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I pull up the blanket as he growls, “Stop”—but it’s too late. I can see the thick pink scar up close…can see how big it is. It reaches around the front of his hip, where I glimpsed it earlier, but it’s mostly covering his side and lower back. Holy hell. It looks like something burned him.
“Ouch, that must have hurt.” And must have been recent, because it’s still so fresh and pink.
His hand shoves at mine—and I guess that’s what does it. The blanket over his hips tents, then falls away, revealing thin gray fabric, stretched over a huge erection.
With no ado, he lurches to his feet, holding onto the couch’s back and moving toward the bedroom. Actually the bathroom. The door shuts hard, and I swear I can hear him breathing into his hands.
“Luca?” I say into the door’s crack.
“You can go now.”
“Are you okay? I didn’t mean to…” I shut my eyes and blow my breath out, then step back. Because I’m going to be leaving now. A wave of devastation hits me, so intense I feel it like a knot in the pit of my stomach.
“Go.” It’s a growl.
I stand there for a long time, belly breathing as tears sting my eyes. I keep them squeezed shut. I am not going to cry about this. I’m a district attorney, for Christ’s sake. Luca is…a bad habit. He’s that thing I crave, even though I know it will kill me.
I should leave now. I can leave and sort through all this later. Questions like why he’s here, and if he bought this place from—
The shower starts. I can hear him pull the curtain back. I step closer to the door, feeling like a freak as I hear him murmur or grunt. Then something shatters.13EliseBlood whooshes in my ears as I try the doorknob. “Luca? Are you okay?”
“I said go!”
I rise on my tiptoes, reaching for the nail above the door jamb in the spot where my cabin has one. When my fingertips brush the little key, I let them clamp around it. There’s no reason for me to try the lock. No reason but trouble.
I tell myself I want to check on him, but I know I’m a liar as I push the key in and twist, as I turn the doorknob and it gives. I nudge the door open and find him standing at the sink, his boxer-briefs still tented by a big, long bulge, one of his hands raised in a fist. The fist is bleeding.
“Oh my God.” I gape at the broken mirror and then at his dripping hand. I think he punched the mirror.
“What do you want?” His shoulders rise and fall—he’s breathing fast—and his face is a mask of fury.
“To check on you,” I whisper.
He waves his fist. “Well now you checked.” His eyes are hard, his lips a thin line. When I don’t turn and go, I see his nostrils flare again. “Why don’t you go now?”
My eyes move around the small, wallpapered bathroom. “Why are you here?”
“Cabin’s mine.”
“You bought it from my father?”
His eyes shift to the sink, where blood is dripping toward the drain in tiny, crimson rivulets. Then his gaze snaps back up. “Yes.”
“You know my dad.”
“What do you think?”
“I know.” And of course, that’s when the tears come for me. Thinking of my dad’s deception. Thinking Dad and Luca both knew…all of this—these details of my life—and I didn’t. I take a deep breath and blink quickly. “I just found out. But I know now.”
“Upset?”
“Do you care?”
“What do you think?” His face softens.
“I think you don’t.” I give a bitter laugh. “I fucking know you don’t.”
His lips twitch like he’s trying not to smile, which makes my cheeks and neck feel flushed. “What’s so funny?”
“Never heard you say the f-word before.”
I look down at my feet. Mostly because that little smile on his lips makes him look so…Luca. When I look back up, I feel more controlled. “Why are you here? Why’d you punch your mirror?”
“Why do you think?”
“Stop turning my questions back around on me.”
He moves the fingers of his bloody hand. “It’s a distraction,” he says thickly. “Because you won’t fucking go.”
“Why are you here this weekend?” I try again.
His eyes shut. He turns his body fully toward the sink. From this side angle, I can see his cock pushing at the elastic band of his boxer-briefs. I can’t help a swell of messed up pride—that he’s hard for me.
He runs the water over his hand, then hisses and snatches it back.
“Does it hurt?” I step closer. “Because of frostbite?”
He steps into the steaming shower without a glance in my direction. I should go now. I should really, really go—right now.
When I peek around the curtain, I find him sitting in the tub with his back to the shower’s faucet and his knees drawn partway up. I can see his hand between his thighs, his fingers closed around his thick tip.
