“I love you too.”
I run my hand along his back, then freeze. My breathing halts.
He senses the change immediately, pulling back to look at me with a knowing look.
“What did they do to you?” I whisper with horror. His upper back is lined with long, protruding scars. I’m terrified to see how bad the extent of it really is.
“I’m fine.” His expression softens slightly. “I promise.”
“Can I see?” I whisper.
His chest expands as he inhales deeply. “All of me is yours so… yes.”
He sets me on the floor, pulling the skirt of my dress down, even though the chest is ripped wide open. He lies face down on the bed as he tucks his arms under a pillow, his back fully exposed to me now. And his perfect, muscular ass.
I take a scared, tentative step forward, and then another. Climbing on the bed next to him, I realize why he has so many new tattoos. To cover the devastating map of scars that paint his back. I reach out a hand and slowly run my finger along some of the lines. He tenses, but then quickly relaxes. I slowly trace my hand along his scarred skin. It’s like a beautiful old painting with its lines and textures. I want to touch every mark. I want to somehow take away all the pain he’s endured.
Finally, I pull my hand back. “Who did this to you?”
He turns over, leaning back against the pillow and pulling a soft sheet up to his waist. “Sometimes him, sometimes one of his guards. They could never get me to talk, though. No matter how hard they tried.”
Anguish. That’s what I feel. “I’m s—”
“Stop. Don’t you dare apologize again. None of it is your fault. You got me through it.”
When I look at him with a pained, pleading look, he reaches for me, and I let him to pull me against him. I melt against him. “Okay?” he says when I still don’t respond.
“Okay,” I whisper against his chest. I’m curled up between his legs with the sheet between us, and it feels so perfect that I can’t help but close my eyes and nearly drift off as he runs a gentle hand through my hair.
“Where did you get the tattoos?”
“Everywhere. When we were trying so hard to find you, I couldn’t sleep, so I’d go find someone at a bar or tavern to tattoo me while everyone else rested.”
I trace a finger mindlessly down his thigh. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s not your fault. Do not be sorry.”
I shut my eyes and exhale. “So, you were trying to cover every mark?”
I feel his chest rise below me. “After my father, I told myself I’d never let anyone leave their mark on me again.” He pauses, and I can hear a playful grin in his voice. “Besides you, of course. You can do whatever you want to me.”
Lying in silence together like this, feeling close to him on a completely different level, is the part I didn’t expect about being intimate. It’s almost just as perfect. I enjoy the steady rhythm of his heartbeat while he continues to mindlessly play with my hair, and I think about how someone tried to take him from me.
“I’ll kill him,” I whisper.
He takes a deep breath before he responds. “You’ll have to fight your sister for that honor.”
“Shit. You’re right. Do you think I can take her?”
His chest rumbles with a low, deep chuckle. “Probably. She’s a great fighter, but… you’re a fearsome thing to behold. I wouldn’t want to go up against you. And she doesn’t wield magic.”
“Well, maybe she’ll let me share the honors.”
He doesn’t laugh this time. Instead, his voice takes on a more serious note. “You said yourself you’re not a killer. I don’t want you to murder someone, let alone your father, just to get revenge for me. I promise you, I’m okay. And he’ll get what’s coming either way.”
I lean back and look at him in all his post-sex glory, running my hand through his messy hair. “My tough, unbreakable dragon. Does anything scare you?”
“Yes.”
