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“Get off me,” I snap, my voice cracks, burning with fire.
He moves slowly, almost reluctantly, peeling himself off me and offering a hand—wet and heavy from where I’d just doused him with ice cold water.
I just lay here a moment longer, stunned that he’d folded me like a damn house of cards, breath ragged, chest heaving beneath the tight ache. Maybe this wasn’t my brightest idea, but hell if I’m going to admit that aloud.
I glare at his outstretched hand and slap it away, stubborn and prideful as hell.
I stagger to my feet on my own, throat raw, every breath scraping. My fingers instinctively press against the sore spot at my neck, dull pain blooming beneath my skin. I force myself to keep it together—no cracks, no weakness.
“What the hell am I doing here?” The words come sharp, slicing the silence like a knife.
He shoves his wet hands deep into the pockets of his soaked pajama pants, jaw clenched tight, eyes heavy with exhaustion that feels carved into his bones. “You insisted on staying.”
I stare at him, deadpan. “I asked to stay here? With you?”
“Yep.” No bitterness. Just that raw, worn-out honesty in his voice.
I don’t say anything about how he’d just had his hand around my throat like he didn’t recognize me. The silence tastes like rust, thick and bitter, but I let it sit between us.
My eyes roam over him—skin warm and taut under the dim light, the ink etched there like a map I’ve traced in my mind a thousand times. It’s familiar and raw, like inhaling the sharp scent of rain before the storm breaks.
I follow the lines of his tattoos, half out of habit, half out of a quiet fury. Then I stop.
A bouquet of wildflowers sits right over his heart.
Delicate petals curling in intricate detail, soft and achingly familiar. The same wildflowers that grew wild behind Maggie’s porch—the ones he used to sneak behind my ear when no one was looking, those stolen moments that felt like our secret language.
My chest tightens with a sudden pang, like my ribs are squeezing inward. “Get rid of it.”
His eyes meet mine—hazel, shifting between warm amber and deep forest green—clouded with confusion, like sunlight filtering through thick leaves, uncertain and hesitant.
“What?”
“Get rid of it. You don’t get to walk around with pieces of me etched on you like that.”
His smile is wrecked, a raw, devastating thing that twists something deep inside me, squeezing my chest until my breath feels shallow and jagged. It’s the kind of smile that carries years of unsaid apologies and haunted memories—something only Henry Wilder could wear with such brutal honesty, like a wound laid bare.
He steps closer, and I can feel the heat radiating from his body, slow and dangerous, wrapping around me like a wildfire on the edge of control. His fingers brush softly against my cheek—feather-light, like a whisper—but it scorches, setting fire to the skin beneath his fingertips. The faint scent of old leather and rain clings to him, sharp and familiar, pulling me deeper into this fragile moment.
His voice drops, low and rough like gravel scraping across broken glass, thick with all the shit we never said. "Not etched, little viper. Burned." Those words hang heavy between us, like smoke choking a fire that won’t die.
His thumb drags across my jaw—slow, hard, fucking reverent—and I feel it deep, like an electric jolt knocking me off balance. My pulse drums loud as hell in my ears, the world narrowing down to that moment, that touch. The air crackles with everything we buried deep, with all the shit we survived.
"You fucking marked me when we were just kids, with something that…" His voice breaks, rough and raw, heavy with pain and maybe a little God damn hope. "That can never fucking be erased."
The silence hits like a storm breaking—thick with grief, rage, and a brutal kind of love that could tear us apart or hold us together. And for a second, I want to believe those scars aren’t just damage—they’re proof. Proof that we’re still here. Proof that some bonds don’t fucking die.
Chapter Five
WE ALL HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE
LOUISIANA
There is no doubt Henry Wilder makes me wetter than a nun in a candle shop. Too bad I’d rather spit in his face rather than sit on it.
Waking up in his bed last week, damn near dying, and then seeing that permanently tattooed on his flesh only solidified something I’ve wondered my whole life; he is crazy as a shithouse rat. Not a doubt in my mind. Last week was a haze, but that’s nothing new, this time of year usually is.
Being abandoned by my mother? Fucking cake walk. At least with her, I saw it coming. She was always halfway out the door anyway. When she finally left, it just confirmed what I already knew—some people were never meant to stay.
