Page 3 of BounBound By Scars

After she finished cleaning the wounds and was packing away the first aid supplies, I turned to face her. My heart clenched at the sight of her tearing up over me.

Come on, Lia. Don’t fucking cry. I can’t handle that.

A single tear escaped her, tracing a path down her cheek and I itched to wipe it with my thumb.

“Lia,” I said, reaching out to her. “Please, don’t. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

She busied herself with the kit, her hands shaking slightly. She was clearly trying to escape.

“Lia, what’s wrong?” I pressed, needing to understand her distress.

“It was just… a close call, that’s all,” she managed, not meeting my eyes.

“But this is normal. Happens all the time. What makesthisdifferent?”

She met my gaze, her eyes swimming with unshed tears, and at that moment, without warning, her lips found mine.

She’s kissing me, goddamn.

It was a fleeting, desperate kiss, one I wasn’t prepared for.

Frozen, I didn’t respond. As reality snapped back, I instinctively pulled away. The hurt that flashed across her face was unmistakable.

Embarrassed and rattled, she stood abruptly, her movements clumsy with haste.

“Lia, I—” I started, fumbling for words. “Fuck. We shouldn’t—”

But she was already shaking her head, tears now freely flowing, as she dashed out the door, leaving me with a tangled mess of feelings and the echo of what might have been.

TWO

Amelia

“What thefuckwere you thinking, Amelia?” I berated myself, as I entered my room. Collapsing on my bed I mumbled incoherent groans, my voice muffled by the pillow I was now mercilessly punching. The embarrassment was suffocating, and the confusion was no less agonizing.

Hadn’t I seen him shirtless before? We’d been in tight spaces, and under high stress; none of that was new. But today, seeing those cuts across his back, the way they spoke of his pain—damn it, there was something maddeningly attractive about that vulnerability. For a split second, I had imagined tracing those muscles with more than just antiseptic, maybe even my tongue, blood be damned.

The shock and disgust on his face when I kissed him burned in my memory. It was as if I had crossed an unforgivable line. How could I have misread everything so terribly?

My room felt like it was spinning as I lay back, staring at the ceiling. “How am I going to face him after this?” I muttered to the empty room. This wasn’t just a simple misstep; it felt like I had detonated a bomb in the middle of the only genuine friendship I valued here.

“Fuuuuuckkkkk,” I groaned louder, the word stretching out into the silence. The weight of what tomorrow would bring—awkwardness, maybe hostility, or worse, pity—pressed down onme. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing sleep or some kind of oblivion to take me away from the mess I had just made.

Sleep found me shortly after. By the time I blinked awake, the kiss with Kabir felt like a blurry memory, almost like it belonged to someone else’s life, not mine. Hadn’t he made his feelings—or lack thereof—crystal clear? He pushed me away because he didn’t want me. That should have settled it, but a tangled mess of emotions still churned inside me like something was left unsaid.

I got out of bed, the dread of facing him at breakfast hanging over me like a dark cloud. I moved mechanically down the hall toward the lounge, each step heavier than the last. I was usually the one who strode into a room with confidence, but today, I could barely muster the will to keep walking.

What the hell have I done?

The damn kiss was screwing with my head. I prided myself on being a strong, unshakeable member of Blackthorn Security, Amelia ‘Falcon’ Gill—gah!Fuck! Desmond.

I’ll ignore that.

The formidable ex-Squad Six member. Hell, I even had a falcon tattooed between my shoulder blades for its symbolism of fierce independence and predatorial prowess. Right now, though, I wished I were an actual falcon, capable of flying away from this fucking mess.

As the lounge door loomed closer, my steps slowed. I wasn’t ready to walk in, not yet. Not while my head was a warzone and my heart a traitor to my professional facade. How was I supposed to sit there, eat toast, and act like everything was normal when nothing felt normal at all?

“That time of the month?” Dylan’s voice sliced through my fog of irritation like a misplaced joke at a funeral.