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Was she talking about…?

“Well, you’re the one that decided to interrupt my shower. So, this is your fault.” I tipped my head as a slow smirk lifted on my lips. The coloron her cheeks deepened to a fiery red. My body roared with desire. I knew she could feel what was happening as her eyes widened even more. Each of her breaths quickened into gulps for air as her gaze remained locked on mine.

“You—You—We’re not talking aboutthatright now.” She clamped her teeth together and glared at me.

“You brought it up, Cher, not me.” I grinned even wider.

“Just—Just shut up.”

“What? Can’t come up with something else insulting to call me?” I taunted.

“Give me a couple of minutes and you’ll say something worthy of an insult again.” She narrowed her eyes even more, clearly in an attempt to intimidate me, but it was definitely not having that effect. My smile widened as her eyelid twitched.

A craving unlike anything else I’d experienced fired within me. A yearning to know just once more what it would be like to simply kiss her. Obviously, I lusted for more, and there was little I could do to stop it from hardening between my legs, but I wanted something much more deep and real with her than a good final fuck.

She finally huffed and lowered her shoulders from near her ears. Her eyes slowly slid down my face and paused at the scar on my jaw. Her racing heart slowed with each passing moment, and the sporadic breaths that bumped against my chest became more even. Softer, the air shifted from sizzling tension to something more tender and vulnerable.

“When’d that happen?” she asked, nodding her chin toward the scar on my jaw, her voice a little gentler.

“Around when I left.” I studied her hair. Every coil that seemed to still never quite end up where she wanted it. My fingers craved the feel of her strands wrapped around them again. I wanted— No, I needed that coarse feeling sliding across my skin again. I needed to bury my nose against her neck and inhale that rich cinnamon smell she always carried.

Her green eyes followed along my neck, and then slowly, I watched as she began tracing the ink that covered the entire right half of my body from toe to neck. Hesitantly, her brows pulled together, and she tipped her head. Her wrists relaxed even more in my hold as her eyes suddenly widened. “Ford, I recognize them. All of them.”

Her gaze became frantic, sliding down my body without a care for decency or anything else. I’d wanted to wait a little longer. Be further on the path to forgiveness before she figured it out, but being butt-ass naked in the shower broke that barrier.

Her fingers twitched as if she desperately wanted to touch them, and I faltered in my conviction. I closed my eyes and released her wrists, then cautiously tucked my hands beneath her thighs, still clinging to my hips. The inevitable slap against the cheek, or punch, or stab was coming, and I braced for impact.

But instead, the smoothest skin brushed against my right arm. Intimately, tenderly, her touch worked its way along the lines of every doodled piece of art that I’d permanently etched onto my body.

Her art.

It was the only way I’d known to bring her with me.

She was my Sunday on a porch with a crab boil in the back, listening to the dogs bark, and every neighbor laughing about stupid shit. I knewthat a simple lazy Sunday was not in the cards for me; I’d accepted that the moment I’d signed my name along that dotted line years ago. But every once in a while, every blue moon, when there was a lull in the war in my head, I’d close my eyes, and we’d be on that rickety porch swing in the back with her legs draped over my lap.

We’d be sipping on a beer, listening to the gators bellow and the sizzle of the most delicious Cajun food. There was no tomorrow. There was no yesterday. There was only that moment. With the sun sinking low, the sky painted as red as her hair.

My spider lily.

My Cher.

Her fingers wound across my pec and then walked down my abdomen. Bumps and ridges that she’d never explored before danced beneath her touch, and instead of pulling away with each imperfection, she lingered.

“You didn’t have hair like this on your chest or below your belly button when you left,” she whispered.

I chuckled, reveling in how close she was to me. “Fifteen years, Cher.”

“You’re not that kid that ran away.” Warm breath washed over my mouth with every word she spoke. Whether she was intentionally near my lips or not, I had no idea. But I could feel her there, lost in a world of art she’d created for me before I’d ever shattered her heart and disappeared.

“You might not like the man I came back as,” I replied.

“We all have secrets, Ford.” Her voice was as gentle as honey, as crisp as that cinnamon scent that floated over me. I wanted this, needed it. But I was not owed her forgiveness, let alone her. But here she was, practicallytaunting me to take what wasn’t mine. To steal one final kiss as if to say that I’d never actually left. Like I never tore her heart apart.

I inched forward, cracking my eyes open as her lips hovered dangerously close to mine, yet her gaze was focused elsewhere, drawing across splotches of reds and blues that had been of her creation upon my skin.

My heart raced in my chest, as erratic as electricity, swirling with anticipation. Plump satin waited for me to simply take. It was my turn to be in control, to have exactly what I wanted. To hell with these secrets. She was right, we all had them—me more than most.

And I slammed my lips against hers.