Page 50 of Scarred Souls

Oh. My. God.

I could hardly believe what we’d just done. What I’d let him do.

This was crazy. I’d only met this man last night, and it was fair to say we didn’t even like each other. Yet something I’d suppressed for a long time sparked to life within me, and the little devil on my shoulder, whom I never allowed myself to listen to, whispered, Give me more.

Vaughn cleaned me with a towel.

A laugh of disbelief bubbled from me. “Wow. That?—”

“Is never going to happen again,” he snapped. “You need to go.”

Wait. That was it? He couldn’t be serious. If he thought he could use me and toss me aside, he was out of his mind.

Then a sickening realization dawned on me.

Turn around.

Eyes on the wall.

He’d been adamant about those rules. Now that he was kicking me out of the room without looking at me or touching me, I knew exactly why.

Vaughn couldn’t stand to look at my face. His dick probably would’ve deflated if he’d caught a glimpse of my scars.

How could I have been so stupid? How could I have been so fucking naive? I’d seen the cruel looks from men in town. Looks that said, If only the other half of her face weren’t such a disaster. Why would Vaughn be any different?

My scars were hard to look at. I knew that, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for finding me unattractive. But to make me turn around so he could get the job done was disgusting.

He wouldn’t get away with treating me like that.

I spun fast to give him an earful. “You son of a bitch. How dare you—” The words froze on my tongue. Beneath Vaughn’s tattoos, raised welts covered his arms and torso. From a distance, the artwork all over his body concealed them, but up close, the crisscrossed lines were clear as day. It almost looked like tribal scarification, except the markings weren’t uniform. How hadn’t I noticed this before?

Vaughn winced like my discovery caused him pain.

My eyes scanned the rest of his body. Apart from the cuts, there were cigarette burns and other marks that looked like some kind of branding. I felt sick.

My mind worked overtime to process what I was looking at.

He always wore jeans and a long shirt. He’d left them on to swim in the ocean. He’d made me turn away just now, but what if it wasn’t so he didn’t have to look at me? What if it was so I couldn’t look at him?

He didn’t want me to see his scars.

“Jesus, Vaughn. What happened to you?” Without thinking, I extended one hand toward the old wounds on his bicep. Before my fingertips made contact, Vaughn snatched my wrist in a firm grip.

“Don’t touch me,” he snarled. “Never touch me.”

I was too shocked by the markings on his skin to be hurt by either his words or his tight hold. His eyes darkened, and the hand around my wrist trembled. Who was this terrified man staring back at me? Nothing about him resembled Vaughn at all.

“Okay.” I used a soothing tone. “I’m sorry. I won’t touch you. I promise.”

Something twisted inside my rib cage because there was only one explanation for what had happened to him.

Vaughn had been tortured.

Brutally.

How could anyone do that to another person?

My nausea surged once more when an image filled my mind of Vaughn alone in a dirty cell, bleeding from each of the cuts.

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