Page 49 of Italy and Forever

Her words landed on target, right in his chest, but she didn’t fully understand. ‘That’s from my mind and there’s nothing wrong with that, despite the big knock to the head,’ he said drily. ‘But I think you’ll find the rest of me rather depleted.’

‘I have no complaints.’

He chuckled, but his doubt hardened in his stomach when her hand settled on his chest, right over the depleted part. Then she tilted her head, studying his skin for long enough to make his face heat.

‘I wondered what this said,’ she murmured, her thumb brushing the tattoo on his ribcage. ‘I couldn’t read it at a distance that day I was checking you out at the lake.’

She was going to be the death of him. ‘I don’t need my ego inflated any further,’ he grumbled.

Her only response to that was a flicker of mischief in her quick glance. ‘I see now it’s written the wrong way round and I wouldn’t have been able to read it anyway. I need a minute to figure this out – or a mirror.’

He’d rarely regretted getting that second tattoo, but he regretted it now. It came too close to the visceral memories of six years ago – memories he didn’t want to share with her.

She read slowly, from his sternum to his right side, her fingers gentle on his skin. ‘This stranger is you.’ He could have spoken the words along with her. He saw it – the correct way round – in the mirror every day.

She clapped her hand over the tattoo, as though covering it could make things better. When she spoke, her voice was flat. ‘You had this done after the accident?’

He nodded.

‘You couldn’t recognise your own face.’ It wasn’t a question. She was confirming what she understood, but he nodded again anyway.

She sat up suddenly and ruffled his hair vigorously. He looked up at her in confusion, trying not to admit to himself how good it felt to have her lavishing touch all over him. When her fingers found the raised scarring on the left, she stopped searching and leaned over to look.

‘Ginny, you’re not wearing anything,’ he reminded her, glad of the distraction of her body from the conversation he didn’t want to have. He reached for her waist, his hand sliding up, but she swatted it away and then sat back to look into his face.

‘Did they shave off your hair?’

It wasn’t the question he’d been expecting. ‘Yes.’

‘So you couldn’t even recognise yourself from that.’

‘I couldn’t remember much of anything for a couple of days, so it wasn’t as shocking as you’re imagining. It was worse when⁠—’

Now there was somewhere he did not intend to go.

With a deep sigh, he grasped her hand, remembering the shock of that contact half an hour ago when she’d pulled him into bed. It would be far too easy to sink into this comfortable place with her. ‘Come here.’

She didn’t need to be asked twice. When she settled next to him, tucked against his collarbone, she melted immediately.

‘You feel too good,’ he muttered, too wrecked to wonder if the admission was wise.

‘I suppose that’s okay, since you won’t remember me in the morning.’

He tightened his arm around her. She probably didn’t realise she was papering over her uncertainty with that joke.

‘I will remember you,’ he said emphatically. His nose in her hair, he breathed in. ‘Vanilla and coconut.’ He pressed a fumbling kiss to her temple. ‘And some kind of cream on your skin.’

He dipped his head to nuzzle her lobe.

‘Then there are these pretty ears.’

She shivered at the touch and flinched away. ‘Prominent, not pretty,’ she insisted. ‘I don’t think my ears count as conventionally attractive. They’re a flaw, rather than a feature.’

He shook his head. ‘Definitely a feature,’ he insisted. ‘You’re very pretty. It’s these freckles here.’ His fingertip wandered over her cheek. ‘The colour of your hair. This bottom lip.’

She couldn’t seem to find a smart response for that one.

‘It’s hard to believe I’m the first person to tell you you’re pretty, Ginny.’