Then his hand moves.
Without warning, his palm settles against my waist.
The sudden contact stops everything.
The bralette drops from his fingers onto the bed behind us, forgotten as his grip tightens just enough to keep me from stepping away. The warmth of his hand burns through the thin fabric of my tank top.
His attention has shifted completely.
His eyes move downward.
I freeze when I realize what he’s looking at.
The hem of my shirt had lifted slightly when I reached for him. The thin pale lines across my stomach are exposed again.
His thumb brushes over one of them before I can react.
The touch is careful, almost curious.
My breath catches in my throat.
The heat in my face spreads quickly, flooding down my neck as his thumb traces along another faint line. There’s nothing mocking in the way he studies them now. The sharpness he carried earlier has quieted into something more focused.
“Someone did that to you?” he asks quietly.
My voice refuses to work.
His gaze lifts from the scars to my face, narrowing slightly as he watches my reaction.
“Or,” he adds after a moment, “did you do it to yourself?”
The question pulls words loose before I can stop them.
“My bio mom…her friends,” I manage, the answer leaving me shakier than I expected.
For a second he doesn’t move.
Then the tension in his jaw becomes visible. His hand drops from my waist almost immediately, like he’s just realized he shouldn’t have been touching me at all.
“Is she alive?” he asks.
The question makes my stomach twist.
The memory of the articles about him flashes through my mind at the same time. What he did. The way the headlines described it.
I shake my head.
His shoulders rise and fall in a slow breath.
“Good to know,” he mutters quietly.
My mom’s voice suddenly echoes up the staircase from downstairs.
“Octavia! Silas! Dinner!”
The call breaks whatever strange moment had formed between us.
He steps back first.
