“How?”His expression twists.“I don’t see it.How are you fucked-up?”
I freeze, my lungs buckling.“I was eight when my mother was killed.”
He blinks.“I was eight when I killed mine.”
Regret punches me so hard my stomach pitches.I shouldn’t have said it like that.Shouldn’t have thrown my pain down between us like a challenge.My mother was stolen from me.His was a monster he had to stop.
I search for the right words to take it back, to fix it, but the compassion in his gaze tells me he understands what I meant.
He looks down at the purple robe draped around him.Her robe.A shadow crosses his eyes, and something decisive and final settles there.
Before I can ask, he reaches for my hand, his grip determined.He doesn’t give me a chance to resist as he leads me downstairs, each step creaking under our weight, the guest house quiet around us.
In the living room, he kneels before the fireplace, flicks on the gas starter, and watches the flames catch.
“Your mother loved you,” he says quietly.“You had that, even if only for eight years.That makes you whole, Dovey.Not damaged.Lucky, even.”He stands and sheds the robe.“I never had a mother.”
My eyes sting as he begins to shred the robe, ripping it into strips and feeding the pieces into the fire.The flames accept it hungrily, devouring the fabric and its history.
“Let her be gone.”He stares into the blaze, watching the purple scraps curl inward as they burn, crumbling into blackened edges and ash.“Let the past be done.Let this be the start of something else.”
I swat at the wetness on my cheeks, fighting the sob trapped in my throat.
He turns toward me, arms outstretched, standing in nothing but his scars and tight black briefs, nothing to hide behind now, nothing to shield him from being seen.
“This is me.Bared.Exposed.”He raises that strong, square-cut jaw.“Take a good, hard look.”
“Wolf.”The sob wins, choking my breath.
“Do it!Look at me!”
God help me, I do.
The firelight paints him in molten shadows, every angle sharpened, every scar highlighted.He towers over me by a foot, all lean muscle and long lines.The defined shoulders, arms mapped with veins, sculpted chest and abs, and solid power in his legs.
He looks both dangerous and vulnerable, half-wild and wholly human, staring at me with a challenge and a question in his gleaming eyes.
An achy pressure climbs my throat, swelling through me until my skin feels too tight to hold it.
“No one’s ever gotten this close.”He floats closer.“Tell me what you see.The truth, Heart-thief.You know me better than anyone.”
My mouth goes dry, but the truth is right there, clawing its way out.
“I see an artist,” I whisper.“Someone who feels everything too deeply and turns it into magic and meaning.”
He keeps his face unreadable.
“I see strength.Soul.Wild beauty.”My voice breaks.“Compassion.More than you think you have.”
His gaze drags down my face, hungrily searching, as if trying to absorb every syllable.
My eyes flicker lower, unbidden and involuntary, and land on the unmistakable shape forming beneath the black fabric of his briefs.
“And…” I swallow hard.“I see desire.”
“I’m so turned on right now.”
A burst of sparks arouses every nerve ending in my body.“I know the feeling.”
