Page 77 of Roped

“But I don’t think…” I begin but then trail off because suddenly, everything feels so hopeless.

He probably knows what I was going to say, but he still asks, “Don’t think what?”

Swallowing, I look up at him. “I don’t think your mom meant me. The Turner girl. You know, when she taught you.”

His jaw clenches for a second. “Yeah, she probably also didn’t think that one day her son would make that girl breakfast, but she wouldn’t be able to eat it with her own hands because he’d tied ’em to a fuckin’ tree. Don’t reckon that would make Ma very happy, given that she spent her life tryna teach me how to treat a girl, treat my little sister, right.”

“I—”

“So no, I’ll make the breakfast.”

“But I don’t want you to stress your shoulder,” I say, my heart fluttering in my chest.

“It’s fine.”

“You got shot.”

“So?”

“So it’s a bullet wound.”

“Superficial.”

“But—”

“And now I got a mark on my shoulder to match the others.”

“What?”

His green eyes look even greener as he explains, “The one on my ribs and the other on my hand.”

It takes me a second to realize what he’s talking about. And then a few more to stop the crazy thrumming in my body. Gripping the fence tightly, I manage to say, “You don’t have a mark on your hand.”

He lets the reins go to raise the hand I bit that first time and show me. It’s a little hard to find because his hands are still screwed up from the beatdown at the warehouse, but sure enough there’s a little mark on the side of his palm, white and scabbed over. A semicircle of pinprick scars where my teeth were lodged. I remember wanting to take a chunk of his flesh out, but holy God, this is insane.

I look up. “I can’t believe I left a mark.”

“Tends to happen when you go rabid on someone.”

“You deserved it.”

“Never said I didn’t.”

I glance over to his ribs. “Can I see the other one?”

“No.”

I bite my lip. “Is it big?”

“Bigger than the one on my hand.”

“Does it hurt still?”

His eyes glitter again. “Why, thinkin’ of givin’ me another one?”

“What? No.”

“Wouldn’t mind it,” he says, his lips twitching again. “It’ll be like expandin’ my collection.”