Page 103 of Inked Adonis

I rip through the top two drawers of the dresser. They used to house my boxers and socks, but I cleared them out for Nova. Lace and nylon fly over my shoulder as I dig for her hiding spot.

“My boss as in, like, Hope? I don’t—” She gasps in the doorway at the pile of delicates littering the floor. “Sam, what are you doing?”

She shifts into my peripherals, and even the rough outline of her makes my blood thunder in my ears. When I reach the bottom of the drawers and find nothing, I slam them both closed hard enough that the entire dresser rocks onto its back legs and cracks against the wall. Plaster billows out in plumes of white smoke.

Fitting. It’s like everything around us is crumbling to pieces, too.

“The phone, Nova. Where are you hiding thefuckingphone?” I force myself to turn to her because I need to see the way the color leeches from her face. I need to watch the guilt bloom and the lies form. If I don’t see it for myself, I’ll never fucking believe it because, damn it, she almost had me fooled.

Her lips part, wavering between the truth and a lie.

Just like that, I lose it.

I cross the room in three huge steps. She tries to retreat, but I’m too fast and too huge and she’s too out of her fucking element. Nova stumbles back until she’s pressed flat to the wall, shaking.

I drag a hand down her body, checking her hips and each pocket roughly. “Is it on you? Have you been carrying it around? Waiting for the chance to use it?”

“Sam, stop. I’m not— Stop!” She manages to shove my hands away, though only because I know she’s clean. Her clothes are tight enough I can be sure she isn’t carrying it.

“You’re not denying it, Nova. Not any of it.” I rip away from her, charging into the closet to figure out which of the shelves I gave her holds all of the secrets she’s been keeping.

I made room in my world for her. I built walls around this place for her.

She’s repaid me with a knife in the fucking back.

“Sam,” she sobs, “stop! Just?—”

Her words are lost in the crash of her clothes rod hitting the floor. Other shit breaks, though I don’t stop to see what or where. I do want to find the phone, but the destruction feels good.

I gave her these hiding spots.

Now, I want to shred them to pieces.

But no matter how much I ruin, nothing untoward appears. When the closet is cleared, and I’m panting with unspent rage, I turn to find Nova standing just outside the doorway.

Her eyes say everything.

I stare at them for a long, long moment. They’re so golden. I’ve noticed that before, but have I ever trulynoticedit? Have I savored it?

And her skin—it’s so flawless. Not scarred and tattooed like mine. Hers is soft and supple to the touch and the eye alike.

I track down her body. Past the curve of her neck and the thin, slanted line of her collarbone. I dip below the swell of her breasts and the flat plane of her stomach…

And then I see her fist.

It’s closed around something.

A black, rectangular phone.

She offers it to me without meeting my eyes. Her voice, when it emerges, is the most broken thing I’ve ever heard. “I should have given you this the second I had a chance.”

But you didn’t.

Now, it’s too late.

I take the phone from her. The rage is gone. Or transformed into something else, maybe. Sorrow? Is that what you’d call it?

I wouldn’t know. I haven’t felt sorrow in twenty years.

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