17. Dangerous #3
He sets down his half-eaten piece of toast. Then, leaning forward and removing the flower from the vase, he twirls the stem between his fingers, his deep blue eyes flashing beneath the fluorescent lights installed down in the finished basement. “Yes. I know what foxglove is, Haven.”
Then why the hell would you bring it down here?
I don’t have to write the question. My expression says it all for me because his smile changes, softening at the edges in a way that makes me nervous.
“Why did I bring it inside if I know how dangerous something like this is? Simple. Because it reminds me of you.”
Not liking what he’s implying by that, I scowl at him.
Connor laughs, gesturing at me with the foxglove. “Ah. There she is. My girl.”
I’m not his ‘girl’. I’m not his anything—except his captive—and I don’t think I appreciate the comparison.
To make sure that’s what he meant, I point at the flower, wait a beat, then jab my finger at myself.
Me? Dangerous?
Connor nods. “Oh, yeah. Absolutely.”
Before I can decide whether to be insulted, he taps his inner forearm, drawing my attention away from the foxglove and to the scar that’s there in the middle of his left arm.
I’ve seen it before. I noticed it the first day after my rescue, even if my brain was too fogged and confused and scared to understand exactly what I was looking at: a capital ‘H’ carved into his skin, pale scar tissue raised against his forearm.
I’ve ignored it since then, figuring it doesn’t mean anything, and if it does, it’s a coincidence that the scar on his skin looks like the first letter of my name. I mean, it’s not ink. It’s not a tattoo. It’s definitely an old scar, but how did he get it? I didn’t ask. I can’t ask. And yet…
“I keep waiting for you to say something. And… shit, Haven… I don’t mean say.
But write or gesture or, I don’t know, fucking sign it out.
You keep acting like you don’t understand why you’re here.
Why this has to be your home. But the truth is, all you have do is look at my arm, see this scar, and know that I had no choice. ”
No. I don’t understand. I don’t—
“Nine years ago in June. Pretty, fierce, dangerous Haven Smith bit me after I gave in to the urges I’ve had since I was a horny little boy who was dying to find out what she tasted like.
She kissed me, and she bit me, and damn it, she marked me.
But those sharp fangs of yours, baby… I knew it wouldn’t stay.
I wanted to always remember what it felt like to have your mouth on me.
You marked me that day, Haven. Then I used my knife to make it permanent. ”
Wait a second…
All this time, I thought he was disgusted by what I did. That he took out his knife to slice off that part of his arm… but, instead, he carved an ‘H’ over it to commemorate the night of our first kiss?
Our only kiss?
Stunned, I rip my gaze from the scar on his arm just for it to land on Connor’s pouty lips. I lean back on the balls of my bare feet, unable to stop staring at them, all while he continues to reminisce about that night.
I’m barely listening, too busy remembering it myself.
I was eighteen. Furious. Frustrated. More than that, I was embarrassed because Connor kissed me to distract me from storming upstairs after Loni.
So damn angry because I liked it before I realized what he was doing, I sank my teeth into his arm hard enough to make him curse, hard enough to leave a mark, hard enough that Connor immediately looked at the imprint of my teeth and made up his mind while I sought refuge in the kitchen of the Reynolds’s house.
Apparently, normal people let those marks heal. But Connor Heyward? He took a knife and carved my first initial into his forearm deep enough to scar.
At that moment, I realize something that took me way too long to understand. Connor didn’t rescue me out of the kindness of his heart, or because I was an Offering that used to mean something to the Order. If I can believe him, this unhinged man decided that I marked him nine years ago.
He’s been waiting for me even longer. Worse, he keeps repeating that I belong to him. Now that I understand what the ‘H’ really means, it seems to say that he thinks that he’s mine, too.
And that’s enough of that.
Without thinking, I tiptoe away from the table. Connor’s easy smile falters. He starts to say something else, but I don’t wait around to find out what it is. I just turn and head for my sanctuary.
Calling it ‘my’ anything is generous. It’s the room attached to the finished basement, the one with only a bed, a headboard, and a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
It’s where Connor puts me when I’ve been bad, though he doesn’t say it that way.
He calls it quiet. He calls it safe. He calls it a place where I can calm down.
I call it what it is.
Another prison cell, only with a lock on the inside that he sometimes lets me believe is impenetrable. Still, it has a door, and sometimes a closed door is the closest thing I have to being alone as long as I’m trapped in Connor’s house.
I make it barely three steps past the doorway before I hear Connor behind me. I try to shove the door closed, but I’m too late.
He’s already inside.