I let Liesel’s beauty strike me; I let myself admire every feature that I usually try to ignore. Her bright eyes and red lips are my favorite, but I miss her smile, her laugh. And I have no idea how to make her do either of those things anymore.
I’m the man who makes her cry for the first time in years. I’m the monster who stole the love of her life away from her. I’m the man she will never forgive even though I know I did the right thing for her. Waylon Brown was a bigger monster than me. He would have destroyed her.
You’re going to destroy her, too.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Liesel says.
I frown, not believing she can see me well enough to know the thoughts in my head.
Still, I drag my eyes away from her face.
“Where are you hurt?” she asks.
“What?”
“My question that you have to answer honestly. Where are you hurt?”
My eyes drag back to her, and I realize her lie. She can see in the dark as well as I can. Or at least, better than she let on.
I shake my head, annoyed with her. “You little liar.”
She smiles, smugly. “I know you too well, killer. You can’t hide your winces, your tense pained smile, or…” She touches the stone near my back and then lifts her hand up to my face. “…the blood that you are leaking.”
She raises her eyebrows at me.
I take her hand covered in my blood and bring it to my lips. I wait for her to fight me, to try and wiggle her hand out of my grasp.
She doesn’t move.
I put her fingers in my mouth, and I suck—tasting the iron of my own blood, but more importantly, getting to touch her.
She closes her eyes, and I can see how much I’m turning her on and how hard she’s trying not to let her body be excited.
I pull her fingers out of my mouth as I suck them clean. “I should have known that I can’t hide anything from my huntress.”
She pulls her hand back into her lap. “Turn around,” she orders with hooded eyes.
I do as she asks until my back is facing her and I’m sitting cross-legged.
“Let me know if anything hurts,” she says, and then she places her hands on my shoulders.
I suck in a breath, not from pain but from agony. My body aches with needing more of her. Needing her touch, her kisses, her everything.
My eyes squeeze shut, and my body trembles as she lifts the hem of my shirt up so she can touch my skin directly.
“Sorry, did I hurt you?”
I shake my head, unable to form coherent words.
She hesitates, like she doesn’t believe me. But then her hands are on my bare skin. Gently, feeling over my back, looking for the wound.
I hiss when she hits a spot about halfway up the left side of my body.
“I think I found it.”
I nod, knowing she did.
She leans close to my back until I can feel her hot breath on my back, sending fiery goosebumps up my spine. My body is as conflicted as my heart and mind are. I’m not sure if I welcome Liesel’s touch or if I want to run away from her as fast as I can.