Page 140 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

He’s staring at the scars on my right shoulder.

When he realizes I’m watching him, he immediately replaces his shock with a neutral resting therapy face.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “Still good?”

I pivot on the bench to face him fully.

“Hugo,” I ask slowly, “is this the first time you’re seeing my skin grafts?”

He hesitates before his head moves in a small nod. The water cascades around us as his unguarded response clicks into place.

“You were telling me the truth,” I whisper.

I avoid tank tops and sleeveless dresses, even at home, so the only time my scars are visible is when I’m not wearing anything at all. If he’s never seen them, that means…

“I watched you so often, sweetheart.” He swallows hard. “I know it doesn’t make it okay. I know there isn’t a difference in how it feels for you. But I was telling the truth about never seeing you naked.”

Water drips from the tips of his hair to roll down his face, and the last of my resistance washes away with those droplets. Because there is a difference. What Greg did, what Hugo did. I know how they both felt, and there’s a difference.

Greg made me find out. Hugo’s been telling me all night. The body wash. The water heater. He hands them over before I can go looking. And before that, the mailbox conversations and cups of tea. The concussion confessions and the things he told me in the dark. Even with all that evidence, my body knew before my brain did. That’s why it carried me to Ray Overton’s house tonight. That’s why it took me to Hugo’s bed afterward.

There’s a difference, and I don’t object when he walks behind me and kneels so he can press his lips against the center of the scars.

“From the fire?” he asks over the pattering of the water.

I nod, and he sets the bottle down and pulls me into his arms, pressing his cheek against the strange, taut skin that’s been part of me for eighteen years. “My brave girl.”

His words aren’t anything I haven’t heard before. The doctors and nurses said it over and over. So did the therapists and the kindest of the foster mothers. But his voice is matter-of-fact and possessive in a way that loosens everything inside me while drawing me tight at the same time.

I’m brave, and I’m his. I like being both of those things very much.

“Right. Okay.” I clear my throat. “We should finish this up because I need to have sex with you as soon as possible.”

I feel his groan as much as I hear it.

“Are you sure? Tonight’s been⁠—”

“I’m sure.” I press back against his chest. “I’m sure, Hugo.”

His head falls onto my shoulder. “Fuck. Okay.”

Then this aggravating man frustrates the hell out of me by refusing to rush. First, he takes his time on my back, and his hands don’t change when they cross the grafts. No pause at the seam. No extra gentleness. He washes the burned parts of me exactly the way he washed the rest. When he moves on to my hair, his beautiful cock prodding me as he works the honeysuckle-scented shampoo through my blood-stained strands, massaging my scalp with his strong fingers, rinsing it, and repeating the steps with conditioner. By then, I’m boneless and relaxed and so turned on that I barely notice when he wraps me in a towel and carries me from the shower to deposit me on the vanity countertop. The three-way mirror at my back lets me observe his care from so many angles that I grow lightheaded from being surrounded by multiple Hugos. He catches the droplets of water on my skin and presses the moisture from my hair, his gaze roving from my mouth to my eyes to the line of my neck to the tops of my breasts as he works.

When I’m clean, dry, and rosy, I look up at him through my lashes. “Is it time for the post-kill sex?”

I expect him to sling me over his shoulder and carry me to his bed like a caveman, but instead he steps back and studies me in silence, the heat in his eyes cooling to a carefully neutral expression.

“How do you want me?” he finally asks. Then in an infinitesimally smaller voice, “Do you want me like Gomez?”

At first, I’m not sure what he’s asking, but understanding rushes in when I see him tense like he’s expecting a blow.

“Of course I want Gomez,” I say, reaching for the knot in the towel at his waist to pull him close. “But I also want Dr. Bore.”

His jaw hardens as he looks at me, so I wrap my legs around him, ignoring the ache in my knees as I tighten my thigh muscles and press a soft kiss to the hard edge below his ear.

“They’re both you, Hugo.” The next stop for my lips is the corner of his frown. “I thought I spent all those months at the mailbox being annoyed with the guy in the cardigan and glasses, but that was a lie.” I kiss the other side of his mouth. “Hell, Fi recognized it before I admitted it to myself.”

His teeth unclench enough to say, “Recognized what, exactly?”