His back.
I use my stomach muscles to sit up, my body aching like it’s never ached before. Not even when I was recuperating after being bedridden for weeks. Not even when I’ve run miles and miles.
I get the full force of his injury. Every last millimeter of his flesh is scarred, uneven, and angry. It’s a sobering sight. It puts my own scar to shame. The front of this man is perfect. His chest, his thighs, his unfathomably stunning face. Even his messy hair is perfect. But the back of him?
I wince.
It’s gruesome.
Ashamed of my thoughts, I divert my stare to my wrists, wriggling to loosen the rope, the sores beneath raw. I hiss, the burn painful, and give up. I don’t want to wake him—he looks so peaceful. But I need to go home.
I glance around the room, wondering how many people he’s had in here. What has he done to them? And why does he do it? I look over my shoulder to his sleeping form. He looks too angelic, too perfect to be so . . . ruined. My eyes fall to his back again. Imperfection stares back at me.
He’s broken.
Like me.
Did he see right through me because he’s the same as me? Feels the same as me? Hates like me?
I’m distracted from my endless questions when I hear something in the distance. My cell phone. I shuffle to the edge of the bed and gingerly place my feet on the hard floor. I expect it to be cold. It’s not. Naked, with my hands tied, I go to the door and negotiate the handle, pulling it open. The sound of my cell gets louder before ringing off, and I take the stairs at a safe pace, finding my purse in the kitchen. I flip my cell onto the counter and see missed calls from Lawrence. It’s after nine o’clock. I’ve vanished for three whole hours.
I call him straight back, pressing the speaker icon and propping my elbows on the edge of the counter to get closer to my cell.
“Hey,” he says when he answers, with a ton of questions in his tone that he’s trying so hard to disguise.
“Hey.” My throat is dry, my voice hoarse. More. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, of course. It’s just you’re not home and you usually are. Are you in Walmart again?”
I smile. It would be easy to say yes. I look down at my bound wrists. “No.”
“Oh.” He’s dying to ask where I am, but he won’t. “I’m not worried.”
“I’m glad.” He’s lying through his teeth. “Do you have a show tonight?”
“I’m on in five minutes. Dexter just arrived. He said you still weren’t home when he left. I just needed to check you’re alive before I go on stage, else I’ll fluff my words.”
I look across the kitchen, seeing the stool we sent flying still on the floor. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Why tomorrow?” he asks.
“Because I’ll be in bed by the time you’re home.”
“Oh, yes. Of course.”
“Uncle Lawrence?” I say, despite knowing he’s actually Zinnea at the moment.
“Yes?”
“Ever wanted to disappear?”
He’s silent for a moment. Contemplative. “Every day, sweetheart. But I have my coping mechanisms. I hope one day you’ll find yours.”
I stare at the glass countertop, worried I already have found it. “See you in the morning.”
“Be safe, be careful.” He hangs up as I assess the blisters on my wrists. They’re sore, yes. But they have nothing on my old injuries. I wander into the middle of the room, circling on the spot. Darkness has fallen, the city illuminated by millions of lights, whether from buildings, streetlights, or monuments. I feel like I’m in a goldfish bowl. And at the same time, standing on top of the world looking down. Not closed in. Not suffocated. Naked—physically and metaphorically.
“It’s freeing, isn’t it?”
I whirl around and find James standing at the top of the stairs. He’s still naked too. Unbothered. And as he slowly takes the glass steps, I get time to admire the perfect side of him. The undamaged side. His legs are so long, so defined. His shoulders the perfect width. His torso forms the perfect V. God was kind to him. Yet somehow, I know that’s not true.
“Are you okay?” he asks as he approaches me, a small frown marring his perfect forehead. I immediately worry that he thinks I may have been snooping.
“I heard my cell ringing.” I nod toward the kitchen area across the room, where my cell remains on the counter. “It was a bit of a challenge finding and answering it.” I lift my wrists, showing him why.
“Here.” He steps into me and starts to unravel the rope, and I watch him with interest, his concentration sharp, his care great. When the ropes are gone, I flex my fingers and roll my wrists. “Does it hurt much?” he asks, taking one hand and checking the sores.
“Not really.”
“And your legs?”
“Achy.”
“Would you like a bath?”
I step back, pulling my wrist out of his clasp as I do. “I can take a bath at home.”
“I’d prefer it if you had one here.”
“Why?”
He takes my hand and leads me toward the stairs. “It’s all part of the service,” he says quietly, and I can’t help but laugh on the inside. He didn’t bathe that woman I saw him fucking. He escorted her right out, along with the man. “Then we’ll eat. Then you can go home.”
Fuck me, bathe me, and feed me. “I don’t need you to be all attentive, James. I asked for what I got.”
“Did you?” he replies, not looking back.
I pull my hand from his when we reach the top of the stairs, but he doesn’t stop, just carries on to the bathroom I used earlier. Not his bathroom. Not the bathroom in the room we just fucked in. Did I get what I asked for? “Yes, I did.”
He stops. Looks back. “Did you though, Beau?” He disappears through the door, leaving me standing naked at the top of the stairs, stumped.
My other name.
I pad slowly to the entrance, finding him sitting on the edge of the impressive egg-shaped glass tub as water pours from a waterfall faucet. “I remember saying more many times,” I remind him. I goaded him. Begged for it.
“You did.”
“You asked me to give you what I had, and I did,” I go on.
“You did.” He tips a small bottle of oil into the water, and the waft of lavender is instant. Isn’t lavender supposed to be calming? Does he think I need calming?
“James?” I ask quietly, and he looks at me. His eyes aren’t so cold now. They’re sorrowful, and it throws me. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know yet, Beau.” He rises to his full six foot four and eats up the distance between us with three strides of his long legs. His palms rest on my shoulders, and a few flexes nearly has me folding to the floor in pleasure, his firm fingers working deep into my screaming muscles.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I mean what I said. I’m yet to determine if I’m going to be okay.”
“Your scar,” I breathe, compelled to touch it. Feel it. Show him that it doesn’t bother me.
“You think it’s ugly.”
I lift my arm. “This is ugly.”
He stares at my damaged skin, stroking my arm, his eyes flicking to mine. “You’re yet to encounter ugly, Beau,” he whispers, dipping and kissing my scar. I breathe in deeply, caught between enchantment, wonder, confusion, and lust.