And the ink. Full sleeves running up both arms, climbing the neck, across the chest. Traditional Sicilian knotwork over the pectorals. Black work down my sides designed to incorporate the scar tissue, making the damage part of the pattern.
She looks at me. Not recoiling. Not clocking the damage the way a doctor would. Not appraising me the way women in bars once did, before I stopped letting anyone close enough to try. Like I’m a language she’s been wanting to learn.
Her palm rises. Flat on my chest. Over the sternum. The impact of her skin on mine runs straight through my ribs. She holds it there. Steady. An anchor.
My hands shake. I have held a knife without the slightest tremor. Aimed at center mass with a resting pulse of sixty. Ended lives with steady aim and walked away with the same air of calm and never once lost the discipline that keeps me operational. I am shaking because she put her palm on my bare chest and didn’t pull away.
“Breathe,” she says. Not a joke. An instruction.
I breathe.
She traces the scar on my ribs. The long one. Her thumb following the raised tissue from sternum to spine. Down. Theoblique. Another scar crossing the muscle. Her touch is careful. Not timid. Careful in the way a person handles an important document.
“I know.” She says it like it’s a fact she’s already sure of.
Fuck.
My legs are failing. A thing they’ve never done. Not under load, not under fire, not once. Failing now because she pressed her palm over the place where I should have died three separate times.
I sit on the edge of the bed. She stands between my knees. Palms on my shoulders. Tracing the tattoo that climbs my neck. I press into her stomach. Through the cotton. The muscles tense beneath me. She grips my hair.
Her shirt goes. I lift it over her head. The bra underneath, black, simple. I unclasp it. Let it fall.
Sharp. The collarbones too prominent. Ribs visible when she inhales. Years of forgetting to eat, of caffeine and guilt as sustenance. But underneath the sharpness, soft. The curve of her breast in my palm. The dip of her waist. The catch when I run my thumb over her nipple.
I lower to the center of her chest. Between her breasts. Her heartbeat racing against me.
Her hips. I grip them. Guide her down onto the bed. She lowers against the pillows and I’m above her. The lamp is on and the light is doing nothing to help me hide.
Jeans. I unbutton them. Zipper. She lifts her hips and I strip the denim down. Underwear. I hook the elastic and drag those down too. She kicks them off.
She’s under me. Bare. And I’m going to take my time.
I start at her ankle. Pressing against the bone. Up the calf. Inside the knee where the skin is thin and she twitches. Higher. The muscle trembles against me.
“Lorenzo.” Her voice strained.
“You don’t have to.”
“Good.” Me learning her. Response by response.
I trace higher along her inner leg. She grabs the sheet with both fists. Knuckles going white.
I taste her. The sound she makes goes through me like a round. A gasp fracturing into a moan that she cuts short by pressing her fist against her teeth. Reflex. Years alone. Silent.
I take her fist in my hand. Hold her wrist against the mattress.
“Don’t hide.”
“I’m not. I just?—”
“I want to hear you.”
Her eyes go wide. Like I’ve asked for more than skin.
My tongue. Flat. Broad. I drag up the full length of her and she arches off the mattress and the sound that comes out is uncensored. Raw. She grabs my hair and I let her. Let her hold on.
“You taste like—” It falls against her skin. I don’t finish. Can’t. She tastes like something I’m going to crave for the rest of my life.
