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“I know.” He smiles. “I’ll undo the chain, but I won’t take the collar off.”
He never saw the mark Ethan left on me. It was perfectly hidden by the leather around my neck. It’s gone now, and I miss it.
I still haven’t said anything to Elliot. I don’t know if I’m protecting Ethan or me.
The blond brother walks back to the bed and pulls the covers down. I’m not wearing anything, and my hands come to cover my stomach right away.
“Really?” he chuckles. “That’s what you’re hiding when you’re fully naked?”
I bite my inner cheek, my gaze dropping. My fingers dig into my stomach painfully, hating the softness I feel there.
“Not moving much for five days has already made me put on weight.”
His eyebrows shoot to his hairline. “Excuse me?”
“Stop,” I scoff, looking away. “You’re not blind, you can see it.”
“Jade, there’s nothing to see. You’re perfect.”
“Shut up.”
He grabs my hands, pulling them away harshly. “Okay, first of all, you don’t hideanythingfrom me. Remember who owns this body now.”
His hold softens, and he threads his fingers through mine. “Secondly, you are the most beautiful woman who’s ever graced this planet. You didn’t gain anything in these last few days, but putting on or losing weight wouldn’t change whether you’re beautiful or not.”
“Right. Because you don’t only date Kings’ girls who look like runway models.”
“God knows any runway model would beg for my dick.” He smiles at me, white teeth, beautiful lips. A cocky grin like only he does. “But those girls got nothing on you, baby.”
Dropping one of my hands, his knuckles graze the leather at my throat, down to my collarbone, my boobs, all the way to my lower stomach. I breathe in, sucking my stomach as a reflex.
“Stop that. I like the real you, Jade.”
He splays his fingers on my skin, and despite the warmth of his hand, I shiver under his touch.
“If the saying goes cold hands, warm heart. Does it work the other way around too?” I ask softly.
When he crooks an eyebrow at me, I add, “Your hands are always warm.” I don’t say the rest, he can guess easily.
He snorts and his hand trails north again, gently cupping my jaw so he can tilt my head up. I look right into his eyes. “My heart isn’t cold, my love.”
I can’t stand the proximity right now. The moment we’re sharing. So I put a stop to it.
“Yeah, I guess one must have a heart for it to be of any temperature.”
Ignoring my jab, he rolls his eyes playfully. “The leash is coming off. No need to be so dramatic.”
My eyes flicker to the scars on his chest. Thick white lines. I count them slowly in my head like I have many times before.
One, two, three, four, five and all the way to twelve.
There’s a thirteenth one where his abs begin. His father missed.
It’s no wonder his heart doesn’t function like us normal, able-feeling humans. Those scars must go deep. The ones on the left side must have cut through the skin, the muscles, shattered the bones, and pierced his heart. Now it’s like an expensive clock missing one tiny but essential screw. It can never tick again.
Ethan’s mom and Elliot’s dad left when we were in high school. It was a casual morning when they both pretended to go to work and never came back. They abandoned their children. They left the dead weight that was Ethan and Elliot behind and found a better life. At least that’s what everyone says, including the brothers. I wasn’t at school that day, but the moment I came back, I knew how affected Ethan was. They had barely left, but he already knew they were never coming back. Elliot never liked his dad. He was a violent and volatile man. A good friend of Caden King’s dad, both feared for their brutality.
Elliot became free when his father left. Ethan died a little more inside to lose his mother.
