Page 68 of Where Sinners Repent

His jaw clenches.

“No?” he repeats, stalking towards me.

Kaleb holds me tighter until Kai is stepping into my space. Until I’m stuck between the two twins, at their mercy. Staring at Kai through my lashes, blood freckles his face. A crimson drop clings to his bottom lip.

His lip curls, just the tiniest bit. A reaction I’ve never seen from him. It has my heart thumping against my ribcage, and not in the way it should be.

“No,” I repeat, lifting my chin.

He can try all he wants, but he doesn’t scare me.

His actions might.

But he doesn’t.

His eyes flare, and he steps impossibly close.

“Oh really?” he grits through his clenched teeth, hand coming up to grip my jaw, leather biting into my skin. “What about that first night we fucked?”

My lip trembles.

“You didn’t touch me,” I whisper.

Leaning down, his breath floats over my lips. He smells of blood and sweat. “It took every ounce of my control not to grab your little fucking body and fuck you to the brink of death. To fuck and use your body until your brain stopped working.”

Breathing suddenly feels impossible. My mind flashes to that night. When I rode him. The way his hands fisted the covers, leather creaking under the strain.

“I wanted to carve your body. To hear you beg and cry and scream in pain.”

My body reacts to his words in the worst of ways. My back arches, grinding against the hard cock behind me, as I bite down on my bottom lip.

“You won’t hurt me,” I murmur, voice drenched in need. “Not in a way I don’t want.”

“I will, Roxy!” his voice cracks. Removing his hand from my jaw, it shakes with restraint. “You have no idea of the things running through my mind right now. The way I want to see how much pain you’d survive. The things I want to do to your body.”

Every word sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than he is me. His chest rises and falls, and he shoves his blood-covered hands through his dark hair, wild, dishevelled, frantic. His fingers rake and tug, Kai unravelling in a way I’ve never seen before. In a way, I wasn’t sure if he was capable of.

I try to lift my hand, but it’s pinned to my side.

“Kai...” I murmur, and his eyes land on mine. Wild, like a beast.

“Stop looking at me like that!” he roars, and I flinch. “I’m not the man you want.”

Slowly, he shoves the leather cut off his shoulders, the leather falling to the ground. His muscles bunch under his long sleeve shirt as he reaches for the hem, peeling it off his body. The gloves go next.

The world stops.

It’s not the carved muscle that catches my attention. Not the sculpted abdomen muscles tapering off into his black cargo pants, or the beautiful ink that covers his dark skin.

It’s the scars.

Raised lines, cuts, and marks litter nearly every inch of his skin. A raw sob tears from my throat when I see his arms.

Because those scars are ones that I recognise.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of small circular scars from his fingertips to his shoulders. Raised, burnt skin. Cigarette burns. My breath leaves me. I know those scars.

My trembling fingers ache to find the inside of my own wrist.