Page 119 of A Beautiful Crime

“Why?”

Her eyes become heated. “Have you seen them?”

“Yes, but this isn’t about the appearance of them, is it?”

She evades me, her eyes looking past me rather than at me. “How is it you know me so well? How is it that you seem to know me better than myself?”

“You’re evading the question, mia leonessa.” Pinching her chin I force her to look at me. “Ah, there they are. Never hide from me, Carina.”

“I never once fought back, Constantine,” she confesses in a gut wrenching whisper. “How can I not be ashamed?”

“You don’t think you fought back?”

“Don’t mock me.”

“I would never and you know that.” I release her chin and dare to handle this the only way I know. The unconventional way. The way others would frown upon.

Slipping my hands underneath her I splay my hands against the scarred skin of her back. She becomes rigid but I don’t let it deter me. I switch her position to where she’s face down on the bed, her scars exposed. She tries to fight back but the attempt is useless. I straddle her, forcing her to lie still.

Her breaths are ragged. Hands formed in tight fists with white knuckles on either side of her head. She’s at her most vulnerable.

The scars before me are not a pretty sight. It’s devastating. Lashes leave the most ragged scars behind, with raised flesh and irregular patterns. The worst of her scars are tainted an angry pink. Reopened wounds that have never had the chance to completely heal.

It’s the entirety of her back. Covered in what must be more than twenty lashes. I wouldn’t know for sure, my anger caused me to stop counting after I had hit twenty.

She keeps impossibly still. And from her eyes screwed shut and a firm line of her lips I know her mind has taken her back.

I bend forward, and with the gentleness akin to a flower petal I begin a path of kisses along her scars.

I plant kisses along all of them until her body becomes languid once again. Until the breath she’s been holding releases all the tension in her body. I plant kisses in hopes they’ll grow renewed confidence and strength within her.

And when I place the last kiss on the center of her back I band my arms around her once again, crushing her to me as we lay on our sides.

Flesh to flesh.

Her body is the perfect fit to mine.

“You’re ashamed of your scars because you believe they represent your weakness. You couldn’t be more wrong.”

“You saw them.” Her voice is hoarse. “How can you believe otherwise?”

I smooth her hair away from her face, resting my lips by her ear. “Fighting back doesn’t always correlate with physical strength. Yet to endure the torture they put you through shows a great amount of it. But you won’t accept that. So, I’ll give you this, and you’ll always remember it, you didn’t break, mia leonessa. They tried to mold you into what they wanted, tried to break you apart, they tried to make you the perfect pawn, but you never let them. You. Are. A. Queen. You’ve never bowed to no one. Never conformed. Never yielded. These scars shouldn’t be worn with shame. They should be worn with pride.”

She turns her body then. And as I place my hand on the small of her back no tension enters her body. There’s a soft sigh that spills from her lips. Eyes meeting mine with adoration. Her pointer finger traces my lips before her palm comes to caress my face.

“I had it wrong from the very beginning,” she says softly. I arch my brow and a small smile plays on her lips. Her leg drapes over mine as she closes the little space between us. “You were never evil.”

I rest my hand on the underside of her thigh, hitching it higher over my leg so her most intimate part presses against mine. Her mouth falls open in the perfect ‘o’.

“I am an evil man, Carina.”

“Yes,” she agrees, “but you’re the devil on my side. Not against me.”

“Never against you.”

She sighs happily. Tipping her head she places a soft kiss to my lips that has me desperately aching for more. “Promise me something.”

“Anything.”

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