business. You only live once, so just live it for yourself—that sounded so cool and smart. Aren’t you impressed?” He waggles his brows.
When I say nothing and just gawk at him like a goddamn idiot as his words sink in, he releases a sigh and pouts. “No need to look so bored. I’ll shut up and go run the water.”
He turns toward the bathroom with a huff.
I forget how to breathe.
Not just because of the carved muscles in his thighs or the lethal line of his spine—it’s the ink.
His back is a canvas of violence, chaos carved in black and crimson. I straighten, unable to tear my gaze away.
A half-coiled wolf stretches from his left shoulder blade down to his ribs, fangs bared, eyes hollow. Around it, barbed wire weaves in erratic patterns as if holding the creature in or maybe keeping something out. A raven’s wing cuts across the opposite side, its feathers fragmented into jagged shapes, like it tried to escape but got torn apart in the process.
In the center, a stark, angular mountain with a jagged peak stands tall. At first, I think it’s just a design, until I see the silhouette of a hole carved into it. Hidden, subtle, like a secret whispered under breath. A blood-red thread runs down from the mountain’s base, splitting through thorns etched in fine lines.
My heart thuds when I follow the line, and it leads me straight to the scar near his waist, pale and angry.
He has more of those—scars, marks, old and new—threading through the ink like ghosts.
Some of them fade into the designs, swallowed by shadow and color. Others slice through, unapologetically loud and unfiltered, just like the man wearing them.
My fingers itch to touch, to explore, but Yulian disappears into the bathroom before I can do that.
I focus on changing the sheets and the physical reaction I have to the prospect of fucking Yulian and being fucked by him. Otherwise, I’ll start having nonsensical thoughts.
Impossiblethoughts.
Like ways to kidnap Yulian and protect him from the world.
24
VAUGHN
Ishould be working out.
Or running.
Or swimming.
That’s what I do every day in the early morning.
Not today, though, because I’m apparently being used like a mattress.
Yulian lies sprawled all over me, his heavy body flattening me, his face buried in my neck. His arms are locked around my waist, and our legs are tangled, skin against skin.
He didn’t let me put boxers on, which I’m still struggling with because I don’t sleep naked.
