Page 75 of Carry Your Debt

Right there.A muscle along the side of his jaw pops, but all he does is shake his head as he tears open the zipper and begins rifling through the bag’s contents.

“It's your world, Winters, we’re all just living in it.”

His voice is a wounded growl and it yanks at something unnamed—deep inside my chest cavity—and for once, I don’t think, I just move; desperate to close the distance between us.

“What is it exactly that you’re so afraid of?” I ask when I’m standing at his back.

The answering flinch is subtle, but on a man Ares’s size, that small, involuntary jump of his shoulders may as well’ve been a bellow. But for whatever reason—that jab is the hook that reels him, and he finally turns, slowly. Almost as if he expects his movements to spook me.

I already told you I don’t scare easily, Jameson.

And when he finallydoesface me—the sight of all that blood, sweat, and hostile ink, all covering such an obscenely ripped torso, has me biting down so hard that I taste copper on my tongue.

Jesus. Fucking.Wept.

To add insult to injury, those training shorts of his hang so criminally low that they leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. A dark treasure trail beckons me south, down to where a set of Adonis grooves carve inward on narrow hips like a tattooed air traffic controller directing me in for the landing.

There is no fucking way he’s real.

“You,” he says, lowly. But now that gravel edge sounds a lot lesshurt—making that single-word delivery sound more like a threat than anything else.

And well, let’s just say my libido respondsverywell to threats. So it’s a good few seconds before my brain kicks back into gear and I even register what he said.

“Me?” I prompt ever so innocently, shrugging off my leather jacket as I recover my wits. I throw it towards the bench, where it lands beside his opened bag.

“I just know you’re gonna break us,” he practically whispers in response. Honey-brown eyes bore into my gray ones. The silver nose ring he must have slipped back in post-fight winks beneath the fluorescents.

“Why is that?”

“I’ve killed for you,” he sneers at me, instead of answering my question. A flash of surprise lights up his sharp features—there and gone—as if he didn’t actually mean to voice that sobering fact out loud.

I tilt my head, considering his body language.

I don’tthinkit’s the fact he shot those men in cold blood that’s bothering him, necessarily. With the way he handled himself, I’m sure he’s defended his brothers numerous times. No, I think it’s more likely an issue of how easily he found himself coming tomyaid—someone who was supposedly a complete stranger to him.

My fitted baby tee slithers up and over my arms on its way to join the jacket. Ares’s gaze immediately drops to my chest, taking in the meshed bralette that does absolutely nothing to hide my piercings. Going by the growing bulge in that tiny pair of athletic shorts, I’d wager I’m not the only person in this room who’s a fan of that fact.

“Why?” I prompt again, fingers slipping into the band of my leather leggings and quickly working them down my thighs.

When I’m left standing in nothing but a matching set of sheer lingerie, Ares’s nostrils flare in frustration. My lips quirk as he continues his grapple for restraint. The expression he wears as he stands frozen before me is giving both doubt and desire equal stage time.

Eventually, Ares must decide to turn the dial on whatever’s been eating at him straight to‘fuck it’—because his eyes suddenly snap up to mine, full of resolve.

And they’re fuckingtwinklingwith it.

“You're lucky I’m an ass man, Winters,” he chuckles then, and it'sdark; all traces of that earlier vulnerability now well and truly under lock and key.

With a choked laugh, my hands fly to my chest, giving the modest endowments there a single, protective squeeze. Lifting my chin, I shoot him my best attempt at an imperious look.

“Oh, so you've chosen violence then, big guy?” I demand with all the faux indignation I can muster. But it’s an epic battle just to maintain a straight face.

Because no one told me Callum Jameson had jokes.

My mocking challenge, of course, is only met with a further teasing smirk. A lazy lift of those impossibly broad, stone-cut shoulders.

“God of War, remember?”

Oh no. Have I created a monster?

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