Page 30 of Caged Heart
Ares stated with a cup in his hand and his practically naked body on display.
"More what?"
My eyes couldn't help as they ventured through his entire body. His tattoos, abs, and toned muscles are displayed, but I now notice his bruises.
"Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
I blinked but I didn't look up at him, my eyes stayed glued to the bruises on his body. How did he get them?
"Like how you're looking at me now. I know you're looking at the bruises. It's not serious, and I don't want to discuss it."
I nodded. "I just," the sound of my feet against the floor pounded in my head as I moved closer and closer to him until we were body to body. I reached out, tentatively touching one of the bruises on the left side of his ribs. "Did someone do this to you?"
"Come on, pretty girl, who would dare try to fight me and win, especially now that I'm bigger and stronger?"
Ares smirked, and I knew he definitely didn't want to talk about it, so I blinked back my tears. I cleared my throat and stopped touching him.
"You didn't have to stop touching me. I like it when you touch me."
Ares confessed, and a warmth I'd never felt before took over my body.
"Already?"
"Already implies it's a new thing for me to like your touch," Ares cocked his brow. "It's not."
A few stray rays of sunlight filtered through gauze curtains to caress the wall across him, and some caught his serene face.
The hard lines of his facial features were soft as he looked at me.
The more he looked at me, the more my body seemed to uniquely react to him. It was as if I could sense every nerve, cell, muscle, drop of blood, and hair in my body individually.
What the hell is going on with Ares and me?
Chapter19
Ares
Carmen threw her head back and laughed at whatever was supposed to be funny with the movie she was watching. I'd never seen it before, but it was one of the ones she deemed a favorite of hers; The Proposal.
This thorny knot of emotion inside of me seemed to further twist into a million and one pieces as it further moved, not settling at all. Her wanting to console me had my mind racing, but at the same time, her desire to be here with me swathed me like a blanket. Carmen didn't know it, but she stripped me bare before she ever spoke to me, and I kept it a secret from her, myself, and everyone around me.
I fought to want her, and even though we both were drunk the first time we hooked up, I didn't regret it.
"You're watching me," Carmen said with a burst of bubbling laughter right after.
"Shut up."
I cupped some popcorn that she was eating in my hand and threw it at her. A burst of amusement lit in her eyes and I didn't have to worry about her flipping the fuck out over popcorn.
"Cut it out Ares before I knock you on your ass."
Her laughing was something else. I hadn't heard such liveliness to a laugh until I met Carmen. I wouldn't lie and say I've never heard it before or pretend I've never liked her. I did and still do like her. I just didn't tell her. I wasn't looking to hook up or end up here, but it happened. Whatever. Better than being in my father's home, where he could beat me until I passed out.
"You couldn't beat me if it was the last thing you could do. Stop laughing like that. It's shooting straight to my dick."
Carmen halted her movements with her hand midair close to her mouth. She looked my way, and the lust I'd come to like, shined in her eyes.
