Page 73 of Untamed

Her head tilts slightly, and she glances over her shoulder at me. The cabin is so small, she doesn’t have to move much to bridge the gap between us. “Want to tell me about it?”

I shake my head, my jaw tightening. “I can’t.”

Her gaze lingers, searching my face for something I can’t give her.

I see the man’s face again, pale and bloodied, in the backroom of the club. He’d tried to skim off Bratva funds—our funds—thinking no one would notice. He wasn’t wrong to be afraid when I walked in. He just didn’t realize I was the least of his problems.

I didn’t pull the trigger, but I watched. Listened. Stood there while he begged, while I trussed him up and sent him off to my brothers to be punished. We wanted to make him sweat it out.

I played my part like I always do—stone-faced, silent.

Fucking complicit.

There’s no way to explain that to Ember.

“You don’t have to tell me everything, you know,” she says after a moment, turning back to the fire. Her voice is casual, but I catch the trace of disappointment beneath it.

I push off the couch, closing the distance between us in a few strides. “If I told you everything, you’d run.”

It’s the most truthful I’ve been with her.

She studies me for a long moment, the firelight dancing in her green eyes. “Are you sure about that?”

I lean in, brushing my thumb over her jaw, and I feel her shiver under my touch. “You think you can handle the things I’ve done?” I murmur, my voice dropping. “The blood, the bodies, the lies?”

Her lips part, but she doesn’t answer, and I don’t push her. Instead, I settle back against the couch, my hand resting lightly on her thigh.

“I missed you too,” I admit after a moment. The words feel unfamiliar, like they don’t belong to me, but I mean them.

Her expression softens, the tension in her shoulders melting as she leans into me. Her head finds its place on my shoulder, and for a while, we just sit in silence, watching the fire dance in front of us.

Her hand drifts to my chest, the brush of her fingers tracing the jagged line of a scar across my ribs. She doesn’t ask about it, doesn’t speak at all, but her touch lingers. It’s a quiet, deliberate thing—light as a feather but sharp enough to cut through me.

“You’ve got a lot of these,” she murmurs. There’s no pity or judgment in her tone. Just curiosity. A softness that both cuts and soothes me. “I want to trace them with my finger.”

My hand catches hers, pinning it against my chest. My heart pounds under her palm.

Her lips part, surprise flickering in those sharp green eyes. “So much. They each have a story. A story that made you who you are.”

“Yeah. Some earned. Some stolen.” I let out a breath. “All of them mine.”

Her breath hitches, but she doesn’t pull away. She’s braver than she looks, this beautiful, fiery woman who’s dragged me into her orbit. “Do you ever tell those stories?” she asks, almost teasing.

Almost.

“No.” I shake my head. “But I’ll tell you this much—if anyone ever gave you a scar, I’d put them in the ground before the blood dried.”

Her breath leaves her in a shudder, her cheeks blooming with a heat that matches the firelight. She tries to pull her hand free, maybe to hide how her pulse betrays her, but I don’t let her.

“No one marks you,” I growl, leaning closer until my lips brush her ear. “Not while I’m breathing.”

She finally meets my gaze, a mix of defiance and something softer simmering in her expression. “What if I wanted to leave a mark on you?”

I smirk at her. “You already have,kitten.”

With a satisfied smile, she pads off to the kitchen. “I’m starving.”

“Help yourself.”

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