Page 44 of The Devil's Ice

“OK, that’s fair.” He nodded, then moved his hands to the buttons on her shirt. “Can I?”

“You’d better,” she whispered. “Then you canburnthese clothes…especiallythese fucking slippers.”

He laughed, then slowly, so gently, he undressed her. When she was standing unclothed in front of him – somehow more naked and vulnerable than she hadeverbeen while they were wildly fucking – he raised his hand to the bandage on her face, hesitated.

“I need to take this off now,” he said quietly. “It’s going to wash off under the shower anyway.”

“I know.”

“You ready?” Ice asked. “Ready to see?”

“Noooo,” she said emphatically. “But it’s my face now, isn’t it? I guess I need to get used to it sometime.”

“Youdoknow that you’re going to be fucking stunning, don’t you? Scars and all?”

“Idon’tknow that, Ice.” She managed a small smile. “What Idoknow is that a few scars are a small price to pay for Keira to still be here, alive and whole and safe. So it’s OK. Really. I can get over my own vanity.”

“You won’t need to, I promise you.” Ice started to peel off the tape and gauze. “You’re breathtaking, no matter what.”

And he wasn’t lying at all, he saw now. Yes, there were two long purple lines on the left side of her face, running from her ear to just under her eye, and one that grazed her high cheekbone and touched her temple, just below the hairline.

But her eyes were the same inky black of a night sky, the starry night sky over the mountains that he’d watched on his lonely vigils, drinking coffee in his leather armchair. Her lips were the same soft rosebuds, full and curved, and he couldn’t stop himself from just leaning down and brushing them. Light, gentle, barely a touch. A whisper of a kiss. A promise of one.

She turned around slowly now, and she looked at herself in the mirror over the sink. He stood behind her and held his breath. If there were going to be tears, they’d happen now, he thought, and he wanted to be ready.

Instead, Vix just looked at her face, zeroed in on the bruising and thescars. She traced the lines over her cheek, up and down from her to ear to her temple, to her eye. Then she dropped her hand, and just stared, as if she was trying to see under her skin.

Their eyes met in the mirror now.

“Vix?” Ice said, fighting to keep his voice calm. “What do you think?”

“Well.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I think that if Olivia Jameson can lose an entire modelling career after getting a bunch of scars on her face, and end up married to the desperately sexy Dallas Foreman, and be loved and happy… I figure I can handle it. I’m not exactly losing a multi-million-dollar career, right, but do you think my bar tips will take a hit?”

“No.” Ice was firm, even as his lips twitched in a slight grin. “Not even a little bit.”

“No? You think that Satan’s customers will still want to flirt with me?”

“Iknowthey will.” Ice gripped the back of his t-shirt, yanked it over his head. “I mean,I’mnot gonna stop.”

And there was that muscled, massive chest that she’d run her lips and fingers over hundreds of times, the chest that had moved above her as Ice had fucked her breathless. It was here in her bathroom, all casual and tattooed and gorgeous, like it was no big deal at all. Like it hadalwaysbeen here, just like this.

“Ohhh,” Vix squeaked, turning to face him now, watched as his hands moved to his jeans. “Flirt away, handsome.”

He gave her a little wink that almost took her knees out under her, so she leaned back against the counter, watching avidly as the hottest man that she’d ever known got gloriously naked. Sadly, nothing could be done about it right now – except looking with deep appreciation – but after what Ice had just said to her, about how he sawher, she knew that didn’t matter. Not at all. Things between them had gonebeyondthe physical, in a startling and amazing way, and she was at peace with that. She even found that shelikedit.

He turned on the shower, and that’s when she got a bit nervous about actually getting under the water, into a slippery tub. She’d been told over and over again at the hospital that it was totally safe, that she was so tightly packed into the brace that she couldn’t move or extend her neck even an inch, that water on plastic was of course completely fine… but she was suddenly frozen with trepidation.

Once again, Ice saw it on her face, and he knew what to do: he stepped into the bath first, adjusted the temperature, then extended a hand to her.

“C’mon now, baby,” he said. “I’ll make sure you don’t fall.”

She didn’t move.

“What?” Ice asked. “You changed your mind? It’s OK if you have, we can just shower later.”

“That’s not it.” She walked over to him, put her hand in his. “Say it again.”

“What? We can shower later on?”

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