Page 143 of Safe Word

And I caught her wrist.

Her skin was warm beneath my palm, her pulse stuttering like a trapped thing. Our eyes locked, and I tried – fuck, I tried – to soften the shadows in mine, to drown out the grim reaper Vinnie said had taken up residence behind my stare.

‘How would you know that?’ I asked, perhaps too loud for the quiet between us. But she didn’t wince.

Instead, her brows pinched slightly. She glanced down where our hands touched.

‘I have three brothers.’ Her tone softened, dipped back into control. ‘And I told you I had a rough relationship.’

I held her stare. ‘Yes.’

Then I released her.

Her fingers moved to the first button of my bloodied shirt.

Christ… I felt the press of her warm knuckle through the fabric. And it lit a fuse under my skin.

She slipped the button free.

I bit down the urge to catch her wrist again, to drag her palm to the wound, to feel the sting of her care like a punishment I deserved – and the blessing I definitely didn’t.

She didn’t know what that touch did to me.

Didn’t know that under her careful fingers, the monster in me didn’t wince – it fucking purred.

Which said a lot about me, considering I’d spent eight hours balls-deep in Scarlett.

The end of that chapter still sat heavy in my chest. I’d stored it away into a quiet corner of my mind, where old stories went to die.

I watched Paula fighting herself as she slipped the next button free.

‘How long did it go on for?’ I asked, jealousy and wrath coating the lust in my voice.

She hesitated. I could see the way her mind struggled with reopening the darkened rooms she had bolted shut. Her eyes glinted with something fragile, yet fierce. Her lips pressed together as if holding the memories back with her teeth. But her fingers kept moving, mooring her to the present.

To me.

‘Too long,’ she said at last. ‘Years.’

Another button undone. Then another. Her fingers worked faster, no longer steady. When the shirt peeled open and the gashes came into view, she sucked in a breath.

‘For fuck’s sake, D’Angelo…’

I don’t know why that dragged a grin across my face.

Maybe because the profanity in the shade of her voice suddenly made me consider if it tasted as sweet as it sounded.

She fumbled through the first aid box, hands shaking just enough to betray the effort it took to stay composed. Then she started wiping the dried blood.

A few times, she looked up at me. Those wide eyes seemed to keep trying to piece me together like a puzzle with missing pieces.

‘These are bad, Cain,’ she whispered. ‘Aren’t you in pain?’

‘Pain’s good,’ I said too quickly. I should’ve swallowed it, buried it under a lie like any civilised human. But I let it loose – and it hung in the air.

Her movements slowed until they stilled entirely. Her gaze clawed up to mine, inquisitive – but not unsettled.

Whatever she meant to say dissolved on her tongue when reason won out, and she returned to the wounds, gently dabbing the blood.