Page 42 of Red Flag Bull

He flicks his hot tongue over my sensitive clit, and I lose my mind, collapsing into his waiting arms when my legs give way.

“I’ve got you.” He lifts my spent body and climbs into the huge, deep bath with me.

Something’s not right. My brain scrambles to make some sense.

I press my hand to his chest, grab his T-shirt, and frown. “Clothes,” I whisper.

“Scars,” he replies, as he lowers us into the warm, soothing water.

I force my heavy eyes to stay open, and I stare at him, fawning over my bare skin, while he gently soaps me up. I twist from his grasp, slipping under the water and pushing his hands away when he tries to help me.

I escape to the far side of the tub, and when I resurface and wipe the water from my eyes, it’s to glare at him.

He’s in his private bathroom, sitting nipple-deep in a full bathtub, in his T-shirt and boxers. Who does that?

“Why do you hide them from me?” I demand to know.

“So you can’t see them,” he replies flatly.

I roll my eyes, and he splashes water at me and smiles. “Last time you saw them, you cried, Mandi. I didn’t like it.”

“That was twenty years ago.”

“Nineteen,” he says, his eyes sparkling as he approaches like some sort of amphibious predator.

I keep him at bay with my foot. “Seeing the evidence of your pain made me feel guilty, but if I knew you were going to hide them from me forever, I would have?—”

“What do you mean, guilty?” he asks, narrowing his eyes. “You would have been twelve when I got those scars, and you had nothing to do with the accident. I was young and thought I was invincible on my bike, took too many risks, and lost control. That was all me. Then an irresponsible, intoxicated asshole plowed into my sister’s truck when she was getting me to the hospital and mangled us both. I survived, she didn’t, and none of it had anything to do with you. You didn’t even know me. Why the fuck would you feel guilty?”

My cheeks warm, and my shame is amplified by about a million. “Because I thought they were pretty,” I admit, looking down through the water at my toes, as I hug my knees. “I shouldn’t have felt that way about something that hurt you so badly and ruined your life. A reminder of your sister’s tragedy. I didn’t want to like them, but I did. That’s why I couldn’t stop staring, even though I knew it was wrong and that it bothered you, and that was why I cried.”

He leans back against the far side of the tub and watches me. His legs stretch to my end, and he rests his ankle against the side of my ass. “You felt guilty for liking them? Because they caused me pain?”

I nod and meet his gaze.

“Huh.” It’s all he says for a long time. He trails his fingers back and forth in the water, as if hypnotized by the currents he creates. “What makes you think it ruined my life?”

I shake my head. “Sorry?”

“The accident,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck like it still hurts him. “You don’t think I recovered? Does my life look ruined?” He gestures around him.

I consider his fancy bathroom a moment and sigh. “It looks like you’ve done very well for yourself. I was talking about back then. How your injuries meant you lost your football scholarship, and how you worked so hard to get strong, and then still had to steal and scrimp and save for college, and… Not ruined,” I say to amend my initial statement. “Delayed, I guess. It looks like you got where you wanted to go, in the end.”

“Mostly.” He runs his hand along the edge of the bath, while he becomes distant and lost in thought. Back and forth. Back and forth.

“Time heals some wounds and offers the perspective of hindsight,” he says eventually. “I miss Candice, and I will always grieve the life she could have had, but my life may be the only thing that accident didn’t ruin. If I hadn’t been forced down that unexpected path, I would have had a different life — made different choices. I may have missed out on an opportunity to be a football star, but had I been one, I would have missed out or regretted other things.”

He lifts his gaze to me. “I might never have met the pretty girl with sad eyes I used to know. She has scars too. Not so many of the kind you can see, but they’re there.”

“You’d know where to look,” I say, since he has plenty of invisible scars as well. “Are you going to take your shirt off?”

He keeps his gaze steady and wets his lips. “What if I have more scars than you remember?”

“Visible or invisible?” I search his face.

“Both, I’d expect,” he says with a shrug.

“I want to see them,” I say without hesitation. “All of them.”

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