Page 56 of Pretty Plaything

“You’re beautiful, Sienna. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise,” he says, and then his lips are on mine.

He’s kissing me as if he’s never kissed me before, his mouth hard against mine, his tongue searching for mine. His hands roam my body and cup my ass, squeezing.

“Easy for you to say,” I whisper as I break away from him.

His brow furrows.

“I bet no one ever told you, you had to be pretty no matter what and that your whole life would revolve around it,” I say. “Every single thing that someone sees as an imperfection is like a mark of failure on your skin that you can’t easily erase. So I’m sorry if I can’t just rewrite my brain to think what I want it to think and to feel how you want me to feel.”

He tilts his head at me, and then he starts unbuttoning his shirt.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Showing you the real marks of failure.” He yanks his shirt off him.

His gaze meets mine.

There are scars on his chest and on his stomach.

And then he turns around.

I gasp.

All the time I’ve been here with him, I’ve never seen him shirtless before. His back is completely covered in scars.

Some are thin. Some are thick.

Some are fading.

Some are long. Some are short.

“What happened?” I inch closer without even thinking about it.

“Nothing special. I failed to get out of the way. Or I failed to do my task.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Some of these are from fights. I was after an enemy, and the enemy managed to cut me or shoot me. They didn’t live long after that, though.”

“And the rest?”

“From my training.”

“They tortured you during your training?” I don’t know how else to explain all those scars.

“No.” He glances at me over his shoulder, confusion written in his eyes.

“Can I touch them?” I’m not sure why I even want to do it.

I guess I’m curious because it seems like each one of his scars has a story, and if I touch them, maybe I can find out what it is.

Maybe I can find out more about him.

About who he really is.

“Yeah, you can,” he says softly, and for the first time ever, I detect uncertainty in his voice.

I splay my fingers over the rugged skin of his back, unable not to think about how much all of that must’ve hurt.