She answered by lifting her arms.
I pulled the top over her head and dropped it beside my jacket.
For a moment, I could only look at her.
Not like the starving bastard I had been in the hospital, jealous and ashamed and furious with want.
This was different.
This was reverence.
She stood in the gold light wearing a plain bra, loose scrub pants, Mandy’s diamonds, her turquoise ring, and the mother-of-pearl cuff back on her wrist.
My cuff.
Our history.
Her choice.
I touched it first.
One fingertip along the silver edge.
“You’re wearing it.”
Her eyes softened. “I decided it didn’t belong in a drawer anymore.”
My throat tightened.
I bent and kissed the cuff against her wrist.
Then the inside of her wrist.
Her pulse fluttered under my mouth.
“Dylan,” she whispered.
There was warning in it.
Need too.
I lifted my head.
She touched the buttons of my shirt, opening them slowly, one by one. Her fingers brushed my skin, and every place she touched woke like it had been waiting years for permission. When the shirt opened, her gaze dropped to the scar near my abdomen.
The bullet’s mark.
Still raised.
Still red.
Her fingers hovered above it.
“You can touch it,” I said.
Her eyes flicked to mine.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
