Flushed, angry, and utterly mortified, I drop the medical kit onto the floor with a loud thud. I march forward, snatching the lace out of his grip before shoving the drawer shut with my hip.
"You look well enough to do this yourself if you have the energy to rifle through my underwear."
He lets out a low laugh, a rich, dark sound that dances over my bare skin and sends an unwelcome shiver down my spine.
Ignoring his amusement, I grab his uninjured arm, using what little leverage I have to press him backward toward the bed. I force him to sit down on the edge of the mattress.
He doesn't fight me, letting out a sharp grunt as his weight sinks into the blood-stained sheets. I crack open the plastic kit, pulling out the antiseptic, the curved needle, and the medical thread.
The air in the room instantly turns thick and tense. To get to the wound properly, he has to shrug out of his ruined, blood-soaked jacket and shirt. Sitting shirtless in front of me, he is far too close, and far too calm for a man whose flesh is literally sliced open. I pour the antiseptic directly over the gash. He doesn't even flinch; his jaw just tightens slightly, his grey eyes locked onto my face, tracking my every movement.
I take a deep breath to steady my fingers and pierce his skin with the needle, beginning the slow process of stitching the wound.
As I pull the first knot tight, I feel his large, warm palm settle against the bare skin of my waist.
I shake his hand off.
A second later, his fingers trail right back, gripping my hip. I shake it off again, glaring at him. "Stop touching me."
Without a word, he does it a third time, his hand resting possessively over my hip bone, his thumb stroking the fabric. I let out a defeated sigh and leave his hand right there, completely exhausted by the battle. His touch burns right through the thin silk of my nightgown, sending waves of heat straight to my core.
To keep myself from unraveling, I force my eyes away from his face, letting my gaze roam across the expansive canvas of his chest. His body is covered in ink, a stark contrast against his pale, hard muscle.
On his left pec, there’s a massive, intricately detailed stag, the sharp, beautiful horns reaching all the way up to his collarbone. On his right pec, a hollow-eyed skull sits with a massive serpent entwined through the jaw and eye sockets. The detail is breathtaking.
I shift slightly as I work on his arm, and my eyes catch the ink there. A cluster of butterflies are captured in motion, their wings colorful, wide, and vibrantly detailed against his skin. He’s a monster, a dangerous bastard, but looking at him like this... he’s a work of art. His body tells a thousand stories.
Reluctantly, unable to quiet my curiosity any longer, I ask, "What do your tattoos mean?"
I'm marveled when he actually answers. His usual mocking tone fades into something low and gravelly as he begins to explain the history behind each piece.
He reaches up, takes my hand in his, and gently runs my fingertips across the ink on his chest. I freeze, completely transfixed. His skin feels like warm velvet under my touch, the hard muscle beneath shifting slightly as he breathes.
“The stag," he murmurs, his voice dropping into a low, hypnotic register that vibrates right against my fingertips. He guides my hand up to his left collarbone, pressing my palm against the sharp, rising lines of the horn. "In the old country, the stag is the king of the forest. It represents regeneration. Power. A reminder that no matter how many times you break a man down, he grows back stronger, sharper, and ready to kill whatever hunted him."
My breath catches in my throat, my fingers trembling slightly against his chest. He doesn't let go. Instead, his grip tightens just enough to slide my hand across his chest, centering my palm directly over the hollow eye of the skull on his right pec. The cold weight of his silver skull ring presses into the back of my hand.
“And the serpent?" I whisper, looking from the dark ink up to his intense grey eyes.
"The serpent and the skull—memento mori," he says, a dark, dangerous smile pulling at the corner of his lips. "A constantreminder of death. The snake doesn't fear the skull; it makes a home in it. It tells me that death is always living inside us, waiting. In our world, Sienna, if you fear the grave, you’re already in it. I put it over my heart so I never forget that my life belongs to the blade."
I swallow hard, the intensity of his gaze pinning me in place. I should pull away. I should finish the stitches and push him out into the night, but my body refuses to move.
Slowly, deliberately, Alessandro shifts his arm, turning his left bicep toward me so the vibrant colors of the ink catch the light of the bedside lamp. He takes my hand again, running my fingertips over the delicate, overlapping wings of the butterflies. The contrast between the violent imagery on his chest and the fragile beauty on his arm is staggering.
"These don't fit a monster," I murmur, my thumb tracing the edge of a violet wing.
"They fit me perfectly," he counters, his voice dropping an octave, becoming rougher, more intimate. "Butterflies represent transformation. Soul. But more importantly... they represent the people I’ve lost. The ones who changed my life before they were ripped away. Every butterfly is a soul I carry with me into the dark."
He pulls my hand flush against his bare skin, his heart drumming a steady, powerful rhythm right beneath my palm. "My body tells the stories of everything that made me, Sienna. The blood, the betrayal, and the ghosts."
I stay completely frozen, entirely lost in the rhythm of his voice and the unexpected softness of his skin, realizing with a spike of panic that the man beneath the scars is far more dangerous than the monster on the surface.
When I feel my heart softening, a sudden jolt of panic snaps through me. I yank my hand away from his bare chest and clear my throat. I force myself to look away from his gaze, concentrating entirely on finishing the last few stitches.
When I finally tie off the medical thread and snip it, Alessandro tests the arm, flexing his fingers with a smile. He stands up, shrugs back into his blood-soaked shirt and jacket. I watch him closely, wondering if he’s finally about to leave through the same door he used to invade my sanctuary.
“What happened to you tonight?” I ask, the question slipping out before I can stop it. "Who did that?"
