Page 84 of Crucible

My gaze narrows, forgetting all about the fact that he just threatened to dismember me if I tried to run again. “Are you calling me fat?”

Thorin’s gaze flicks upward, and he gives me a look full of impatience. “Out of all the things youshouldhave taken from what I said, how is that what you heard, Aurelia?”

I shrug and look away.

It doesn’t matter anyway. The issue isn’t whether he appreciates my body. I don’t care. I love the way I look. It’s the fact that he’ll do whatever he wants to it, regardless of how I feel.

Thorin, as if to prove a point, removes Khalil’s robe and then stares at my body like it’s on the dinner menu, and he doesn’t know where to start—the appetizer, entrée, or straight to dessert.

“You didn’t strike me as the type to be insecure,” he remarks absently.

“I’m not insecure. I’m human,” I say as I stare at the vaulted ceiling, waiting for him to fuck me already so he can leave me alone. “There’s not a person alive who doesn’t feel it sometimes. There are only those who are honest about it and those who bullshit about it.”

Thorin grunts but doesn’t deny it.

Looking at him, I wonder if I’m wrong.

Thorin clearly has nothing to be insecure about. He checks every box except kindness and chivalry.

As if he can tell where my mind wanders, Thorin sits up until he’s kneeling over me. My gaze is unwillingly drawn back to him when he grips the bottom of his shirt. It’s not until the hem shows the first strip of skin that I realize I’ve never seen Thorin shirtless. Seth and Khalil, yes, but not Thorin.

I realize why when the shirt clears his belly button, and I see it.

Four deep, diagonal slashes.

It keeps going, extending from the right side of his waist across his abs and stopping above the nipple on his left pec. The scar tissue is pink, slightly raised, and fully healed, but no less horrifying to see—not because of the appearance but because of what he must have survived.

Is this what I’ll look like once I’m finally safe from them? Healed and alive but forever scarred?

“What happened?” I ask to keep from reaching out and touching Thorin’s old wounds. And, okay, I’m also curious if his abs are really as hard as they look. Paradoxically, the scars only make him seem more invincible, and I start to waver because if whatever didthatcouldn’t kill him, what chance did I have?

“Grizzly.” Thorin’s tone implies it happens every day. I don’t know. Does it? I sure the fuck hope not.

“You fought a grizzly bear?” I echo skeptically. I give into the impulse this time and run my fingers over his scars and through the thin scattering of hair on his lower stomach. “And you won.” He wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t, but it still sounds unbelievable.

“He did his fair share of damage, as you can see, but nothing fatal.”

“That’s too bad.”

The look he gives me is only slightly amused. “You would have preferred the bear, huh?”

“I would have preferred ten bears to you.”

Thorin smiles, but it’s not a friendly one. I’ve fooled myself into thinking we were connecting on a human level until he stands from the couch and shoves down his sweats and boxers.

I look away the moment they clear his hips and close my eyes.

I’ve already seen his dick, so it feels silly, but it’s all the rebellion I have left. When he lifts me from the couch, I suck in a breath. Begging won’t help. I know that, but I still hear myself saying, “Please, Thorin. Do we have to do this now? I’m sore.”

“All the more reason to get you used to fucking.” He lays me down on the bear rug, and his gentleness confuses me. When he joins me, I burst into action and flip onto my stomach. I try to crawl away, but Thorin grabs my leg and drags me back.

“Fuck you!” I scream in his face when he succeeds in flipping me onto my back again. “I don’t want to!”

“No?” He forces a hand between my thighs and uses it to palm me. “Then what’s this, Aurelia?” Neither of us speaks as he slowly explores my pussy with the rough pads of his fingers. The friction is perfect and before long my thighs slowly fall open of their own accord. “Tell me why you’re ruining my fucking rug if you don’t want it,” he whispers.

“That’s not…it’s not…”

“Yes?”

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