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“This one?” I ask, sliding my hand over hard muscle and soft skin toward the rougher tissue of another scar.
“Bullet.”
“You’re not easy to kill.”
One corner of his mouth curves upward. “Are you going to try?”
I don’t answer. He steals a kiss then, and I’m caught off guard. He swallows my gasp as I taste him, taste myself on him. This man… There’s something about him, and there has been since day one. I need to be careful with him.
I shift my gaze to the lines. There must be two dozen in a row all along his arms, cuts deep enough to leave thick scars. Is this the thing about him that somehow connects us?
I reach to touch one, but he grips my wrist hard, harder than before.
“No,” he says. “Not those.”
I look at him, then again at them. “What are they?”
“You don’t want to know, Little Kitty.”
“Like I said, I’m not afraid of a little truth.”
He studies me, a shadow creeping into his eyes, a dense darkness seeming to pour from his pores.
For the first time since I’ve known Santos Augustine, I realize I’ve never really been afraid of him, not like I am right now. Because whatever this is, it’s dark, and it’s alive It lives inside him, and it won’t be careful with me.
I take a step backward.
“Not afraid of a little truth?” he asks, matching that step. “You sure about that? Take care, Little Kitty, before you get hurt.”
I swallow. “Tell me.”
He tilts his head to the side, studying me. I swear he sees me like no one ever has, not even Odin—and that might be the most terrifying thing of all.
“They’re not like yours,” he says.
I know what he’s referring to and it shuts me up. He means my cuts. The ones he saw beneath the bruises of my father’s belt.
My heart races as he walks me backward. He only stops when my back hits the wall. “Tell me something, Little Kitty.” He reaches to touch the space on the underside of one arm, where my own scars, more delicate than his, line up like soldiers in neat rows. Like the ones on the insides of my thighs and in other hidden places no one could ever see. “Why do you cut?” he asks.
I stare up at him, my mouth dry, no words coming out.
He raises his eyebrows. “You don’t want to tell me?” When I don’t respond, he continues. “We all have secrets. Dark ones. I think it’s best you learn now to let things be when I tell you to let them be. It’s safest for you. Do you hear me, Little Kitty?”
I try to swallow, then nod.
“Good. But do you understand me? In here,” he says, the flat of his hand coming to rest over my heart. Heat pulses between us—or maybe that’s my heart’s frantic beating. Can he feel it? He must.
“Santos, I—”
“Do you understand?”
“I… Yes.”
“Good. Because I don’t want to hurt you.” I get caught on those words, and he must see it because he pauses as if giving me time to process before continuing. “There are two things we need to take care of, and then I’ll make your excuses downstairs and you can sleep.”
I nod, a tear sliding down my cheek that I don’t understand. I wait, mute.
“You won’t hurt yourself anymore.”
