My stomach churns hotly. Why, oh why does he have to be the one guy on the planet who can break through my thick layer of ice and scar tissue? Why, why, why?
I bend to gather my notes from the floor, and I study them closely as I straighten. Not because I need to see what they say, of course, but because I need a reason to look at something else for a minute.
“Looks like the closest shots will be of your back and shoulders as you’re doing some pull-ups. They want the tattoos left intact, but any other imperfections covered, so I’ll do your face and then let you lie down for the rest.”
My heart is thumping so hard, I worry that Rogan will hear it when he sits down in the chair. I set about applying the same products I’ve used on him most other days, going a little heavier on blush to give him a slightly flushed look. That’s all my role entails. They’ll spritz him to make him look sweaty right before the filming starts.
I try not to think of Rogan sweaty. Smooth skin glistening, muscular chest huffing, flat stomach gleaming. No, I need not go there. It’s just . . . it’s just not a good idea.
He’s uncharacteristically quiet as I brush and swirl and dab, but not once do his eyes leave my face. Even if, in my peripheral vision, I couldn’t see them following my movements, I’d still know he was watching me. I can feel it all the way down to my nerves. His gaze, his scrutiny strums them like strings on a harp.
When I’m finished with what little I can do to make his face even more gorgeous, I lean back, giving him a tight, nervous smile. “Okay, you can go lie down on your stomach. I’ll do your back first and then when you sit up, I’ll work on your chest a little.”
Rogan nods, rising to head over to the long, padded table that’s used for bodywork and more extensive specialty applications. I grab a few pods of makeup that match his skin tone, some cream and a few different-sized brushes, taking my time and inhaling huge, calming gulps of air as I gather. When I turn to face Rogan, he’s lying on his stomach with his arms folded under his head, his face turned toward me. His emerald eyes, trained on me, glint in the light, but his expression is unusually serious. I want to ask if something’s wrong, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what he’ll say, what I’ll learn about him. I don’t dare let him get under my skin any more than he already has.
I clear my throat and pull a small rolling table closer to me, setting my supplies on it. Applying the makeup is something I could do in my sleep. That’s not what I feel I must ready myself for. Putting my hands on Rogan’s skin, touching him all over his body this way . . . That’s what I need to prepare for.
I notice that my hand is shaking when I squirt a dollop of cream into my palm. I rub my hands together to warm it before I lean forward to smooth the lightly shimmering lotion onto his back. I feel the muscles twitch and flex under my fingertips, and I try to ignore the way my belly reacts. “Th-this is just to give your skin a bit of a glisten, like you’ve been exercising. You have enough color that I don’t need to add any tint to it,” I explain in a voice that sounds breathless even to my ears. Oh God!
Rogan says nothing, makes no comment, which is something else I find odd. Normally, he doesn’t miss a chance to tease or taunt me.
Touching him feels good. It feels too good. Right, even. At least touching him this way means I don’t have to worry about him touching me in return. I don’t have to concern myself with keeping hidden things that I don’t want him to see. With that in mind, I let myself go, just enough that I can really enjoy having my hands on him.
His skin is so smooth and warm. Supple. I can feel the reaction in every muscle I touch. It incites a corresponding squeeze in my stomach.
I’m so caught up in these sensations, in this moment, that I find myself asking about his tattoo in order to prolong the pleasure of the skin-against-skin contact.
“What does it mean?” I ask, tracing the angry-looking letters that span the top of his back from shoulder to shoulder. At first glance, I thought it was just some sort of tribal tattoo. It looked a little like a twist of teeth or claws. But on closer inspection, I can see that there are letters intricately woven into the wicked-looking spikes.
“It’s Latin. Pugnare superesse. Vivere pugna. Fight to survive. Fight to live.”
Makes sense for a fighter, I suppose. It doesn’t register that the words might have a deeper meaning until I more closely examine his skin.
When the cream is rubbed in thoroughly, I make myself pull my hands away. Holding back a sigh, I reach for a dish of makeup, swirl a small brush through it and lean in to attack a scar that runs around his shoulder blade in a semicircle. It’s an odd shape, but I don’t ask any questions. For all I know, he had some sort of surgery that he doesn’t want to talk about. It’s as I’m applying coverage to the pale pink line that I begin to notice other things that I was too distracted to notice before, when I was rubbing my hands over Rogan’s flesh and asking about his tattoo.
There are three long white gashes that run down his back. Not like claws, but at different places, like something scratched or cut him in separate lashes. On his lower back are five small dots in an orderly pattern that’s a little bigger than the size of my palm. And on his right side, just below his ribs, are two perfectly round scars about the size of a pencil eraser. I can’t imagine what the other marks are, but these two look suspiciously like cigarette burns. Old ones.
Fight to survive. Fight to live.
What has he had to survive? What has he had to fight for?
As I’m working, my mind is running a mile a minute. Unfortunately, my hands are nowhere near keeping up. In fact, I’m rubbing my index finger over the tiny dots when Rogan speaks, causing me to jump guiltily.
“I bet you weren’t expecting to have to work this hard for your money today, were you?” I glance up at his profile. One side of his mouth is quirked, but there’s no humor anywhere else on his face. He’s covering up. I know that for a fact. I recognize it because I’ve been doing it for years.
“I would expect nothing less from a man who fights for a living,” I reply softly, letting him off the hook. I would want someone to do the same for me if the situation were reversed. Some scars can’t be talked about for fear of opening the old wound and bleeding to death. I know that for a fact, too.
A grunt is the only reply I get from him. As I set about camouflaging more quickly rather than so rudely examining this enigmatic man’s body, I can’t curb the sense of sadness that fills me. Or the sense of connection.
For all his cute winks and sexy grins, for all his charisma and devil-may-care comments, this man has a past. A violent past. And something tells me that it has nothing to do with fighting for money and everything to do with fighting for his life. Despite the attraction that I feel toward him, Rogan just became more dangerous to me than ever before. Now I can relate to him on a deeper level, a purely emotional level. I can relate to a violent past. And the desire to escape it. Now we share something important. Now it will be even harder to fight him.
When I’m finished patching up his back, making it so that the world doesn’t see what’s been done to him, I tell him quietly, “You can sit up now.”
I back up as Rogan swings his long legs around and pushes himself into a sitting position, muscles flexing everywhere as he moves. As always, I’m aware of his beauty, but now, as perverse as it sounds, he’s even more appealing to me. He seems real and fallible and maybe a little bit broken. He hides it well, of course, but now I know. And I can’t unknow.
I avoid his eyes as I treat his chest to the same consideration that I gave his back, only with slightly less attention to detail since the camera shots will be focused mainly on his back. I’m fully aware of his mossy gaze on me as I squirt more cream into my hand and rub my palms together. He watches me as I reach for his pecs. He watches me as I let my fingers trail up to his collarbones, across his shoulders, over his bulging deltoids. I make my way back to his midline and then down his abdomen. It’s when the ridges of muscle tense under my hands as I near his waistband that my own stomach begins to react. Warmth blossoms in my core, turning my insides to hot, twitchy mush.