Page 138 of Property of Scar

Later that night, back at the clubhouse, everything is different.

The change sits low and quiet beneath the surface, impossible to point at and impossible to ignore, like the entire world has rotated a few degrees while nobody was paying attention.

Scar quietly closes the door to his room behind us, and neither of us moves for a moment, just standing there in the half dark with the low amber glow of the bedside lamp, laying everything in gold, the noise of the clubhouse muffled to something distant and soft.

The bond sits in my blood like a second heartbeat, and I can feel him through it—steady, warm, there—in a way that still doesn’t feel entirely real after everything that almost wasn’t.

“You should be resting,” I say finally, my voice lower than I expect, and a bit rough around the edges. “After today… after what he did to you—” I stop, because even thinking it feels too close to losing Scar again. His gaze doesn’t shift. “You nearly died,” I push anyway, the words sharper now, breaking through whether he wants them to or not. “Do you have any idea what that looked like from my side? I thought—” My throat tightens, and I shake my head once, like that’s enough to cut it off before it goes somewhere I won’t pull it back from. “I was so scared,” I admit, the truth of it landing heavier than I want it to. “And then the bond… whatever this is… it just…” I exhale, frustrated and overwhelmed, “… it hit like I couldn’t breathe past it. Like you were pulling me under with you.”

Scar doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t argue.

He watches me, something in his expression shifting. “Cali,” he says, cutting through everything I’m trying to hold onto.

He crosses to me, closing the distance until there’s barely an inch of space between us, and whatever I was about to say next gets lost somewhere in the way he looks at me.

The cold reserve he usually hides behind has fallen away.

His attention hits me all at once, like I’m the only thing in the room worth seeing.

He lifts one hand and hooks his fingers into the elastic in my hair, pulling it free with a careful ease that has nothing to do with the conversation I was trying to have and everything to do with what he’s choosing instead.

“I’m here,” he murmurs, quieter now, like that’s the only part of it he’s willing to give me.

Then his hand slides into my hair, fingers threading through it, grounding himself in me instead of anything we just walked out of.

And I feel it through the bond.

Clear as anything.

He doesn’t want to talk about what almost happened. He doesn’t want to pick apart the bond, the fear, or how close it all came to breaking. Right now, he just wants me.

“You’ve been holding yourself together all day,” he says, low. “Let go.”

The sound that escapes me is somewhere between a laugh and something that isn’t. His hands move into my hair, fingers spreading through it, and I close my eyes as the tension in my shoulders finally, finally starts to deflate.

He kisses me slowly. Not asking permission, he knows he has it, but taking his time, his mouth moving against mine with a thoroughness that makes my knees register a quiet protest. I grip the front of his shirt, and he makes a low sound against my lips that I feel inside my chest, and his hands slide down to my waist, drawing me in until there’s no more air between us at all.

“Look at me,” he murmurs against my mouth.

I open my eyes.

His eyes are fully dark now, the red burning low and deep, and the expression on his face is something I don’t have a word for, something that belongs to him specifically, ancient, certain, and devastatingly present. “Mine,” he says. Not a question or a command. Just a fact, settled and unshakeable. “Say it.”

“Yours.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “And you are mine.”

Something shifts in his face, a crack in the control, just for a second, and then his hands find the hem of my shirt, and he pulls it over my head in one smooth motion, dropping it somewhere behind me without looking at it. His eyes stay on me the entire time, drinking in every inch of skin with an attention that makes my pulse stumble.

I reach for his cut first, sliding it off his shoulders, letting it fall to the desk beside us. Then his shirt, which he helps with, pulling it over his head and tossing it aside, and I press my palms against his side where the blade wound has now healed, just for a moment to feel him, the realness of him that I was terrified I’d never get back.

He unhooks my bra with steady hands and drops that, too, and when his gaze travels down my body, there’s nothing casual in it. It’s thorough, dark, and completely focused, a look that says he’s taking his time and means every second of it.

“Your turn,” I say, and my hands drop to his belt.

He goes still and lets me, watching my face while I work the leather free, pull it loose, and the quiet intensity of his attention does more to me than most men manage with their hands. I push his jeans down over his hips, and then I look up at him through my lashes, and the expression that crosses his face at that, at me, on my knees in front of him, looking up, sends heat flooding all the way to my fingertips.

I take his cock in my hand first, watching his jaw tighten. He’s already hard, and the low sound that escapes him when I drop to my knees in front of him and wrap my lips around his tip makes something deeply satisfied uncoil in my chest.