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I’m drawn to him despite myself, my greedy gaze soaking up every detail of his features the same way his brown and blue gaze devours me. As though if I just stare at him long enough, I’ll somehow make sense of the dangerous puzzle that is Marcus Constantine.
Finally, he moves on from my third bullet scar. His fingers track down the upper half of my amputated arm, tracing the lines of my tattoo, outlining the vivid red flowers that bloom on my skin. When he reaches the elbow and then the abbreviated end of my arm, his gaze flicks from my ruined limb to my good one.
The fingers of his other hand drift down that arm, as if he’s trying to measure the differences between the two.
With both of his hands on me, it feels like an electrical circuit has been closed. Something hot and fierce buzzes through my body, and my head drops back against the door, my eyes falling shut. I’ve given up trying to fight him, too overwhelmed by the white-hot feel of his touch to do anything but ride out the sensations.
His fingers skim down the bicep of my left arm—my good arm—then over the crook of my elbow and down my forearm.
Then, suddenly, they stop. His hand on my right arm freezes too, and I swear the very air around us grows colder.
“What the fuck is this?”
His voice is hard, and my eyes fly open again, awareness rushing in quickly.
Fuck.
“It’s nothing. It’s none of your business.” I yank my good arm away from his fingers, attempting to press away from the door and slip past him.
But he grabs my wrist again, his touch no longer feather-light or gentle. Now it’s rough. Angry. He bends my arm, bringing it closer to his face as he stares down at the long vertical slash mark that covers nearly the entire length of my forearm.
The kind of slash that designates a serious attempt to die, not a bid for attention or a cry for help.
“I said, what the fuck is this?” His grip tightens until it’s painful, and fury darkens his voice.
I pull harder on my trapped arm, wishing I still had my other fucking hand so I could push him away. “And I said it’s none of your goddamn business.”
He raises my forearm even higher, showing me the slash mark as if I’m a dog who got into the garbage when I wasn’t supposed to, and now he has to show me what I did wrong.
As if I might not already know the scar is there.
As if I don’t remember every single detail of how it happened.
“When?”
The single word is hard and flat. It’s not a question. It’s a demand.
I clench my jaw, my gaze skating away from his. “When I was fifteen.” Then I huff a bitter laugh. “Why? Worried it might’ve happened on your watch?”
He steps closer to me, erasing the small distance between us. He’s still holding my wrist in his big hand, his grip still crushing my bones. “No. It wouldn’t happen on my watch, Ayla. I wouldn’t let it.”
Something about the surety of his voice, the determination in it, hits me right in the chest. He means it. This man doesn’t even know me, but he hates the idea of me trying to kill myself—despises it with a burning rage. I can hear the truth in his words; he would do anything in his power to keep me alive.
I don’t understand it.
And I don’t like it.
I’ve been alone for as long as I can remember. Even when I was living with foster families, I still felt like I was on my own—hell, sometimes I felt more alone in those homes than I would’ve been on the street.
Throughout my life, the one constant has been the knowledge that I’m all I have, that the only person I can count on is myself.
That if I died, no one would miss me. No one would mourn the loss.
But somehow, for some reason, I think Marcus would.
That thought crashes into the armor around my heart, making a painful ache spread through me.
“Why do you care?” I whisper.
