Page 25 of Scars Run Deep

“Now, pay up,” he said, with a smirk. “And you’d better get under the covers soon, or my control will snap. It’s already currently compromised by my weary and pained state.”

“What are you talking—”

“That,” he said, gesturing the length of me. “Coming into my room in a bra and a tiny pair of shorts.”

I pulled away and looked down at my clothes. “It’s not a bra. It’s a bralette, and it’s a matching sleep set, not a lingerie set.”

“Either way, it’s had my cock hard the second you walked in here. And that’s with me being in pain, weary, and pissed off that I’m in this state to begin with. You should’ve just come in here with that Barbie-pink bathrobe.”

He knew about that after all.

Off my obvious curious look, he told me, “I was watching the security feeds earlier, keeping an eye on Killian when he left the mansion. I’ve got a couple at your house now and I saw him enter, then leave a few moments later with it slung over his shoulder.” He smiled to himself with amusement. “He’s really smitten with you. And the endearing thing is, I don’t think you realize just how much you have him wrapped around your little finger. It’s unintentional on your part. You’re just being you, not manipulating it or trying to make him fall so fucking hard.”

“Is that entirely all about Killian?”

He stared at me for a moment, right into my eyes in that invasive way of his that had the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end and my blood heating at the same time. It was as unnerving as it was exhilarating.

Good slamming up against bad.

Hot slamming up against cold.

Back and forth without respite.

It was how it was with us.

Maddening.

It was why his next word was so utterly and completely shocking. “No.”

His response was merely a single word.

Hell, a single syllable at that.

But it said so much.

More than I’d thought he’d actually be able to admit.

Not just because of the risk involved and the vulnerability that inevitably came along with something like that, but because I’d suspected he hadn’t even reconciled it yet to be able to recognize it and establish where things were when it came to how he felt with me.

I know I hadn’t yet. I mean, I’d admitted what I considered the bare minimum, that there was something there for him, for all three of them, actually. But I hadn’t allowed myself to define it in any real shape or form.

But I wanted to now. I was ready to at least start.

What he’d done for me on that bridge had been the catalyst, something completely beyond ignoring or just burying and compartmentalizing away with so much else.

“Hmm,” I said.

“Hmm? Is that all I get, sweetheart?”

“Maybe,” I teased.

His good left hand shot out and he grasped my wrist, jerking me against the side of the bed. “Aurora.”

He was getting agitated. He’d put himself out there, more than he was ever used to doing, and he thought it had been a waste, because he figured I wasn’t gonna give him anything back.

He couldn’t have been further from the truth.

I eased his hand off my wrist and held it on my palm. Stroking his fingers and holding his rapt attention at the same time, I looked to see him frowning in confusion, trying to figure me out. “Some abstract notion of a Prince Charming means nothing to me and what we’re doing here, what we’re caught up in, it leaves no room for that anyway. It’s too hardened, dangerous, and twisted for that.”

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