Her eyes go wide. “What are you doing?”
I don’t look up. “Taking this off.”
Her gaze darts toward the door as if maybe some invisible chaperone is going to appear and rescue her from this situation. “Why?”
“Because it’s covered in blood.”
“That seems…” She swallows. “Unnecessary.”
I get halfway through the buttons and stop just to look at her. “Unnecessary?”
“Yes.”
“Zatanna.” Her name comes out lower than I intend. More intimate. It stills her instantly. “Open your eyes.”
She blinks.
Only then do I realize she’s actually closed them. Squeezed them shut like if she can’t see me shirtless, then whatever is happening between us becomes manageable again.
It’s absurd. And deeply charming.
Her cheeks color. “I’m not doing that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know exactly what you’re doing.”
Now I am amused. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
I finish the last button and shrug the shirt off, wincing once as fabric drags over broken skin. “Then tell me.”
Her eyes stay closed, but I can see the way her throat moves when she swallows. “You’re being… manipulative.”
“Interesting accusation.”
“You know perfectly well it is.”
I toss the shirt onto the back of the sofa. “Open your eyes.”
Slowly, like she’s indulging a man she does not trust one bit, she opens them.
And there it is. That moment.
That helpless, involuntary flicker in her face when she sees me standing there bare-chested a few feet away, fresh lines of blood crossing skin, shoulder taut, abs tightening. Her eyes go straight to the cuts first.
Then lower. Then lower again. Then snap back up to my face like she can somehow erase the fact that she looked.
I enjoy that far more than I should.
“Well?” I ask.
I know what she’s seeing. The cuts from the glass are the newest damage, thin and red across my shoulder and side, but they’re not what catches her. It’s the old scars. Pale lines and thicker knots of ruined skin across my ribs, one near my left shoulder, another low on my abdomen. The kind of marks a man doesn’t get from one bad night.
Her eyes move over them slowly, the flush in her face fading into something quieter. Something more searching.
For once, she has nothing to say.
