Page 38 of Beautiful Scars

Just my luck. Of course I’ll decide to seduce my kidnapper on the day his fucking cat dies or something.

No…I reckon he’s more of a dog person.

He ducks behind the camera and swivels the lens toward me. Then he picks up the tripod, moves it to the foot of the bed, and repeats the process.

I jump at the glare he throws me when he pops up again a minute later. “Want me to come over there and do it myself?”

Dread rears its ugly head.

Naked.

No.

I can’t.

I can’t let him see. Can’t letanyonesee. Ever!

Why do you think you are so self-conscious about your body, Meisie?asks Trish.Do you think it has to do with what Alex—?

I cut her off, but she’s right. I’m not in a position to reject him. Not again. And this after I purposefully flashed him my butt like a white-tailed deer trying to court a buck with antlers bigger than me?

But I’m not in control when fear takes over. My hands fly up in surrender. “No, please.”

He growls at me as he charges around the side of the bed.

“Cillian, please!” I yell, scrambling away from him. “I’ll do whatever you want, but not that!”

I don’t know if he doesn’t hear, or if he doesn’t care, but he comes over to the bed to get me anyway. When he grabs my ankle, panic shoots through me like a syringe of adrenaline someone’s just gone and stabbed right through my fucking chest.

Before I even know what I’m doing, I lash out with my foot. I get him right on his cheek, but I’m too short to do much more than turn his head a little.

If he felt a thing, he doesn’t show it. “So I can fuck you up the arse dry, but only if you get to keep your clothes on? What kind of fucked up logic is that?”

I can’t even begin to explain. But the fact that he hasn’t ripped my clothes off like he threatened to might mean I have a millisecond to sway him.

“I’m—” My brain scurries for something to finish the sentence with and my gaze happens to flicker to the tripod. “Camera shy.”

He drops his head and lets out a bark of a laugh. But when he looks up at me again, there’s a strange light in his eyes. He looks disgusted—not at me, not at himself…fuck knows who.

“I promise I’m not putting you on the internet for hundreds of sick fucks to wank off to,” he says, using his grip on my ankle to drag me over the bed to him.

I quickly grab the hem of my shirt to keep it down as it threatens to hike up and expose everything anyway, rendering my whole struggle moot.

“And I appreciate that,” I manage weakly, stalling while my brain works overtime to think up something usable.

You could just tell him, Meisie. Would it be the worst thing in the world?

Blood drains from my face at the thought and the world takes a long, slow spin around me.

Fuck no. Not another panic attack.

Something must show on my face—perhaps my blood vessels literally draining themselves?—because Cillian stops pulling me and instead studies me with narrowed eyes. There’s a long pause where we just stare at each other, but then finally his face seems to soften just a fraction.

“Alright,” he says, nodding as if he’s still convincing himself. “Alright. You can keep your clothes on.”

Surprise battles shock for a moment. But before I can even thank him, he releases me and turns away. “But not these ones. I’ll need to be a fuck load more creative if you’re giving me nothing to work with.”

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