Page 144 of Safe Word

Each swipe of cotton against torn flesh made my nerves sing with an aching, exquisite thrum that spiked deep in my gut.

Fuck, I loved the feeling of her hands on me.

And just like that, the guilt for walking out on Scarlett disintegrated. She’d never been real – just gloss and leather stitched over a fantasy I had mistaken for connection.

But Paula? She was here. Breathing. Fucking touching me. And not once did she recoil from the blood. Worse… she leaned into it. Dug her fingers into my wounds and took whatever remained of my sanity.

‘I’m a bad man, Paula,’ I said with a low, gravelly note.

Christ… it didn’t sound like a mere, half-arsed confession, either. More like the truth finally exhaled. As if the monster didn’t need to hide around her.

‘No, you’re not,’ she answered simply. No pause, no judgment.

And she didn’t stop tending to the wounds.

I caught her wrist again, relished the heat flaring under my fingers – and her other hand shot to my throat on reflex.

Goddamn.

My jaw clicked shut, hips twitching forward instinctively. A low sound clawed up my throat – half a groan, half a growl.

‘What are you doing, DeLuca?’ I rumbled. But it wasn’t a warning – it came out as a low hum of something unholy and barely held at bay.

Her eyes widened. She snatched her hand back like she’d been burned. ‘Shit! I’m so sorry!’

But I caught her again before she could escape, pulling her into me.

She stumbled, one knee landing between my thighs on the sofa, her hands bracing against my shoulders to catch herself.

Her breath stuttered, pupils dilated until her eyes looked almost black.

What the fuck am I doing? The thought echoed—

But the echo drowned in the ocean of her eyes.

I didn’t mean to hold on, but my hands refused to relent.

Her face hovered so close that her breath brushed my lips, trembling between fear and something that felt dangerously like want.

She was the first woman I hadn’t picked up in Obsidian, the first who didn’t wear a mask, and the first who wouldn’t let me hide behind mine. No persona. No fucking control over the scene.

And it terrified me.

My toes curled.

Because I knew… if she didn’t like what she saw – the blood, the violence, the part of me that thrived in it – then what would be left of me to show her?

Nothing.

She would see nothing.

Her pulse stuttered in her throat as my hand climbed to her jaw in a slow, dangerous stroke, thumb dragging across skin soft as sin.

She didn’t pull away. She should have, but she didn’t.

‘I’m not the man you think I am,’ I murmured roughly, my words thick with something heavier than desire. But it was more to remind myself of their meaning.

Her lashes fluttered, and for a second I thought she’d wrench herself away. But her gaze stayed locked to mine, lips parted – just like that last time in the office when I taught her – Christ – taught her surrender.