If he had fucked up any of his words, she didn’t correct him and he knew why when she whispered, “You’re scaring me.”
Her heart was probably trying to escape her chest the same as his was. “Not tryin’ to scare you, just prepare you.”
“Shade,” she breathed.
“Gotta hear the promise, beautiful. Askin’ you to give me that.”
“Okay, I promise, but I apologize in advance if I break that promise. Because of that, I also promise not to get mad if you ignore my questions because I couldn’t help myself.”
He only nodded because he was done talking. The time was here. He just needed to get it done.
He wanted to touch Chelle and for her to touch him. He wanted to feel her silky hair, her warm fingers, her soft skin against him. To experience her fully. Unlike behind the shed, unlike in the Subaru. To do that, he needed to shed his armor first, which were his clothes.
“Sit on the bed,” he forced up his closing throat.
“So it’s more like a striptease?” Her attempt at lightening the mood didn’t mask the worry on her face. And that was what it was. A deep-rooted concern. Not curiosity.
She perched on the end of the bed naked, waiting for him to be the same.
He ripped his shirt over his head and threw it behind him toward the chair, unsure if it even made it that far. He quickly unbuckled his belt, unfastened his jeans and shoved them down his legs. He stepped out of the pool of denim and glanced up at Chelle when he heard her suck in a sharp breath.
She was no longer sitting. Fuck no. She was on the move.
When she reached him, she said nothing.
Though, even if she had, he might not have heard it over the pounding in his ears.
It took everything in him to remain in place when she tentatively reached out and touched the top of the long, raised scar that started right below his left pec and stopped below his navel.
When she stepped back, she looked almost relieved. But it wasn’t the scar on his torso he’d been worried about her seeing. That was nothing. That was a war wound compared to the others.
The others he received when he was tied down while on his belly and gagged to muffle the screams.
Sometimes his hands were restrained at the small of his back. Sometimes to the headboard. And if he wasn’t a good boy, sometimes his ankles were tied to the footboard.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a second.
No. Not now.
He should just get dressed and end this between them. Before she saw everything. Before she looked at him differently. Before he saw the horror on her face.
As he turned to grab his clothes, what he heard made him go solid.
He glanced at her and saw her eyes filled with what he was trying to avoid and her hand clamped over her mouth, smothering the whimper.
The instant she realized her own reaction, she dropped her hand and tried to hide it all.
She couldn’t.
It was too late.
“How can I not ask questions?” She also couldn’t hide the anguish in her voice.
“’Cause I need you not to.” He needed her not to fall apart. Because if she did, he might. And if he did, then he was done. He would disappear into the dark and have a hard time escaping it. Right now, he was teetering on the edge of that pit.
She blinked a few times, the shine in her eyes apparent. She grabbed his arm and turned him around and he heard another sharp inhale. His name came out on the exhale.
“Gonna give you five minutes on this, then we’re done. Either you wanna stay or wanna go afterward. Gonna be your decision.”
“What I’m seeing doesn’t define you.”
Yeah, it does. More than you know.
Chapter Seventeen
She touched every scar on his back. Every fucking one.
Shade didn’t know if she was counting them, something he’d never done because he didn’t care to know.
She started at the top and worked her way down.
“These look like cigar or cigarette burns,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.
It wasn’t a question but, even if it was, he wouldn’t answer that they were both.
“I don’t know what this is.” She brushed her fingers lightly over one and then another along his rib cage. He knew what she was touching. They were different from the circular scars because they were done with a hot Bic lighter.
Because of his countless scars, he never had the club’s colors tattooed onto his back. The ink wouldn’t hide them and he didn’t want to explain to the tattoo artist what they were or how he’d gotten them. It wasn’t only one or two, there were so many, it would only be human nature to ask.
Having the Fury’s colors inked permanently onto his back was not a requirement, thank fuck. If it had been, he might’ve moved on. The only requirement the executive committee made for displaying their colors was for them to wear their cuts when representing the club.
Over the years, once Deb freed him, he’d had his arms tattooed, but only on the skin exposed when he wore a tank top, which boiled down to only his arms. Everywhere else he was tattoo-free and planned on remaining that way.
The closer Chelle got to the small of his back, the tenser he became. Every muscle locked, his jaw clenched and his fingers curled tightly into his palms.
While the circular scars continued down the back of his legs and finished at his feet, they skipped over his ass, since that was Daddy David’s favorite part of him. He didn’t want to ruin the “perfect sweet peach” he paid for.
However, the motherfucker had done something else to Julian one night in a fit of rage that ruined him in future buyers’ eyes. While the burns were bad enough to bring down his value, this was worse since most owners didn’t want the skin of their sex slave marred in any way. Unless they planned on snuffing the child once they were done with him or her.
From what he had seen over that decade, he knew that was what happened to damaged goods. Sold cheap and disposable.
But most wanted their boys to be young and their skin to be perfect, especially if they were used for commercial purposes. Films, photos or to add to their stable as an investment to make scratch.
But what Julian did one night had pushed David to lose his shit and lash out in a way Julian never expected. In a way most people wouldn’t expect. At least, normal people.
Chelle traced each letter in the word “MINE” that had been carved into the small of his back with the same knife Julian had come close to killing David with. It wasn’t only the claim that had been cut slowly and deliberately into his skin, under it was an arrow that ended at the top of his ass crack.
That permanent claim had been his punishment after the struggle over the knife. That struggle also almost filleted his gut wide open. When he failed at slicing David’s throat, Julian had tried to plunge the knife into his own chest to end it all.
Even at fourteen, he hadn’t been strong enough to follow through once David got a hand on the knife. When they fought over the blade, it sliced Julian open.
Unfortunately, not deep enough for him to die. But enough to leave a permanent reminder after a “doctor” showed up at the house to stitch Julian closed.
After he was bandaged and the bleeding had stopped, David was still furious at not only Julian, but at himself for trusting Julian.