Chapter 13 #2
Rubbing my palm up and down one arm, I looked down at Hiro. The room was dim because all the windows were covered, but it was daylight, so it wasn’t pitch black. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but I didn’t bother looking for a clock. Not when I had something so much more interesting to eyeball.
Sure, I’d seen him naked once before. But it had been dark that night, and I’d been feverish. The second he put his hands on me, sight became secondary anyway, overruled by the way he made my body hum.
The blankets stopped at his waist, leaving his entire upper body exposed.
My eyes went directly to the bandage covering the place where the doctor had extracted a bullet from the outer part of his shoulder.
Doc said it wasn’t anything too serious, but all I could think about was how much he’d bled and the sweat dotting his brow before the pain meds kicked in.
Thankfully, the bandage was still in place, and there was no sign of him bleeding through it. Darting a glance at his face, I noted his relaxed features. Clearly, he wasn’t in too much pain.
Since he wasn’t dying or suffering, it would be okay to peep him a little before I hightailed it out of there. Right?
Right or not, my eyes were already peeping.
His body was a roadmap, and suddenly, I was a car in need of direction.
Starting at his narrow waist, I roamed over the defined ridges of his abdomen to drag upward to his broad, sculpted chest. The tattoo I’d hated on sight was still there, still reminding the world he was born to die.
I stared hard at those black letters, wondering all over again why he would put that on his body and wishing I could rip it away.
I thought vaguely of finding a Sharpie and crossing out that lifelong typo just so I wouldn’t have to look at a reminder that he was not mine. Death can’t have him either.
Forcing my attention away, my eyes drifted to the large scar on his stomach that I’d felt that night two years ago and now could see.
After a quick glance to make sure he was still sleeping, I leaned over to get a closer look.
It was big, the size of a silver dollar, the tissue hard and raised.
It was shinier and had a mottled purple undertone compared to the rest of his golden skin.
There was another smaller circular scar higher up on his waist, but it wasn’t as severe.
There was actually a plethora of scars decorating his body, one on his arm that looked like a knife wound, and another similar slash on his side.
Was this why he thought he was born to die? Because he’d been near death more than once?
“If you’re waiting for me to do a trick, I only do those on Sundays,” he drawled in a deep, sleepy voice.
Startled, I jolted back, nearly rolling all the way off the bed.
I gasped, pushing up but trying to keep the momentum and scramble the rest of the way off the bed. “You’re awake?” Time to go.
“It’s hard to sleep when someone is boring a hole through you.”
“I wasn’t,” I protested, my face flaming because, in fact, I was. The very tip-tops of my toes brushed the floor beside the bed, and I knew freedom—only to be yanked back onto the mattress, feet practically going up over my head.
“Hey!” I objected.
His chuckle was a warm rumble above my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut so I didn’t look at him.
Looking at him was a disastrous idea.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, his hand still wrapped around my upper arm like he knew I’d beat it if he let go.
“I’m leaving.”
“Not until you answer some questions.”
“I’d rather fight a rabid raccoon in a pitch-black alley!”
“I told you to stay out of alleys,” he growled.
“You aren’t the boss of me.”
“And yet here I am, pinning you to the bed.”
His voice was soft but dangerous, making my mind and body fully aware that I was completely at his mercy. In any other situation, with any other man, I would have panicked and fought.
But not with Hiro.
His power was magnetic, taunting me like an addiction and luring me into submission.
The moment I lifted my gaze, the sucker punch that was his espresso eyes fixated on me through the curtain of inky strands falling over his forehead and grazing his cheeks.
The beautiful deep-blush color of his lips seemed too pretty to be natural but obviously was.
Paired with the way he loomed, it fluttered my stomach with anticipation.
I told you. Looking at him led to bad decisions.
I guess if I’d hoped the hurt of him ghosting me two years ago would dull his effect on me, I now knew hope was a shameless liar.
He must have smelled my defeat—at least I hoped it was defeat and not proof I needed to shower—because he smirked those perfect lips and effortlessly dragged me closer.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded like he wasn’t affected by my presence at all.
Jerk.
Yanking my arm free, I said, “I was invited.”
“In Buffalo.” He clarified.
“I live here,” I declared, navigating into a sitting position. Just because he clearly had the power here didn’t mean I had to lie around like a lap dog.
