When she speaks, her voice is too hard for someone so breathtaking. “This is what I hide. This is what Ronnie discovered. This is what disgusted him.” Her face is full of anger and bitterness.
“But, Katie, I—”
“This is why you don’t want me. Not really. This is why I’ll never be the girl for you. You just didn’t know it.” With her pause, she sticks out her chest in defiance. “But now you do.”
It’s obvious she’s trying to push me away. I just don’t understand why. I’m frowning when my eyes drift back up to hers, which are spitting fire. “You couldn’t be more wrong,” I tell her softly. She’s more wrong than she could ever know. This doesn’t make her any less perfect. It just makes her more fragile. If anything, I’m drawn to her in a totally different way. Something fiercely protective rises up inside me, something that rivals the way I felt at the lake a little while ago.
I have to know what happened to her. I have to know about her past. I have to know how she was hurt so badly.
I rise slowly to my feet and step closer to her, brushing over the bumpy skin with the tips of my fingers. I know it doesn’t hurt her anymore. Scars don’t have feeling. They’re numb, thankfully. But I also know that some hurts run so deep they never heal. And I have a feeling this is one that goes all the way to her soul. “What happened? Who did this to you?”
Despite the way her eyes are flashing at me, I see her chin tremble. This is hard for her. Very hard, evidently. Maybe it’s the memories. Maybe it’s the fact that scars are often a thousand times uglier to the person wearing them. Or maybe it’s some other ghost I know nothing about.
“I had a different life before this one. And it involved a man a lot like you. He used his fists instead of words and he prized beauty above all else. He thought I was beautiful. Too beautiful. He was always jealous of something or someone else in my life. When I left him, he couldn’t take it. So he found me. And he set my car on fire. With me in it.” Her chin trembles and her voice cracks. “And then I wasn’t beautiful anymore.”
My stomach clenches. Like I’m doing crunches, but it’s involuntary. There are few people I’ve ever felt really connected to, people I’ve wanted to shield or defend. My brother. The men on Delta Five, my team in the Army. But with them it was different. It was like a brotherhood. Loyalty. Solidarity. Never have I felt anything like this before. Never.
Until I met her.
Until I met Katie.
My gut churns. Fury. Sadness. Determination. Defensiveness. Tenderness. And a thousand feelings I don’t have names for.
All I can think of, though, is that she didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve what it has done to her life.
As these thoughts run through my head, I’m staggered by the desire to take away her pain, to guard her from the shitty curveballs life has thrown her way. And from any more that could hurt her.
“He was an asshole and a fool if he thought anything could make you less desirable. Now you’re even more what I want.”
If I hadn’t been watching her so closely over the last few weeks, I’d never have seen the slight softening of her features. It’s practically undetectable. But not entirely.
“But why? Why me? Can’t you understand how ridiculous that sounds? Look at me! I’m scarred. Ugly. Men like you don’t do ugly.”
I move slowly, cautiously. I uncurl fingers I wasn’t even aware of drawing into fists, and I reach for her again. I brush away the hair that wants to fall back over her shoulder, like she’s trained it to cover her. I bend to press my lips to the curve of her neck, to the scars that have haunted her for so long. “This doesn’t make you less,” I tell her softly. “It makes you more. More beautiful, more desirable. It makes you a survivor. A winner. Someone worth having.” I drop my voice into a whisper. “Someone worth loving.”
I move to nuzzle the soft space beneath her ear, gratified by the subtle change in her breathing. It turns from a heave to a sigh as she leans into me just a few centimeters. But a few centimeters is enough. It’s enough to assure me that I’m reading her right. Despite what has happened, despite the turmoil of the day, she wants me. Like I want her. She cares what I think. She might not want to, but she does. And that’s good. Because I care, too. Maybe more than I should, especially for a girl who wants nothing except to push people away.
“Can’t you just trust me? Just a little? Can’t you let me love you?”
The pause before her answer is so long I think she might not answer.
But then she does.
“I-I’m afraid,” comes her barely audible response.
“Don’t be. I’ve got you. I won’t let anything hurt you. Including me.”
She’s silent for a long time as I press tiny kisses along her jaw and cheek, stroking the smooth parts of her skin to put her at ease.
“Please don’t disappoint me.”
Her request is like a punch in the gut. The pain, the raw plea in her voice cuts through me like a knife.
“I’d rather take a beating than disappoint you.”
She raises tentative hands to curl her fingers around my biceps. I feel them tremble. I feel her fight as clearly as if it were my own. But I also feel her give in.
“Then love me.”
She doesn’t have to tell me twice.
TWENTY-ONE
Katie
For the first time since I woke up from a medically induced coma in the hospital five years ago, I’m letting go. I’m trusting. I’m throwing all my caution, all my insecurity, all my reasons out the window and I’m letting someone in. All the way in.
For the first time, I’m trying to live.
Rogan has seen me. All of me. All the ugly, all the fear, and he still wants me. I might never experience this again, so for just this one moment in time, I’m giving in.
I don’t protest when he slides one arm behind my back and the other beneath my knees to sweep me off my feet. In the bedroom, he sets me at the foot of the bed, but he doesn’t back away. Instead, he stands so close I can feel the heat radiating from his chest, from his stomach, from his thighs, warming me through and through.
He lowers his mouth to mine in a kiss that sears me—my flesh, my heart, my soul. It says he accepts me. It says he wants me. It says that, for now, he won’t hurt me. He’ll only make me feel beautiful and special and loved. Not like a freak show.
With every soft brush of his lips, he rubs away Ronnie’s touch. He rubs away Calvin, my ex’s, fists. He replaces the flames of my past with a new kind of fire, the kind that kindles low in my belly and spreads through my limbs in a slow blaze.
“You taste so good,” he mutters as he licks along the crease of my lips. “I bet you’re delicious everywhere.”
My knees go all soft at his words. It’s been so long . . . So, so long . . .
Rogan spreads kisses across my collarbone and down the center of my chest. His hands come up to palm my breasts. He grazes my nipples with his thumbs and I let my head drop back on my shoulders, the sensation tingling all the way down my arms to my fingertips.
“So beautiful,” he says as his lips travel to cover one nipple. The first touch of his tongue, hotter than any real fire, causes me to gasp. “Do you like that?” he asks, swirling wet heat around the sensitive peak. I don’t respond. I simply thread my fingers into his hair and hold him to me. He laughs, a deep throaty chuckle that vibrates through my breast. “Mmmm, that’s what I thought.”
When he sucks my turgid flesh into his mouth, I arch my back, pressing into him. I feel as much as hear his groan. His response is immediate. He pulls and tugs and nibbles at my nipple as his fingers twist and tweak the other one. My stomach clenches and moisture floods my panties.