My heart beats unevenly.“A line?”
“Between pain and pleasure.Between control and collapse.”He pulls on my hand, flattening my palm against his exposed scars.“Between me being a survivor and the fucked-up freak my abusers created.”
I hold impossibly still.
“Jag made me remember things I didn’t want to remember.”He slowly runs his tongue over his bottom lip, thoughtful.“He made me feel things I didn’t know I could.”
“What did you feel?”
“Desire.Panic.Rapture.All at extreme levels all at once.”He presses my hand harder against his chest.“I thought I was done being anyone’s victim.But he’s not like the men who hurt me.He’s something different.Dangerous in another way.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.But he could have, and I would’ve let him.”
My chest squeezes, aching for him.And for the part of me that knows I’ll lose him before I even have him.
He strokes his thumb along the back of my hand.“I had that classy moment in the shower because I didn’t understand my reaction to Jag.Didn’t know if it made me broken or human.I mean, how can I want a man to touch me after I spent my life hating a man’s touch?”
So much to unpack there.I can barely breathe.“Wolf…”
“Don’t say anything yet.”He releases my hand, breaking the contact as he pushes to sit before me.“I need you to know that it’s not simple.Nothing about him or me or what happened is simple.”
I nod.The lump in my throat is too big for words anyway.
“He built a room for me in the tattoo shop.”He goes on to explain how he found Jag with a fever, called in Frankie, and washed him, all of which led to an unexpectedly intimate moment.“I touched him.Then I kissed him.Then I gave us both a crazy, intense release.Through it all, I refused to let him touch me.How fucked up is that?”
The confession hangs there, human and hurting.
My first reaction isn’t compassion.It’s jealousy.Dark, toxic, and irrational, it burns behind my ribs.I picture Wolf’s beautiful nude body entangled with Jag’s, the man who’s tormented me for years, and it guts me.
But underneath that twisting misery is a quieter, more profound emotion.
Understanding.
If I strip away the jealousy, what’s left is pain.Wolf’s pain, not mine.A boy who never learned the difference between a cruel touch and an affectionate one.A man who’s trying to figure out if desire can ever mean safety.
He watches me as if waiting for judgment, for recoil, and that’s what undoes me completely.
I edge closer, slow enough that he can stop me if he wants.
His breathing stumbles, and his eyes flick down, wary.He expects me to weaponize tenderness.
“You don’t owe me shame for what happened.”I reach out, fingers trembling, and let my hand rest against his chest.“You don’t owe me excuses or explanations.Just the truth.That’s enough.”
His muscles twitch under my palm, but he doesn’t pull away.
The jealousy still simmers, but it’s diluted now, melted into a feral protectiveness that demands I keep him safe from everything that tries to twist love into pain.
I don’t know what we are, but I know what I want.
I want to be the first touch that doesn’t hurt.
Wanting Wolf isn’t enough.Not after everything he’s lived through.
If I put my hands on him without understanding every land mine planted beneath his skin, I could hurt him in irreparable ways.I’m not afraid of his scars or the ghosts in his head.I’m afraid of becoming one of them.
And there’s something else, something he doesn’t see yet.
