AllFreeNovel
Share Us
So fucking beautiful. It was intoxicating.
“And if you’re worried your scars will bother me,” he added, sliding his hand up into her hair. “Don’t. You’re beautiful, Nell. Every single inch of you. I don’t have to see the rest of you to know, but I’m happy to prove it to you whenever you’re ready.”
She leaned into his hand, eyes closing, mouth parting on a sigh. Then she raised her arms up toward the ceiling.
Rafe let out a low hum of satisfaction. “Good girl.” Before fear could change her mind, he grasped the hem of her dress and pulled, slipping it up over her head and tossing it onto a chair.
Fuck, she was breathtaking. She wore a lacy push up bra and matching thong, the same dusky pink color as her dress. The skin from her breasts to her upper thighs clearly never saw the light of day, the color several shades lighter than the rest of her body. His gaze traveled lower, to her long, muscular legs, where a large black and blue butterfly wrapped around her upper thigh.
Rafe walked slowly around her, taking it all in. There were several raised scars between her lower back and upper thighs—crisscrossing lines that probably came from a cane or whip wielded with too heavy a hand. He’d have to show her what those implements felt like in the hands of a master.
As he moved around the other side, his gaze zeroed in on another set of thick, raised lines on her right hip. But these weren’t chaotic like the others; a glance told him they’d been placed there in a specific pattern. His steps faltered when he realized what it was.
A capital M, capital I, and the beginning of a C.
Jesus fucking Christ. Micah clearly wasn’t only a piece of shit. He was a fucking psychopath.
“Remind me,” Rafe said, doing everything in his power to keep the anger and revulsion out of his voice. “What’s the safeword you put in your application? It was a bird, wasn’t it?”
“Sparrow, Sir.”
He could hear the frown in her voice. Circling around to her front, he peered into her troubled face. “What’s wrong?”
Nell chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, as if unsure she wanted to answer. But then she gazed into his face, and his commanding look seemed to sway her decision. “That was always my safeword...before.”
It was obvious that she meantbefore Micah.
“Is it okay if I change it? I don’t want to go back to where I was.” That burningsomethingwas back in her eyes, and he couldn’t tear his gaze away. “Like that quote you said about my scars. I want to go somewhere new. Somewhere better.”
“New Dom, new safeword, new you?” Rafe said, one corner of his mouth lifting.
She blushed beautifully but didn’t look away. “That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”
“No.” Wrapping his arms around her, Rafe claimed her mouth at last—something he’d been longing to do since she walked through the door. She stiffened for about half a second, then went almost liquid in his arms, her lips parting eagerly to allow his tongue entrance.
Fuck, she smelled good, like sun-ripened peaches. And she tasted so minty and fresh, he wanted to devour her. With one hand gripping her hair right at the scalp, the other digging into the naked flesh of her ass, he kissed her like a man starved.
When at last he pulled away, she leaned toward him, eyes still closed, chasing the kiss. “It doesn’t sound stupid at all,” he ground out, voice low and saturated with lust. They needed to get the whole safeword thing sorted out before they could go any further. “Pick whatever word you want.”
She opened her eyes slowly, dazedly blinking. “Whatever word I want?” There was a soft, dreamy quality to her voice that made his mind race with possibilities. If he could do that to her with a kiss, he couldn’t wait to see what happened when he fucked her.
“Having trouble focusing, little girl?” he asked, hearing the boast in his own voice, and not caring in the least. “Let’s figure this one thing out, and then I promise I’ll finish what I just started.”
A shiver ran through her whole body at his words. Nell glanced around the room, urgency in her gaze as she searched for inspiration for the new safeword.
“How about butterfly?” Rafe suggested, brushing his thumb over the tattoo on her thigh.
They both went utterly still at the exact same moment. The ink covered a series of raised parallel lines—obvious self-harm scars. Apparently he’d been right about what Nell meant when she said onlymostof her scars came from her ex.
“Never mind,” he hurried to say. “Let’s figure out something else.”
“No, I like it,” she whispered, staring down at the intricate blue and black tattoo. “I went to a tattoo parlor with a friend a few weeks after I started college. The artist had a drawing of this with her available designs. I remember thinking how good it would feel, turning something ugly into something so beautiful. Just like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.”
He wanted to tell her again that she was beautiful. That he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her from the moment she entered the room. But then her fingertips brushed over the half-carved name on her hip, and the words stuck in his throat.
“I wish it was that easy. I wish I could wrap myself up in every choice I ever made, good or bad. And when it all comes undone, there’s a whole new beautiful me.” She finished on a whisper.
Rafe found himself absolutely speechless for the first time in his life. How long had he been working toward something similar? Trying to take all the jagged, fucked up pieces of his past and reform them into something good and right.
