Hell if he knew. While most of the money he’d saved for his family in his early twenties had been sent to Maeve, he’d kept some of it for basic necessities, hotels and a dizzying array of trips to the clubs. Those days had passed in a blur. So had the women.
He’d been lucky.
“Not so many you need to worry but enough to know what I’m doing.” He cupped her chin and lifted her face. Tiny droplets pebbled on her cheekbones like stardust. She could’ve been a selkie without her seal skin. Daideo swore his wife had been one and that she’d returned to the sea after Kieran’s father was born. Maybe she knew then that her half-selkie son was no good.
“You’re a cocky bastard, aren’t you?” Her nose wrinkled above a mischievous grin, the light in her eyes guiding him to the surface of wave-tossed memory. She withdrew to gather a palmful of shampoo and stood on her toes to lather it into his hair.
He set his feet shoulder-width apart and sank into his bones as her nails skimmed his scalp. Damn, that did feel good. “It’s not cocky if it’s the truth.” He released her long enough to rinse the shampoo from his hair and lather lavender-scented body wash between his hands.
He started with the delicate symmetry of her shoulders, the new muscles under her sun-kissed skin, firm if a little knotted. He could work with that. Another time. The water heater wouldn’t last as long as he needed to smooth away the tension. He chased the trickle of the suds over her shoulders and down her upper arms, all the while massaging in spiraling circles.
A round indentation on her right deltoid halted his progress. His breath died in his lungs. There were very few things which could leave that kind of mark, and this mark was the sort he’d traced as a child. Burned fibers in mottled floral upholstery. Picked away cushion filling, yellowed from smoke. His father snuffing a cigarette, too fucking drunk to find an ashtray. Its diameter, shape and depth were all scoured in Kieran’s memory.
“Kieran?”
Awareness slammed him back into his skin. His grip was too tight, but Lily’s gaze didn’t waver. Her hand covered his, the weight of it enough to stop the pendulum swing of his thumb over the scar. She must’ve covered it up with makeup before. He’d never seen it in a video, nor at the gym or in her bed. But even in the dim yellow light, he could see the pinkish-silver scar. Feel it.
Barbed wire twined with his veins, cold and sharp against the crashing heat of his blood. He released a measured exhale and funneled every last ounce of his control into keeping his grip from tightening around her arms. “Tell me where he is.”
She swallowed. A slow blink. She shook her head. Once. Twice. Three times. “I don’t know where he is,” she whispered. Goose bumps rose on her skin despite the warmth of the water.
The rage was so thick, it stayed his tongue. He ground the word out. “Name.”
Her shoulder rolled back, and she ripped her arm free with no resistance from him. Her bright eyes, dulled by the manufactured light, bored into his. Her lips parted on an inhale. “The rules, Kieran. No talking about the past.”
He hated that she was right. Every muscle in his body was alive with the need to track down whoever had branded her skin. The coloring of the scar was light enough to mark the passage of time, but how long had it been? Was it her ex? Or had it been before? He didn’t care. He’d find whoever it was and—
“Kieran.” A note of finality rang in her voice. “If you can’t follow the rules, I—”
“I’ll follow the damn rules,” he growled. Better that than have her think he wasn’t safe.
“Not all scars are bad, you know.” Her touch was tentative against his shoulder, and he hated the hesitation he’d caused. “I have one I’m quite proud of.”
“Yeah?” Kieran frowned at the floor of the tub. Better to look there than into the haunted glaze of her eyes. “Which one?”
Her hands dropped away from his shoulders, but soon her fingers twined with his. She lifted both their hands until they were cradled against the steady thump of her heart. “I’m sure you’ll find it if you finish what you started.”
Tension bled from his shoulders like an open wound, slow but steady with each heartbeat. He glanced up to find her gaze had softened. This time when he lathered her body, he dedicated his pent-up energy to finding other scars. He found only one: a discoloration of shiny skin along the backside of her right hamstring. Kneeling at her feet, he gazed up the length of her body. “Let me guess. A fight with a shady CIA agent.”
She smiled. “Ripped most of the skin off when I was sixteen. We’d had a drought that summer, and the whole infield was dried up and brittle like rock. I stole second, and the catcher tried to throw me out. I didn’t think about it. Ijust slid. It was all superficial, but it bled all down my leg and into my sock.”
Didn’t softball players wear sliding shorts to prevent that sort of thing? He didn’t ask. He finished washing her, turned her and kissed his way back up. The scar, the one she was proud of, got extra attention. When his trail of kisses rounded the dip between her shoulder and the gentle slope of her trapezius, he palmed her waist until she faced him again. “Want to find mine?”
Her amused huff warmed his jawline. “The water will run cold before I’m done with you.”
“Oh,no.” The lack of drama in his voice was enough to widen her grin. “Go fast. I still have plans for you.”
She washed him with fervor, her fingertips lingering first over a jagged line near his rib cage. Her brows lifted in question.
A bitter taste filled his mouth. “Not that one.”
Unlike him, she didn’t search for answers. Instead, she stood on tiptoe and smoothed her thumb over the scar on his brow. “What about this one?”
“A fight. Protecting loved ones.” The devil was in the details, but she didn’t want their pasts involved. This was easier.
Her brows drew together. Was that doubt or was she parsing his words? He trusted neither. Instead, he tugged her back into his arms and took her with him under the spray. He caught a water droplet on her neck with his tongue, and her head tipped back on a surrendering sigh.Thathe could trust.
He turned off the water. “Time to dry off.”
