Page 99 of The Kiss Of Death
My eyes landed on his scars once more. Did someone do this to him, or did he do it to himself? Should I ask him?
“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” he offered out of nowhere, and I blinked.
Levi Delombre wanted to watch a movie.
I was in his bedroom to watch a movie.
Dad always said if a boy tricks you into going to his place, it means he wants sex from you and nothing more.
“You want to watch a movie with me?” I repeated.
“That’s what couples do, no?” he continued, and I was utterly convinced he had studied what a normal couple meant and what they did.
I wasn’t used to affectionate Levi.
I smiled, noticing he was trying to make an effort and maybe starting to trust me. “Is this what you want?”
“No,” he admitted. “But I’m not opposed to it.”
“What would you have wanted?”
His gaze lingered on my legs. “If it was up to me, I’d have continued what we started earlier, and I’d have fucked you all night long. Bed, first. Second, shower. Third, the counter. Four, mirror. I’m open to switch the order,” he said, as I was literally gasping for air. “But you’re clearly not ready for all that, and I want you begging when I’ll take your first because it’s going to hurt.”
I clasped my hands together and cleared my throat, ignoring the fact my body couldn’t maintain a normal body temperature when I was next to him. I sauntered to his side, and let my fingers brush over his hard chest.
“What are you doing?” his strained voice accused.
“Exploring your body,” I whispered, tracing the contours of his biceps down to his forearms. Despite his outward appearance of control, each of his muscles seemed taut with tension, but he didn’t push me away. “Levi… Can I ask you something?”
He hummed, probably knowing I would ask anyway.
“Where did you get those cuts?”
“Are you disgusted by them?” he asked.
“No,” I denied, feeling my heart contracting that he would think that. “Of course not. Did someone do this to you? Was it… Patrice?” My fingers stopped on the cuts in the shape of lines by his wrist. “You don’t have to tell me if you’re uncomfortable.”
“Patrice wasn’t a violent man. He was too smart for that. He was more of a payback kind of guy when drunk to help with his conscience.”
“What do you mean?”
“He tried to raise me like his son and taught me chess, but he was weak. An alcoholic. When he was drunk, he revealed his true nature. I had the tendency to annoy him in rather creative ways, so when he had a bad day…” His tight smile said it all. “Let’ssay I was there to make him feel much better. Over the years, he begged my mother to get rid of me.”
So he did that to him.Trailing my fingertips along the uneven texture of his scars, I felt like I could somehow absorb his dark past through my fingertips.
“These ones are from a soldering iron.” Levi’s eyes sliced straight to mine, as if testing my reaction. “He got pissed when I used to meddle with his electronics and computers, so he made me fix my mess, including punishing myself. If I were to say something, he would blame me, and I could have kissed goodbye to my sole occupation in this fucking house.”
Patrice is horrible.I gulped, my fingers brushing over the scars in the shape of holes. “These ones?”
“Cigarette burns. He was a sore chess loser. I could have avoided them by losing, but I didn’t want to.” Levi flashed a smile. “Fun times.”
“This is child abuse, Levi.”How could he smile?My heart was already breaking into thousands of pieces for him. He never showed his pain. He never showed anything.Why? “Lucie didn’t know?”
“No, not that she would have believed me. I’m the man I am today, thanks to him. You never forget your first monster.”
I crossed my arms. “If I had known back, then I could have—”
“Told your daddy so he’d adopt me after his daughter kissed me?”