“I thought you were going—what the hell is that?” he demanded.
Startled, I looked behind me. “What?”
Strong yet gentle fingers grasped my chin to pull me back around. Without letting go, he used his free hand to brush the hair back from my face, his nostrils flaring as though he were an enraged bull.
A growl rumbled through his throat. “Is that a bruise?”
“Well, I did have gun jammed to my head a few hours ago,” I explained. Probably explained the headache too. It was good to know it was just that and I wasn’t dying.
His eyes turned into glittering slits, the temperature in the room dropping so fast I shivered. “I’ll kill him.”
“He’s already dead,” I said, replaying the way Kieran had brutally killed the man who attacked me and tried to kill Haz.
Cheekbones carved in granite, jaw set in stone, he tipped my face to the side and then back like he was taking inventory of something he owned. I said nothing. The heartbeat in my ears, too thunderous a sound, made it impossible to think.
“There are fingerprints on your neck,” he bit out.
“There are?” I asked, reaching up to where he stared.
Before I could even make contact, he folded his fingers around mine and drew them down, eyes sweeping over me like a possessive embrace. Like the only one allowed to touch me was him.
“He can run through this life and into the next, but not even death is a shield for my wrath.”
Oh. The idea that his authority was so finite—so violent—that he could use it to reach into the afterlife and exact revenge was powerful.
Knowing he would do it for me?
Everything else crumbled to second-best.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, voice shifting from jagged to silken, underscoring the benevolent tone with a soft brush of his lips across the tender spot on my temple.
My breath shuddered as I struggled to find a voice. “I’ll survive,” I answered because that was what he always said to me. Look at me matching energy. Holding my own.
Pulling back, he grasped my face, and I was swallowed whole by not only his embrace but the bottomless universe existing in his stare. It was like staring into infinity without feeling fear.
“Survival isn’t good enough for you, little mouse. I want you to thrive.”
Well, that was short-lived. To be fair, I couldn’t exactly match this energy because I didn’t even know what it was. But I like it.
I blame the hypnotism of his… everything for the words that tumbled free. “Then you shouldn’t have left.”
After his sharp inhale, we both froze, and if there had been a ticking clock in the room, it would have been the loudest counter of every single moment I’d died from embarrassment.
I was nearly expired when he let go of my face, making me feel like an untethered boat in a stormy ocean.
“I thought you were moving somewhere warm.” He was gruff, as if he didn’t even notice I was about to be lost at sea. Probably get scurvy too.
The hypnosis evaporated, and I plunged back into reality and straightened my spine. “I decided to stay.”
“Why?”
Because I wanted to see you again. “I got a good job.”
“I thought your name was Garrett.”
“It is.”
He gestured to the bedroom door with his head. “They call you Rett.”
“It’s a nickname. I don’t like my full name.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
I scowled. How dare he give me the third degree? I wasn’t the one who’d vanished. “Because if Garrett were a color, it would be khaki. With pleats.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but he kept a straight face. “Colors don’t have pleats.”
“Garrett does,” I muttered.
He laughed.
I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled.
“How do you know Haz?”
Oh goody, the third degree continues.
“He’s my neighbor. Well, he was, but now he’s my friend.”
Surprise arched his brows. “You’re half-pint’s neighbor?”
Did he just have nicknames for everyone, then? Was it not just a me thing? Disappointment deflated my insides. There’s nothing special about you. “Kieran will probably shoot you if he hears you call him that.”
I might stay to watch.
Ghost crossed two fingers and showed them to me. “Nahhh. Kieran and me are besties.”
“He doesn’t seem like the type to have friends.”
“I’m special.”
“I’m leaving.” I decided, scooching toward the end of the bed.
He caught my hand. “So you, ah, have a place to live now?”
I tugged free. I couldn’t think when he touched me. “Yeah.”
“And a job.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Doing what?”
The nerve, coming back here after two years and acting like he had any kind of right to information about my life.
“Who’s Dora?” I blurted. If I had to answer questions, then he did too! It wasn’t exactly what I’d planned to lead with, but I’d been wondering for two whole years.
He looked up. “Who?”
“Dora,” I repeated. “You said every Dora needs a backpack.”
His perfectly white teeth flashed. “Dora the Explorer.”
I blinked, completely at a loss.
His head lifted. “You don’t know Dora?”