Page 40 of Dirty Game

Knife wounds that must have barely missed vital organs.

Bullet grazes across his ribs.

Defensive marks on his forearms from fights he probably shouldn't have survived.

And there, low on his hip, partially hidden by his waistband, something different.

Not a wound from a fight, but letters carved deliberately into skin.

S.C.

Without thinking, I reach out, my fingers ghosting over the raised letters.

He freezes, every muscle going rigid.

"Who was she?" The question escapes before I can stop it.

His hand catches my wrist, not hard enough to hurt but firm enough to stop my exploration. "How do you know it was a she?"

"The way you carved it. Or let her carve it. It's too careful to be something premeditated or solely violent, too permanent to be casual." I meet his eyes. "Someone marked you. Someone you let mark you."

His laugh is bitter. "Someone who taught me that betrayal comes in beautiful packages."

My chest tightens. "Am I... am I like her?"

The question hangs between us.

His grip on my wrist gentles, his thumb brushing over my pulse point the way it did weeks ago.

"No." The word is fierce, immediate. "She was a predator. She knew exactly what she was doing, who she was destroying. You're..."

He doesn't finish. Can't or won't, I'm not sure which.

"What am I?"

His free hand comes up to my face, fingers barely touching my cheek. "You're terrifying in a completely different way."

"I don't understand."

"She took. Everything she did was about taking—power, control, pieces of me I'll never get back." His thumb traces my cheekbone. "You don't even realize you're giving. Your trust, your protection of those photos, the way you look at me like I might be more than the monster everyone knows I am."

"You're not a monster."

"I've killed more people than you've had birthdays, little mouse."

"Monsters don't kiss like they're afraid of breaking someone," I whisper.

His eyes darken. "That wasn't a real kiss."

"It was to me."

The confession hangs between us, raw and honest.

It was my first kiss, as pathetic as that sounds at twenty-five.

But it was more than that—it was the first time anyone had touched me with gentleness instead of ownership.

"You don't know what you're saying," he breathes, but he's leaning closer, drawn by something neither of us seems able to control.