Page 152 of Cruel When He Smiles

My jaw flexes, but I do. “In my dresser. Third drawer.”

There’s a flicker across his face then he slides off the bed with that same unhurried energy he always has when he’s already decided something, bare feet silent against the floor as he crosses the room.

I watch him pull the drawer open without looking back at me. He doesn’t rummage; his hand finds the small folding knifeimmediately, resting it against his palm. My brain finally clicks to what’s happening. He’s not taking it to hide it.

“Nate,” I say, not moving from the bed, curious despite myself.

He looks at the blade for a second, then glances back at me. “You’ve got all this pain stitched into you, and every time you’ve bled, it’s been because of that. Because of them. Because of what they built into your head.” He takes a slow step back toward me, the blade still in his hand. “What if I replaced it?”

My brow draws together. I can already see where his head’s going, and it’s dark. Dark in a way that feels almost familiar. “Replaced it with what?”

His smirk is small, not meant to mock but to challenge. “With me.”

I tilt my head, eyes locking on his. “You’re telling me you want to cut me?”

“I’m telling you,” he says, coming to stand by the bed, “that I don’t want every time you see a mark on yourself to be a reminder of them. Or of whatever pain they pushed you into. I want it to be me. I want you to see it and remember that it came from something you chose. Something you let me give you.”

My chest rises slower, my breath dragging in. It’s not the first time someone’s offered to change the meaning of what’s under my skin—Killian did that once. But it’s the first time I’ve actually considered it. If anyone’s going to put something new there, I’d rather it be him.

I let my eyes drop to the knife in his hand, then back up. “And what exactly would that do for you, Pup? You really think you can overwrite years of conditioning with one act?”

“No,” he says easily, “I think I can start.”

It’s that certainty again—the thing that makes him dangerous even when he’s being careful. My pulse kicks harder, and I can feel the exchange in power between us. This isn’t himasking permission in the usual sense; it’s him inviting me into something that’s as much for him as it is for me.

He moves onto the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight as he kneels in front of me. “Let me put something on you that’s not theirs. Let me make a scar that doesn’t carry their voice, just mine.”

I look at him for a long moment, then reach out, my hand closing over the knife between us, but I don’t take it from him. “You realize if you do this, I’m not going to think of it as yours alone,” I tell him, my palm resting against the cool metal. “It’s going to be ours.”

His smirk deepens, his eyes dragging over my face. “Yes.”

That’s the last word he gives me before flipping the blade open with a steady motion. The metallic click cuts through the room, and my stomach tightens. He doesn’t move right away; he just studies me, waiting for any sign that I’ll pull away.

I don’t. I hold his stare.

His free hand lifts to my side, brushing over my ribs in slow passes until he finds the place he wants. His touch lingers there before the blade kisses my skin—a cold, precise line before the heat follows. My breath pulls in sharper, but I keep my eyes on him, watching the way his expression doesn’t falter. There’s no hesitation in his hand, no rush either.

The sting blooms slowly before it settles into a steady burn, and I realize he’s not going deep. He’s carving with intention, dragging the tip just far enough to let red rise and bead along the cut.

“Eyes on me, Lover,” he says quietly, his voice rougher now. His thumb presses into the skin just above where the blade works, stretching it so he can finish the curve he’s started. The pain is clean in its honesty—nothing like the chaos that came before it.

A single drop slides down my stomach, and Nate’s eyes follow it. He sets the blade down on the mattress beside us without looking away, his fingers replacing cold steel with warmth as he traces the jagged shape of the scar he’s carved in my skin.

Then he leans in and licks it.

It’s not gentle. His tongue is hot, dragging the metallic tang of my blood into his mouth, and his groan is low, like he’s tasting something he’s been starving for. My pulse kicks hard, not from the wound, but from the way he looks up at me mid-drag—Pupils blown, lips slick. He just claimed something no one else was allowed to touch.

“Fuck—” My voice cuts when he closes his mouth over the mark and sucks lightly, pulling more heat into the sting until my breath catches.

He pulls back to speak, his hand still braced on my side. “That’s ours now,” he says, and there’s no teasing in it. “Not hers. Not his. No one else’s. You feel it tomorrow, next week, five years from now—you’re gonna think of me.”

I study him, the smear of red at the corner of his mouth, the way he looks like he’s daring me to call this anything but what it is. “And what do you think I’ll remember?”

He smiles, slow and sure. “That you let me rewrite you.”

My hand lifts to his jaw before I can stop myself, thumb swiping the blood from his mouth. I press it against his lips and he opens for me without hesitation, sucking my thumb in deep.

That’s when I snap.