Chapter 25 #3
His voice was lower now. Rough silk. Amused. Curious. Challenged. Aroused, but not only in his dick. She affected him all over.
He stepped closer, slow and sure, his gaze locked on her face. She didn’t back up, and that told him everything.
“What exactly is an Adonis belt?” he asked, voice low, goading, already knowing.
He took in the scent of her, sweat, something floral beneath it, something Blair. His battered body inched closer, aching in more ways than one. What would it feel like to be touched by her for real? Not in the aftermath of blood or bruises. Just... wanted.
She’d touched him before. His skin remembered, and he’d been craving it like hell since.
Her gaze dipped, a quick flick to his torso, and he caught the exact moment her breath stuttered.
“Oh,” she said, trying to recover. “The man with the full package doesn’t know which muscles turn women on?”
He grinned, cocky and slow. God, he loved her sass. “I know one that works really well.”
Her breath hitched again, barely audible, but she didn't allow him any ground.
“Your ego doesn’t count.”
The laugh that broke out of him was real. Sharp, unexpected, and impossible to hold back. For a moment, she completely disarmed him.
Then her hand lifted, casual but unhurried, and she reached for him. Her fingers brushed the damp hair on his forehead, fluffing it like she didn’t even know what she was doing, like she just wanted to touch him, and that desire slipped through the cracks of her mask.
She smiled. “You should do that more often,” she murmured.
The look in her eyes nearly floored him.
“I have a feeling it’ll happen a lot more around you.”
Her jaw was tight, her posture still bristling with whatever storm she’d been holding onto, she wasn’t ready to let it go yet. But something in her eyes shifted. Heat. Intention. More challenge.
She took his hand. Her fingers were warm, her skin soft in places, calloused in others, her palm slightly rough where she gripped her firearm, her trigger finger tougher than the rest.
He liked that. Too much.
“The Adonis belt,” she said, tone casual but not soft, “is the group of muscles that give you this very male, devastating V-cut.”
Then she moved his hand, directing it down his side, slow and deliberate, tracing the sharp line that cut across his lower abdomen, just above his groin. His breath shortened instantly. Every nerve fired like he’d taken a hit to the sternum.
She dragged his hand up the opposite side, following the same path in reverse, and the motion set his pulse hammering.
She was a goddamn tease, and she knew it, and still, he let her.
Every muscle in his body reacted, not to his own touch, but to her control. To the heat in her skin. To the way her voice barely held together. To the undercurrent of fury that still sparked beneath her tenderness.
She was dangerous like this, and he was already in too deep.
But he didn’t want to lose any of this.
“Did you look?” he whispered, his voice a low scrape, rough with need.
He dipped his head closer, his breath brushing the shell of her ear.
“Did you use those fucking green, green eyes to look at my body? My goddamned Adonis belt?”
Her breath hitched, just enough for him to feel it against his chest.
“Yes,” she said, steady but breathless. “I looked.”
She pulled back enough to meet his gaze, her voice quiet but fierce.
“I saw a man who was punishing himself. I saw a man who deserves rest. Who deserves a real conversation. Some...connection.” Her throat moved on the word, emotion climbing into her voice before she could stop it.
“I saw pain. I saw loneliness. I saw someone who doesn’t know how to ask for help or is too afraid to try.
” She blinked hard, fury and heartbreak tangling together.
“That hurts my heart,” she said, voice breaking.
“It makes me so angry I don’t even know at who.
Just…angry because you matter, and you’re ripping yourself apart like it doesn’t count for anything. ”
He blinked and took it in. Her words sank into him like rounds hitting soft flesh, slow and brutal.
“You are fucking killing me,” he said, voice thick.
He meant it.
He didn’t know what to call what was happening with Blair. It wasn’t lust. Lust was simple. Physical. Temporary. He knew how to handle that. Take it. Burn it off. Walk away.
This wasn’t leaving.
She stayed.
Under his skin. In his head. In the quiet moments when he wasn’t braced for impact.
That was the problem.
He was starting to count on her.
The sound of her voice. The way she gave him room without disappearing. The way she looked at him like she saw the damage and didn’t flinch. Like she expected more from him.
Like he could give it. Trust.
The word sat wrong in his chest.
He didn’t have the wiring for it. No training block. No internal map. Every version he’d known came with a trapdoor.
But she hadn’t pushed. Hadn’t lied. Hadn’t tried to pry him open.
She’d seen the cracks, and instead of exploiting them, she’d met them.
That unsettled him more than her anger ever could.